UltraScenery [Commercial]
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My computer rebooted overnight, so I don't know whether that import succeeded. I'm trying to import again, and it's been running for over two hours. I'm at 551 object, 108+ million vertices, and even if it succeeds, I'll almost definitely have to retexture everything from scratch. Success is truly a sliding scale.
Lake 2 with Blue Lake Water and Tangy Apple Orchard 14 looks nice to me.
I really need to find time to get back on this and try out the new stuff. A lot of stunning renders have been posted here.
I have a few questions / requests for advice / ideas. They came to mind after taking another look at the recent images...
I love how this turned out, but it exhibits the same "isolation" issue that bothers me with my renders. It seems to exist as a microcosm all by itself.
I keep thinking that the addition of mountains or some sort of distance horizon would help, but I have had little success in achieving such. I've tried...
- Terradome, but I've run into issues where the "distant" mountains don't seem do distant. So they seem out of scale. Matching up the textures has been a headache as well.
- HDRIs with a built in horizon. Same issue with the textures. They just feel fake in the render.
- Backdrops. Textures again. Even more of an issue of fakeness / pasting in.
Has anyone had any sucess with any other methods?
Another great image, which provoked more questions for me...
I've taken to using UltraScatter to add additional elements. Random flowers, dead trees, etc. So that there is a little bit of chaos added to things. This works for small flavor, but left me with this question...
Is there a reasonable way to 'hack' the JSON files so that one prop can be swapped out for another? For example, lets say you don't like one of the trees used in pre-set. Is there a way, either before or after creation of the UltraScene, to swap that base model for a different model? Having that change propogate out across the associated instances?
I posted here regarding "hiding" a built-in horizon in an HDRI. It's the only way I know to do it, but adjust in small increments so you don't chop off clouds etc. from the HDRI. In my example, 1,000 might have been too much, but it was a clear-sky HDRI anyway so no big deal.
Yes, JSON hacking is permitted by Howie Farkes and I have a forum thread that experiments with that.Take a look here. In my experiment, I used props that had a wide base at the bottom. That led to a lesson learned that wide base props don't work well on sloped terrain. Choose your props carefully.
Thanks, barbult, I took a look at that thread a couple of weeks ago. I have to say it gave me enough knowledge to be dangerous... but not enough to be productive. No disrepect intended... I started poking around in one of the JSON files and got lost pretty quickly. Felt like an amateur surgeon trying to cobble together Frankenstein's monster. :)
That's why I re-engaged the UltraScatter approach. It was just easier to continue with what worked for me, rather than aimlessly experimenting.
My whole frustration is with the descriptions of the formats in UScenery. The images are nice, but really lack the detail of what you are getting. Adding the tab that allows the activating and de-activating of different scene assets helps. Being able to see the name of what will be used is more descriptive to me than the thumbnail. I just wish there was a way to select and choose. I.e. Give me only "this tree and this tree" and not "this tree and different varients of the same species."
I understand that UScenery would be a headache to support if people were allowed to willy nilly use any prop asset they wanted, meaning ones not tested by the developer. That's why I was asking here... to see if anyone had any pointers for swapping things out without having to do too much surgery. The UScatter secondary option does work for me now that I've worked out some of the nuances between the two products.
dawnblade, thanks for the pointers as well, however that actually comes back to my main issue. If you look at the two images, as well as your example, it makes it appear as if the UScenery object is an entity on an island all by itself. I admit I am crazy, but that just irks me. My eye is immediately drawn to that and the illusion is broken.
I just like things to feel as if they are part of a bigger environment; even if that environment is completely invisible to most viewers. Distant trees work, but not enough of them and they serve to break the illusion even more.
I hate seeing empty expanses of blue... so anything that helps make a seamless transistion is what I am trying to find.
To prove my level of insanity, my last (unfinished) project was taking a UScenery prop and trying to turn it into a city park. So that the buildings and streets could be seen to break the horizon. I am still working at this, just not sure when I am going to finish.
I've successfully used the distance prop from TD3, (here). I translated it back significantly from the USC terrain, and then tranlated it down until the bottom edge was hidden by the USC terrain. I didn't try to match the textures. I used textures that created a high mountain range with some snow. The trees from the USC scene gave a natural break from the "valley" to the mountains. Depending on how high they are, many mountains have snow all year round, so it doesn't look odd when those are in the far background.
I didn't use the new Matte Fog function, but you could give that a try. Even on a clear day, the atmosphere "softens" the colors of mountains and trees in the far distance, and the Matte Fog may be sufficient to get that effect.
