UltraScatterPro - v1.0.1 released [commercial]

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  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    edited May 2019

    I finally found the item in smart content.  I am not sure why I did not see it earlier.  I am trying to figure it out, but I probably need to find the readme.

    Use the Product tab of Smart Content to open the product and access all the presets. Here's a screenshot of where you'll find the readme. Click on the icon and the PDF should open. (Assuming you have an Acrobat Reader installed.)

    Ultrascatterpro Document Icon

    Post edited by L'Adair on
  • HowieFarkesHowieFarkes Posts: 607
    L'Adair said:
    Uthgard said:

    Sorry if I come across as entitled, but couldn't you talk to Daz marketing and have them offer a coupon for your store to the customers who already have both ultrascatter products in their library? I confess I feel more than a bit miffed about this upgrade track being offered much later than my purchase, with no option to return the product and benefit from it. It's one of those times when I regret buying on day one.

    I had UltraScatter for more than two years when UltraScatterPro was released. I bought the Pro version immediately. And I got it with a discount of 51%. That's not a bad discount for an upgraded version of software. And I've had access to the program for the past five months. (It's my own fault I didn't get around to using it until my latest render, Bear Creek, for the butterflies.)

    I frequently put new products in my wishlist and wait for them to go on sale for 60% off or better, due to a rapidly dwindling 3D budget. (Fixed income, yada yada.) But UltraScatter was/is so good, I didn't want to wait for UltraScatterPro. And I don't regret a dime of what I paid for it.

    In my experience, early adopters always pay a premium. Anyone remember the first Sony VCR? For a couple grand you could get a device as big and heavy as a boat anchor that would record a whole 30 minutes of your favorite TV show! (Okay, might have been 60 minutes… I didn't early adopt, so I'm not totally sure of the recording length.) 8-Track Tapes? Plasma TVs? Blu-Ray? … GTX 1080 Founders Edition?

    Howie, the only only thing I'm miffed about is I waited so long to dive into the Pro version. And that's all on me! Thank you for a great product.

    Aw thank you - glad you're enjoying it!

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279

    I assume there is no way to reduce the amount of instances once created other than delete them all basically?  Also does canceling the set up cancel them all or just the ones not set up yet?

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384

    I assume there is no way to reduce the amount of instances once created other than delete them all basically?  Also does canceling the set up cancel them all or just the ones not set up yet?

    If you select the instances group which was created (from the scene tab) and re-run the script then you can adjust almost everything abut the scatter, including the number of instances (I do this a lot).

    Not sure about you cancel question (and I'm not on my DS PC to try it out).

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279

    I might have went overboard on the instances as DS has stopped responding.

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384

    Give it time... mine often seems to freeze but then lurches back into action after a while. If you have the processing power to do test renders every time then I'd suggest using the option not to show the instances in the viewport - I've a feeling that might speed things up some.

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279
    MelanieL said:

    Give it time... mine often seems to freeze but then lurches back into action after a while. If you have the processing power to do test renders every time then I'd suggest using the option not to show the instances in the viewport - I've a feeling that might speed things up some.

    I left it running all night but I did have to put it to sleep so I can bring it to the mall.

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384

    Ah, well that is stopping responding! I think I only once had to cancel DS through Task Manager when it froze up on me doing an UltraScatter. (Though various other causes have made me cancel it at times.)

    Maybe Howie has some ideas???

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279
    MelanieL said:

    Ah, well that is stopping responding! I think I only once had to cancel DS through Task Manager when it froze up on me doing an UltraScatter. (Though various other causes have made me cancel it at times.)

    Maybe Howie has some ideas???

    I used task manger to close down DS.  Now trying to reopen it before heading to work in 45 minutes.

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279

    Okay I made a scatter of grass in a scene, but my question is do I need to keep the original grass prop or can I delete it from the scene?  also can I say a new scatter to stay away from instances of an existing scatter?

    Also I have primitive planes for a ground plane but apparently some of the instances are appearing on the bottom of the plane.  How do I fix that other than creating more instances?

    I would experiment more but I get to go to work soon.  I start in less than ten minutes.

