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UltraScenery - new(er) territory [Commercial]

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  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,955

    Cool!

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    Artini said:

    UltraScenery 2 with the crowd.

    That's a big crowd and they look good. Is that a maze they are in?

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455

    Thanks, @Totte and @barbult

    The maze is created with the heightmap.

     

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455
    edited August 19

    Without trees, so the maze is better seen.

    us2crowd02.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 1014K
    Post edited by Artini on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240
    edited August 20

    I changed height map to a twill fabric bump map that I got from Filter Forge. I changed the time of day and the sky backdrop and smoothing value - in other words, I played around until I was happy.

    One great thing about USC2 and Alienator Pro II is that once I make the Alienator substitutions, those are remembered in USC2, and I can change various settings, like height map, noise, smoothing, etc, without having to redo the Alienator every time. Of course if I change Ecology, that will change all the plants, so then I would have to redo Alienator.

    USC2 River 04 Pasture 03 Oaks Alienator 2 LowPi Width 128 Res 512 Twill Height Map.jpg
    2000 x 1125 - 2M
    Post edited by barbult on
  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455

    Looks interesting, @barbult

    Great idea of using Filter Forge.

    Have to install it again.

     

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455
    edited August 20

    Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.

    Is it possible to save new ecologies with substitutions and save it as a preset?

    Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch

    and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.

     

    Post edited by Artini on
  • DoctorJellybeanDoctorJellybean Posts: 8,463

    Artini said:

    Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.

    Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch

    and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.

    Something like a Biome\Ecology Creator.

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,955
    edited August 20

    Artini said:

    Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.

    Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch

    and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.

     

    I tried to do that for USC1, did several attempts, but it became so increadible complex that I threw all attampts away, was easier to just use the Ecology Engineer in UST2 to pick the layers I wanted and then Alientor them.

     

    Post edited by Totte on
  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,996
    edited August 20

    barbult said:

    daveso said:

    barbult said:

    Here is an UltraScenery render I made last night with a more rugged terrain from a height map. The terrain width is 128 and the resolution is 512. I added a couple LowPi on the path along the river, inspired by Artini's image with the people on the shore. The lighting is 8:30 AM sun sky lighting. The terrain is River 04 and the ecology started as Pasture 03, but I added Oaks, River Pebbles and River Rocks biome layers. Then I used Alienator Pro II to swap out the large oak trees for MJF Hawthorn trees. I liked their more rugged look. I also swapped out some medium and small oaks for various plants and swapped out some dandelions for flowers. The cloudy sky is an image in the Environment pane. I rendered a version with DOF and one without. Which do you like better? I like the DOF one, but the flowers are more identifiable in the non-DOF one.

    I attached the crazy terrain height map I used. I added some smoothing to it in USC2 to make it less jagged. It is fun to try crazy things.


     

    @barbult - when you say you used a sky image in the envoronment, and that you used sun-sky lighting at 8:30, how do you get both to exist at the same time? When I use sun-sky it turns off the ability to load an image.  

    Ah, look again closely at what I posted.wink "The cloudy sky is an image in the Environment pane." Environment pane is the significant phrase in that sentence. This is not the Environment section of the Render Settings pane. See the screenshot. Daz confused everyone by calling two different things "Environment".

    @barbult
    oh ... isn't that interesting. Thank you very much ... I likr this method a lot.  Here's my first attempt of using the background clouds at 6PM... very nice..I stopped this render just after the image became evident. the shadows are cool for sure. Now to learn Alienator Pro 2.

    cloud background test1.jpg
    800 x 616 - 750K
    Post edited by daveso on
  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455

    Totte said:

    Artini said:

    Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.

    Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch

    and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.

     

    I tried to do that for USC1, did several attempts, but it became so increadible complex that I threw all attampts away, was easier to just use the Ecology Engineer in UST2 to pick the layers I wanted and then Alientor them.

     

    At least you have tried. Thanks for the information.

     

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455
    edited August 20

    Another crowd on UltraScenery 2.

    Just noticed, how tricky is to find a good light settings for the scenes with big crowds.

    It is not really in good scale, but at least the figures are clearly visible.

    us2crowd03.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 1M
    Post edited by Artini on
  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,996
    edited August 20

    I dont want to post too much on this, but I really like this backdrop technique, explaind by @barbult a few posts up. This allow near limitless cloud background or your own photos. I'm sure there are other ways to get this result? 

    storm cloud.jpg
    800 x 616 - 767K
    Post edited by daveso on
  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455

    Great image, @daveso

    Barbult technique is indeed interesting and give such a nice results.

     

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    edited August 21

    I'm am currently following Tottes instructions on the alienator2, so when it comes to incorporate the alieneator packs Totte used the USC2 track 3 and the USC 2 oaks 09

    which I did then as well and just to see what I got made a quick render

    to my big surprise the oaks look very much like birches. did that get mixed up in my library at some point or is there a general swap of ecologies?

