UltraScenery [Commercial]
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Added water and the skydome - Rendering Time: 2 hours 27 minutes 17.8 seconds
That looks great, thank you for sharing your height map.
I don't see the water. It looks like there is a water line on the terrain, but I don't see any water.
I wonder if the water is so clear there's a huge amount of penetration into the water and SSS from many depths and other 'advanced' features to do with light penetration through the water. Might be quicker to use murkier water.
Thanks.
I have used water and skydome from https://www.daz3d.com/pw-bikini-islands
and it looks quite nice outside the island, but it is too transparent inside island.
I have to find a way to delete polygons on the bottom of the UltraScenery generated terrain
or make them transparent. Any ideas, how to do it easily?
Do any of you has rcommendation about water, that looks great together with UltraScenery?
If so, please post them.
I do not know, how to use the water included with UltraScenery, while using height maps to create terrains.
Any tips about that topic, please?
If you're using the "No Features" Feature, you'll need to make an edit to it. You can either make a duplicate feature (call it say, "No Features With Water"), or save a copy of the No Features Info.json file before making changes.
Barbult has detailed the process of duplicating an ecology here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/408551/ultrascenery-experiments-and-experiences/p1 The process for duplicating a feature is pretty much the same.
Once you've created the new Feature (or backed up the info,json), Open the Info.json file in Notepad++, or whatever editor you prefer. Look for the following line:
Delete the "waterway", entry (including the comma after), and save.
Viz:
Now, when you use that feature, you'll get water.
Really Great work as always!
Oh, thanks a lot for this tip. I have to make a tests with it.
@TangoAlpha, we sure think alike! I tried this very thing right after Artini posted his terrain map (except I also removed riparian from the disable list). I got the UltraScene Water to be generated, but it was below the entire terrain. I can more it up or move the terrain down after the script completes, but I didn't get the river rocks, pebbles, logs, etc.by doing that. Do you know a way to get the water to be generated so that it is "in" the terrain? I tried adding absolute and relative height offsets to the new feature file, but I couldn't figure out a generic way to move the terrain to the water level. I suppose I could make a height map to do that specifically for Artini's height map, but I was looking for a universal way to lower an arbitrary terrain to the water level. Any ideas?
Here I used UltraScenery to just generate a place to put my characters.
RIght now there is a lower limit of 0.5m placed on all terrains to prevent them dipping into the riparian zone (0-0.5m) and the waterway zone (<0m). Modifying the terrain via a feature info.json can get you around this limitation. Mainly it was put in place to keep the interface simple and avoid the possibility that using a terrain height map or setting the altitude would completely mess up the intended terrain of the supplied features. How a lot of this stuff works is sometimes unintuitive and complex (to me as well certainly) so with the aim of making UltraScenery as easy to use (and avoid stuffing things up) many properties and values were set (and hidden) to ones that created reasonable scenes with just a few clicks.
Don't get me wrong - I hear that people want more control over the terrains - but I'm also weighing that against adding too much unwanted complexity to it all for those that are uninterested in tweaking all the numbers. One of the hardest parts of the development process is not the programming but how to present the required and necessary values in a way that makes sense without having to dig into any documentation - intuitive interfaces don't just happen on their own. So it is on my radar to open up more terrain properties to users - but until then modifying your own feature info.json files is the way to do it.
Howie,
I think you've made a good judgement call here.
I''m fairly sure I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating in this context: one of the things I really like about UltraScenery is the simple, very intuitive interface. Following on from this, the product scales its complexity very well. Anyone can generate some beautiful scenes with just a few mouse clicks. The more adventurous amongst us can delve further into the options on the first and fourth tab to perform more comlplex tasks,
I've spent most of the last forty years writing and maintaining manufacturing software systems. UltraScenery is one of the most impressive products I've seen during that time. And, yes, I've seen some very badly designed software during that time as well.
Cheers,
Alex.
First time using the coastal option
Just a thought Howie...
When I wrote my cross stitch conversion program (a program to convert a computer image to a chart giving instructions and thread colours so an enbroiderer can create a picture with the best coloured threads), I wanted the user to have the most control possible over the conversion, but I also know that a majority of my users couldn't possibly cope with anything like the options and settings available. The way round it was to have a basic and clean interface using reasonable default settings, but I have an 'Advanced' button that opens a sub-window that allows access to all the variables that a user could ever want to change - and that basically amounts to every setting that won't explode the conversion. To give an example of the depth to which they can go: I allowed the user to change all the variables in the dithering feature so they can come up with their own dithering style if they want to (In addition to Floyd-Steinberg and 5 others preprogrammed in). Obviously these features are complex and need explanation, so there is a page in a .chm help file dedicated to each feature linked to it's own help button that gives explanation, examples, things to watch for as well as limits and their reasons. This could be replaced by the help button triggering a 1 or 2 page pdf specific to that feature to open, and I know that can be done through DS.
It may well be worth considering as an idea, simple users not needing to know and advanced users playing to their heart's content relatively easily. And because it's inside your programming, you can enforce limits so the playing won't break any other part of the scenery generation that you know about and advanced users cannot.
As I said, just a thought.
Agreed. An "advanced" tab would be a good solution. Maybe with a skull and crossbones icon.
@richardandtracey's suggestion is well within my ideas of scaling complexity.
Cheers,
Alex.
A nice thought but the sheer amount of work to put that sort of interface together for this is unfeasible (think 2 or 3 times more complex than UltraScatterPro and you’d be in the ballpark) and I’m not sure the return on investment would add up. And coding QT ui elements ain’t that much fun either. So I have to figure out what and how much gets exposed that also won’t break the paradigm... not impossible but not trivial either.
IMO, the advanced version of UltraScenery is UltraScatter. When I've done fancier things, I've often taken the terrain generated from UltraScenery, and then carefully add vegetation with UltraScatter to my specifications.
I think there is some great synergy between the two products.
It was just a thought and if it's not possible then no trouble.
When doing things for my cross stitch program I don't have to think along return on time invested, because I offer it as a freebie. To prove it really exists, look here: http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/misc/crossstitchplan.html Allows a bit more freedom, really, when you are doing something purely for the fun of it and no other factors need to be considered.
Regards,
Richard.
Except the scatter algorithms are subtlely different (I was recently wanting UltraScatter to scatter the same way as UltraScenery...)
I think Howie is spoiling the lot of us!
Haha, I wasn’t actually talking in terms of money - more like “is my sanity and enjoyment worth the effort” :)
I use them together sometimes, too. I think they area a great combo.
I was just thinking this. There's only so much Howie can add before it will become as expensive as a regular piece of software and I don't think anyone is up for that. LOL
Laurie
More adventures in the Enchanted Forest. This scene ably demonstrates Howie's extended forest feature. It works particularly well on terrains such Lake 1, where there is only a relatively narrow strip of land around the lake. The ecology is Oaks 9, which is rapidly becoming my favourite.
Cheers,
Alex.
I have missed viewing this thread for two weeks and four pages built up and it has taken me three days to read and view and be totally amazed by the quality of renders, the discussion, and as always, the engagement between forum members to figure out challenges. You all are so inspiring.
I agree as well. Using UltraScenery has helped me see better ways to use UltraScatter. I created this scene with UltraScatter but never would have known how without experimenting with UltraScenery.
Another render of my island.
... and close up.