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279
    L'Adair said:

    I finally found the item in smart content.  I am not sure why I did not see it earlier.  I am trying to figure it out, but I probably need to find the readme.

    Use the Product tab of Smart Content to open the product and access all the presets. Here's a screenshot of where you'll find the readme. Click on the icon and the PDF should open. (Assuming you have an Acrobat Reader installed.)

    Ultrascatterpro Document Icon

    I see it now in smart content but where would the file be outside of looking at the smart content or Daz?

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,384

    You can open it from Smart Content or if you don't have DS open then it should be in your main Content library (wherever DIM installs stuff) under Scripts/UltraScatterPro/Resources

  • Sfariah DSfariah D Posts: 26,279

    Not sure if it is because I am tired and doing something wrong, but right now I am not getting the right number of instances created.  I want a bunch but it created only 1 instance or none.  I am trying again with a huge number, but it only created 4?

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244

    Not sure if it is because I am tired and doing something wrong, but right now I am not getting the right number of instances created.  I want a bunch but it created only 1 instance or none.  I am trying again with a huge number, but it only created 4?

    You probably have specified some constraint that is limiting the number of instances that are created. Have you used a distribution map, or entered values for the distance between instances, or specified a min/max elevation, or used affinity/repel, etc.?

  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634

    I should mention even with my moaning I have got Pro now. Great improvements.

  • Are there any instructions at all for using this? I have been messing with it ALL weeek, almost two weeks with zero success to do what i need it to do and I can find no videos and no instructions anywhere

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244
    edited August 2019

    Are there any instructions at all for using this? I have been messing with it ALL weeek, almost two weeks with zero success to do what i need it to do and I can find no videos and no instructions anywhere

    Yes, it comes with a PDF document. It should be installed in /Scripts/UltraScatterPro/Resources/UltraScatterPro Reference Guide v1.0.1.pdf. There should be a link to launch it directly from Daz Studio in the Spripts/UltraScatterPro folder.

    There is also a forum thread that I started to document some of my experiments with it. That might give you some ideas, too.

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/304386/ultrascatterpro-experiments-and-experiences

    Annotation 2019-08-30 162838.jpg
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    Post edited by barbult on
  • barbult said:

    Are there any instructions at all for using this? I have been messing with it ALL weeek, almost two weeks with zero success to do what i need it to do and I can find no videos and no instructions anywhere

    Yes, it comes with a PDF document. It should be installed in /Scripts/UltraScatterPro/Resources/UltraScatterPro Reference Guide v1.0.1.pdf. There should be a link to launch it directly from Daz Studio in the Spripts/UltraScatterPro folder.

    There is also a forum thread that I started to document some of my experiments with it. That might give you some ideas, too.

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/304386/ultrascatterpro-experiments-and-experiences

    Thanks I found it a backdoor way, then I saw the icon. Guess I need to visit LensCrafters

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244

    UltraScatterPro is in Fast Grab today. What a bargain!

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131
    edited June 2020

    @HowieFarkes -

    I have bought the UltraScatter Pro product and so far it's been pretty easy to use but I can't figure out how to use it to remedy several common situations I'd have in make DAZ scenes.

    1) I've bought the Hivewire Day at the Races Stack with the horse race track. It is 3DL materials and very flat in iRay with regards to the grass. On that track is an infield & external fields. So then using the old DAZ 3D grass product, Grassy Grounds Megapack, I choose the SquareXShortsparse geometry, convert it to iRay and then tell UltraScatterPro to scatter it first over the infield 5000 times and then over the external fields 25000 times using your Surfaces scatter restriction feature. The problem being that the numbers I guess were hugely insufficient and looked to, guessing, give only about 25% coverage. How to know the correct number of instances to choose?

    2) Similar situation - I have the iReal Ocean product and want to use UltraScatter Pro to distribute it X number of times on a DAZ Primitive Plane I create going out to the horizon (doesn't really but with a bit of an angle it looks to) but I have no ideal how many iReal Ocean geometries I'll need bordering each other, lined up like soldiers to fill up that plane completely. How do I do that?