    It's not a big problem for me right now, just wanted to ask

     

    Also My DAZ froze when I tried to execute the alienator set

    Screenshot 2024-08-21 16.44.31.png
    1900 x 1008 - 3M
    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944
    edited August 22

    I have made another discovery, so when I create a landscape with height  differences lika a mountain scape, the whole thing often ends up being very high in general, like +2000 on the y scale.

    this might cause problems with the eyes of some characters so I tried to move the whole thing down a considerate amount but this seems to remove a large amount of my grass and daisies (that's what I had on my landscape, so probably other stuff as well) but not all of it. it took me quite some time to understand what even is happening but I finally found out

    first one is what I wanted

    second one is what happend on reduced altitude

     

    test,landscape.png
    800 x 600 - 960K
    test,landscape2.png
    800 x 600 - 889K
    Post edited by Linwelly on
  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944

    I finally had a render of USC2 and a rabbit

  • TotteTotte Posts: 13,955

    Linwelly said:

    I finally had a render of USC2 and a rabbit

    Lovely!!!

     

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240
    edited August 22

    Linwelly said:

    I have made another discovery, so when I create a landscape with height  differences lika a mountain scape, the whole thing often ends up being very high in general, like +2000 on the y scale.

    this might cause problems with the eyes of some characters so I tried to move the whole thing down a considerate amount but this seems to remove a large amount of my grass and daisies (that's what I had on my landscape, so probably other stuff as well) but not all of it. it took me quite some time to understand what even is happening but I finally found out

    This is an interesting discovery, and the inconsistency is certainly surprising to me. I'm going to see if I can replicate the situation.
    I think the issue with character eyes far from the world center has been resolved by changing Instancing Optimization and then changing it back to your desired setting (Memory to Speed and back to Memory for USC).

    Edit: @Linwelly can you give more details about the settings you are using in that scene? Is that USC, or USC2, or USC2 with Classic Content? I can't tell what terrain preset that is.with the single dirt track. Or is that a river terrain with no water? Is the Ecology one of the Grassland ecologies? Which one?

    Post edited by barbult on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240
    edited August 22

    @Linwelly after playing with lowering USC2 terrain, I believe you problem is caused by the Backface Culling feature of USC2 biome layers. The clue was that changing the camera position changed the results of what vegetation was visible. Backface Culling is intended to hide vegetation that is hidden behind hills (from the point of view of the camera), to reduce load on rendering. In the case where the UltraScenery2 terrain object location is changed (you lowering it), it looks like the Backface Culling is being computed incorrectly.
    The reason you see some plants and not others, is that not all layers use Backface Culling. Those that don't use it are still visible in your render.
    You can turn off Back Face culling on each layer that uses it, by unchecking the Backface Culling box for each layer in the Biome Layer Settings section. Then your missing vegetation will be rendered.

    Screenshot 2024-08-22 uncheck backface culling.jpg
    604 x 839 - 59K
    Post edited by barbult on
  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,661
    To save computing time, backface culling is probably being done once at selection time rather than being triggered by every moment - a sensible approach but with an occasional unexpected side effect.
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,240

    richardandtracy said:

    To save computing time, backface culling is probably being done once at selection time rather than being triggered by every moment - a sensible approach but with an occasional unexpected side effect.

    I think culling is computed at render time.

  • LinwellyLinwelly Posts: 5,944

    @barbult Thanks a lot for all the input,

    the scene I used was a USC2 with classic content  (USC Walking trail1) with some hight modifications (I used the walkingtrail roadbase inverted as a hight map)  but an USC2 ecology preset (Grassland 3)  in the background is a USC XT

    you are right, the backface culling  is activated for the items in the biome AND again you are right that ditching the culling returns the scene to its original state, thanks a lot, though I guess if I test for the eyes thingy positive in it working at the greater distances, I propably will chose that because all the culling will help with my scenes.

    This is great infornmation, thanks again for taking the time to investigate

     

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455
    edited August 24

    My latest experiments with UltraScenery 2 with width 128 meters.

    Resolution 256

    Resolution 512

    us2res256.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 867K
    us2res512.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 866K
    Post edited by Artini on
  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,996

    was experimenting with clouds and sun position using sun-sky rendering. Thanks again to  @paulawp (marahzen)and NorthOf45 in the other thread, Sun-Sky render - How to see the sun and cloud placement - Daz 3D Forums
    and of course those that helped in this thread. Its somewhat a task to get the sun lighting correct, that's for sure. I went from a hard disk to this softer one, which for sure gives a more dramtic cloud color. 

    cloudy sunset 5.jpg
    1800 x 1385 - 3M
  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,996

    Artini said:

    My latest experiments with UltraScenery 2 with width 128 meters.

     

     

    quite a bit of difference in the resolution. Looking good.  

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455

    Thanks for the comments, @daveso, and for creating such interesting thread about sun position.

     

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455
    edited August 25

    I  have used USC Late Morning light preset on UltraScenery 2 scene,

    but could not get circular sun, but eliptic.

     

    us2LateMorning.jpg
    1920 x 1200 - 657K
    Post edited by Artini on
  • paulawp (marahzen)paulawp (marahzen) Posts: 1,366

    Artini said:

    I  have used USC Late Morning light preset on UltraScenery 2 scene,

    but could not get circular sun, but eliptic.

     

    That's interesting (and weird)! What do you have set in Environment -> Dome -> Sun-Sky (on Render Settings tab)? 

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,455
    edited August 26

    Below are these settings for my scene.

    us2LateMorningSunSky.jpg
    443 x 763 - 103K
    Post edited by Artini on
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