Very nice! And extremely impressive. I like how the visible mountain range mimics the break in the trees. It gives the picture a very smooth transition.
You're absolutely right about hiding the transition between the TD range and the US prop. The two will never transition believably. I just have had no luck making the two items seem like they should exist anywhere near each other.
I am going to try again and avoid the trap of being my own worst critic.
Thanks for the comments, and I see your point of the view.
Will try to avoid it in the future, if I can.
I used Terradome B zone here with the Terradome atmosphere. I think it looks ok. It took forever to render, though.
Lowered the Ground Origin to -1
I'm curious. Why did you need to lower the ground origin? What ground origin - the UltraScene origin, or the HDRI manual ground origin, or ?
I have lowered HDRI manual ground origin, to see, if the render would look better.
I think, it is better to avoid showing up large part of the sky on the image, to avoid horizon blending with the terrain.
Render with another water - Brackish Pond, Lake 3 and Tangy Apple Orchard 04,
the one that has missing texture or something.
All the Tangy Apple Orchard ecologies use the wrong terrain shader. I makes steep terrain like this look low res and bare. It makes the dirt track bleached out and causes other anomalies, too. You can edit the JSON files to fix the problems or just wait for Tango Alpha's official update.
Ah, ok - will wait for the update, then.
Close-up of the Brackish Pond water - to see it better.
Very nice! That horizon looks much more believable. I can see this rolling hills landscape or a plains. The previous bar of blue created a border that just didn't look right...
But please don't follow my direction... My path leads only to madness. :)
Nice, I think this is framed beautifully with the tall weeds in the front.
Thanks a lot, Jason and Barbult.
Even when I could confirm that the import finished, there was some sort of error. Conclusion: importing US scenes as they are is not a viable solution. Next up: experimenting with scattering US props on a landscape in C4D.
In quest of rendering different waters, below is Still Pond preset together with Heath & Moor 3.
And another render with the same water and Willows.
I do see your point about the USC environment in a sea of nothingness, so to speak. My quick example was specifically to demonstrate hiding the horizon, not as a completed render, so definitely it is as you described. I can see it myself.
Maybe that is why the extended forest feature was added, but also remember that, at least for me, there is still a lot of excitement about using this tool to easily create beautiful landscapes, so fine-tuning an HDRI or using mountain props such as TD3 maybe isn't as important.
Having said that, have you tried Skies of Gaia Volume 2, specifically for the mountain ranges? It also includes presets for horizon height adjustments. I used it here. I didn't push the mountains further back b/c the gap between the sloped area of the mountain range started to create that separation you mentioned.
I also agree with L'Adair that the distant mountain prop in TD3 really needs to be set way back to look like they are far away.
No worries and hopefully my message didn't come across too harsh. I am mostly harsh on myself... because I can't figure out where the line is between my insanity and reality. My insanity being finding details that annoy me in my own pictures... Reality being the details that other people actually notice. I can get lost in my own details very quickly.
I also didn't want to fall into the trap of every image having mountains in the distance.
I haven't had much luck with the extended trees option, but then I have experimented with it much. Having the camera in the final location, then regenerating the US prop usually doesn't happen for me.
I will need to look into the Gaia skies. I normally use Cloudscape Creator and have had pretty good luck with it.
The latest Jefferson AF scene, 'The Lake Forest' has a nice idea of billboard background scenes, here:
And it's ready made with many of the things that would suit perfectly, simply replace the scene in the middle with your US scene.
Regards,
Richard.
The real magic is the way Daz handles instancing & use of proxys. Converting to actual geometry becomes impractical as you're finding out. I've tried doing this too. I did manage to get the Willow Creek exported w/ nearly a 1Gb model.
My thinking is to go with a compositing approach. I did a test yesterday of exporting a USC scene w/o any prep via FBX. No instancing but you do get the original objects it uses for intances all set around the origin. But I believe actual instance placement must be a procedural process unless some temp map is made. As such, I don't know of any way to get that information. Maybe one of the Guru's here knows.
You do get the Terrain & water objects & I did a moving camera test. Once I matched the focal length & cam dimensions, I got a pixel accurate result. Probably just use the terrain for placement reference and Shadow catching.
I'd probably just use X-Particles to simulate water, because I hate myself.
No worries here either.
I'll have to check out Cloudscape Creator. The only issue a couple of us have had with Gaia Skies is that we couldn't duplicate the crisp and sharp look in the promos. If you're using them in the distance you should be good.