    So my question is how do I tell UltraScatterPro to fill up those surfaces completely without guessing? So that UltraScatter Pro knows the size of the grass geometry & the size of the infield/outfield and calculates the numbers of grass instances needed for me and instantiates them scattered over those surfaces. If I make the slider the maximum number will if stop once those surfaces are filled up?

    Thanks.

    * I did re-run UltraScatter Pro for each of the two surfaces I want with grass and maxed them both out at 100K instances but DAZ Studio is just too laggy. I need a way to find the minimum number in instances based on the selected Surface intersecting with the Camera View in the ViewPort, sort of like an UltraScatter Pro rendering the scatter in the viewport to find out where needs the instances.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • HowieFarkesHowieFarkes Posts: 607

    @HowieFarkes -

    I have bought the UltraScatter Pro product and so far it's been pretty easy to use but I can't figure out how to use it to remedy several common situations I'd have in make DAZ scenes.

    1) I've bought the Hivewire Day at the Races Stack with the horse race track. It is 3DL materials and very flat in iRay with regards to the grass. On that track is an infield & external fields. So then using the old DAZ 3D grass product, Grassy Grounds Megapack, I choose the SquareXShortsparse geometry, convert it to iRay and then tell UltraScatterPro to scatter it first over the infield 5000 times and then over the external fields 25000 times using your Surfaces scatter restriction feature. The problem being that the numbers I guess were hugely insufficient and looked to, guessing, give only about 25% coverage. How to know the correct number of instances to choose?

    2) Similar situation - I have the iReal Ocean product and want to use UltraScatter Pro to distribute it X number of times on a DAZ Primitive Plane I create going out to the horizon (doesn't really but with a bit of an angle it looks to) but I have no ideal how many iReal Ocean geometries I'll need bordering each other, lined up like soldiers to fill up that plane completely. How do I do that?

    So my question is how do I tell UltraScatterPro to fill up those surfaces completely without guessing? So that UltraScatter Pro knows the size of the grass geometry & the size of the infield/outfield and calculates the numbers of grass instances needed for me and instantiates them scattered over those surfaces. If I make the slider the maximum number will if stop once those surfaces are filled up?

    Thanks.

    * I did re-run UltraScatter Pro for each of the two surfaces I want with grass and maxed them both out at 100K instances but DAZ Studio is just too laggy. I need a way to find the minimum number in instances based on the selected Surface intersecting with the Camera View in the ViewPort, sort of like an UltraScatter Pro rendering the scatter in the viewport to find out where needs the instances.

    The script doesn't work out how many instances of an item will be required to cover a surface - it's not that smart. The best way to do it is to know the approximate size of your object/s that you are scattering and set the "spacing" on the distribution tab to something that is a little bit smaller that the diamter of your object - then crank up the instance/iteration count much higher than you think you'll need. You should get a fairly even coverage and distribution then.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    @HowieFarkes -

    I have bought the UltraScatter Pro product and so far it's been pretty easy to use but I can't figure out how to use it to remedy several common situations I'd have in make DAZ scenes.

    1) I've bought the Hivewire Day at the Races Stack with the horse race track. It is 3DL materials and very flat in iRay with regards to the grass. On that track is an infield & external fields. So then using the old DAZ 3D grass product, Grassy Grounds Megapack, I choose the SquareXShortsparse geometry, convert it to iRay and then tell UltraScatterPro to scatter it first over the infield 5000 times and then over the external fields 25000 times using your Surfaces scatter restriction feature. The problem being that the numbers I guess were hugely insufficient and looked to, guessing, give only about 25% coverage. How to know the correct number of instances to choose?

    2) Similar situation - I have the iReal Ocean product and want to use UltraScatter Pro to distribute it X number of times on a DAZ Primitive Plane I create going out to the horizon (doesn't really but with a bit of an angle it looks to) but I have no ideal how many iReal Ocean geometries I'll need bordering each other, lined up like soldiers to fill up that plane completely. How do I do that?

    So my question is how do I tell UltraScatterPro to fill up those surfaces completely without guessing? So that UltraScatter Pro knows the size of the grass geometry & the size of the infield/outfield and calculates the numbers of grass instances needed for me and instantiates them scattered over those surfaces. If I make the slider the maximum number will if stop once those surfaces are filled up?

    Thanks.

    * I did re-run UltraScatter Pro for each of the two surfaces I want with grass and maxed them both out at 100K instances but DAZ Studio is just too laggy. I need a way to find the minimum number in instances based on the selected Surface intersecting with the Camera View in the ViewPort, sort of like an UltraScatter Pro rendering the scatter in the viewport to find out where needs the instances.

    The script doesn't work out how many instances of an item will be required to cover a surface - it's not that smart. The best way to do it is to know the approximate size of your object/s that you are scattering and set the "spacing" on the distribution tab to something that is a little bit smaller that the diamter of your object - then crank up the instance/iteration count much higher than you think you'll need. You should get a fairly even coverage and distribution then.

    Thanks. I will do that.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,219

    well I finally grabbed the pro upgrade laugh in the sale

    whether I can render much with it in DAZ studio on my lame PCs is another matter but at least I now have it if I ever beef it up lateryes

  • alexhcowleyalexhcowley Posts: 2,386

    I've just installed the pro upgrade following on from Barbult's recent comments on the Ultrascenery thread, All I get when I run it is the following log entries:

    2020-07-04 15:42:25.506 Loading script: J:/ThreeD-Art/Studio/My Library/Scripts/UltraScatter/UltraScatterPro upgrade.dse
    2020-07-04 15:42:25.591 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\general\dzscript.cpp(1178): Unhandled error while executing script.
    2020-07-04 15:42:25.591 WARNING: QScriptEngine::popContext() doesn't match with pushContext()
    2020-07-04 15:42:25.592 Script executed successfully: J:/ThreeD-Art/Studio/My Library/Scripts/UltraScatter/UltraScatterPro upgrade.dse
    2020-07-04 15:43:16.135 Loading script: J:/ThreeD-Art/Studio/My Library/Scripts/UltraScatter/UltraScatterPro upgrade.dse
    2020-07-04 15:43:16.235 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\general\dzscript.cpp(1178): Unhandled error while executing script.
    2020-07-04 15:43:16.235 WARNING: QScriptEngine::popContext() doesn't match with pushContext()
    2020-07-04 15:43:16.236 Script executed successfully: J:/ThreeD-Art/Studio/My Library/Scripts/UltraScatter/UltraScatterPro upgrade.dse

    I'm running Studio 4.11.0.383 and I did a manual install. Can anyone help?

    Cheers,

    Alex.

     

     

  • HowieFarkesHowieFarkes Posts: 607
    edited July 2020

    Are you installing the upgrade into the same folder as UltraScatter?

    Post edited by HowieFarkes on
  • alexhcowleyalexhcowley Posts: 2,386

    Are you installing the upgrade into the same folder as UltraScatter?

    Yes. Ive tried running with and without and the result is the same.

    Thanks,

    Alex.

  • HowieFarkesHowieFarkes Posts: 607

    So is UltraScatter working but the UltraScatterPro upgrade is not?

  • alexhcowleyalexhcowley Posts: 2,386

    So is UltraScatter working but the UltraScatterPro upgrade is not?

    Correct. Here's a screen print.

    Cheers,

    Alex.

    ultrascatterpro problem.jpg
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  • HowieFarkesHowieFarkes Posts: 607

    So is UltraScatter working but the UltraScatterPro upgrade is not?

    Correct. Here's a screen print.

    Cheers,

    Alex.

    Ah, you're still running v1.1.1 - you will need to install v1.5 of UltraScatter first then install the Pro upgrade

  • alexhcowleyalexhcowley Posts: 2,386

    So is UltraScatter working but the UltraScatterPro upgrade is not?

    Correct. Here's a screen print.

    Cheers,

    Alex.

    Ah, you're still running v1.1.1 - you will need to install v1.5 of UltraScatter first then install the Pro upgrade

    Thanks, will do.

    Alex.

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