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Yes the fish are good. Ocean Wonders can be used by hand, only script is not possible. I already had the same problem with mushrooms and butterflies. Then each time I had to use a different product. The problem with Ocean Wonders is probably that all fish are in one fish. The script or ultrascenery cannot do anything with that. I suspect.
Skara Brae? There are also the Black Houses dotted around and there is the Crannog Centre on Loch Tay in Perthshire.
Which script is not working for you? I used UltraScatterPro and didn't have trouble with that script.
An ecology script.
I'm still not sure I'm understanding. Do you mean you created your own ecology (JSON file, not Daz a script) and added a fish layer, but the Ocean Wonders would not work in that?
precisely
Aha! Now I finally understand. I haven't tried that. I know the ecology JSON files can apply different materials to objects, but I don't know if it can apply different shapes (morphs).
Wonders of Nature doesn't work either.
I came across an interesting problem with US.
I normally pose the character at the origin, generate the US scene, then move the character to a good spot in the scene. This time, however, I did things differently. I posed the character at the origin, then generated the US scene, then moved the US main group in X and Z so the spot of interest was at the origin, then moved the character in Y to be on the ground.
Seemed to work OK until I looked at the CPU render 4 hours in... There is a layer of grass clumps that obviously didn't move with the hillside, and wasn't visible until some way into the render..
Looks a bit surreal, really, seeing the curve of the hill marked by grass clumps hovering in thin air. Actually took me a while to understand what I was seeing. The hillside the grass was put on by US curves over the top of the character at this point.
Regards,
Richard.
Richard, thats interesting I did one whereas i placed the character and boots on the groundplane and when rendered it produces an awesome effect.
I will need to do a bit of postwork on the foreground rock but not bad.
Something went wrong there! I've never seen that happen. Are you sure you selected the UltraScene group when you changed X and Z? Can you reproduce the problem?
Yes, that looks very nice!
I'm pretty sure it was a glitch. But yes, I am sure I selected the entire group - I have learnt that. As for reproducing it - I haven't had time to try.
Coming to think of it, there was one additional complication, after moving the scenery I re-generated it to get the distant forest to show as there was an abrupt thinning visible in the distance. The re-generation re-set the scenery position to zero (at least all I could see in the texmap preview), and then I had to move the entire US scenery again. I wonder if that contributed to the muddle my PC got into.
What happened is an interesting observation, and a slight warning, not something I'm trying to object about.
Has anyone generated mountainous regions with US. I wonder if it can generate scenes like Valle Alpina or some other snow capped type mountains.
I believe howie is trying to do something just like that with UltrasceneryXT: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/523766/ultrasceneryxt-large-terrain-landscape-generator/p1
Regards,
Richard
@barbult Amazing render! Just saw this! I think it would be great to have some sort of level gravel track device to add to an otherwise somewhat rolling landscape so the terrain could have some deviation but the track would be level.
@Rakuda Thanks for the comment on the render. I created an UltraScenery "Feature" for myself with the RR tracks as props, just like some of the commercially available Features have boardwalk props. By creating a Feature, I could create feature maps that alter the terrain in specific areas. So, I did just what you described; I made the track area flat with a sloped embankment (or whatever it is called) along the side. I allowed the rest of the terrain to be controled by the UltraScenery terrain definition. Here is an example of the flat tracks in a very non-flat terrain. Many of the scene elements were added later by hand placement, Alienator, UltraScatter, or HedgeMaker.
@barbult Top notch! Love it. Going to have to try that also. I have designed my own custom features as well for UltraScenery. It's prettty flexible this way. The scene with the pidgeon by the tracks looks very natural.
I recently had another Aha moment. I have struggled with not being able to see the UltraScenery terrain very well in my viewport. I couldn't tell where the dirt track was, etc. Filament viewport mode was helpful sometimes, but I found something even better that works for me - the camera Headlamp! This kind of thing is exactly what the camera headlamp is for, but the default camera headlamp settings didn't help me much with UltraScenery.
To change the camera headlamp settings, select the camera in the Scene pane. Then open the Parameters pane, you will see a Headlamp section. In there you can change the settings.
I changed the camera headlamp settings as follows:
Headlamp Mode: Auto (Edit: I now think Auto is better than On for my use)
Headlamp Intensity: 2.0
Y Headlamp Offset: 1500
To turn the headlamp off reliably, I had to set the intensity and offset back to default and change the mode to Off.
There is something flaky about the Daz Studio Headlamp settings. Sometimes you have to toggle the mode off and on to get changes to intensity to work. Also, why doesn't just setting mode to Off turn it off reliably? I saved Property Presets to turn the headlamp on and off, so I don't have to directly fiddle with these settings in the Parameters pane.
Oh yes, one last important thing: If your Headlamp mode in the camera settings is On, turn the Headlamp Off before rendering. In Render Settings, I always have Auto Headlamp set to Never. That way when Headlamp mode in the camera settings is Auto, I don't have to turn the Headlamp off before rendering.
These screenshots of my DS viewport in Texture Shaded mode show the difference between the headlamp off and on with the settings above:
Thanks Barbult for all your help. Testing a USG heightmap
Barb, what's the difference between your headlamp examples and simply disabling preview lights?
@Gordig As I understand it, "Preview Lights" is a verb phrase. Do you want to preview your scene lights in the viewport - yes (Preview Lights on) or no (Preview Lights off). I don't normally use scene lights (distant light, spotlight, point light). I use environment light, Sun-Sky Only or an HDRI. Preview Lights does not affect those, as far as I can tell, because they are not scene lights. When I build an UltraScenery scene and use an HDRI or the Sun-Sky Only environment light, Ctrl-L does not change anything in the viewport at all for me. Is your experience different?
I don't understand how Preview Lights and the Headlamp work with each other. In some combinations of settings, Ctrl-L makes a difference. In other combinations of settings, it does not.
What does work for me is Headlamp on Auto with adjusted intensity and offset and Preview Lights On. If Headlamp is On, Ctrl-L makes no difference in the viewport. If Headlamp is Off, Ctrl-L does change the viewport making it blacker, but I don't understand what it is really doing.
I've been playing with UltraScenery and the new decal product Ground Decal Materials. I'm very pleased with this product so far. It works great along with masks built by UltraScenery Toolbox - Volume One. The decals help blend the masked area in with the nonmasked area. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not thinking of this technique before! I've used decals with UltraScenery to put markers on roads, why not use decals on the terrain itself? It turns out, that is a great idea.
Here are a couple scenes I made as a test. The ecology is Grassland 02 and the tree is from UltraTrees - Realistic Tree System.
This is a render with decals
For comparison, this is what the first image looks like with just the masked area an no decals.
Here is another scene with different tree, decals and lighting.
This is a summary of the technique I used:
I REALLY like the dirt under the tree in this first image a lot! Nice work!
Thank you, Gogger! That was my first real test of the new decals, and I was really impressed by the decals and what they can add to an UltraScene. For the dirt, I used decal material GDM 15 Dirt Tracks. For the larger grass decal I used GDM 04 Grass Green.
They even look pretty good up close.
Here's another tip when using the ground decals. If you scale the ground decal much larger than the 500% default, use the Surfaces pane to adjust the tiling.
Wow! great find and awesome tutorial as usual. I originally added to my cart when it was released but the previous reviews were not favourable, so I moved it to my wishlist.
Now i'll have to grab the asset. They should see your work with the asset.
That looks great, @barbult. By the way I just directed someone asking questions about how to use the Ground Decal Material product with UltraScenery to this thread.
I didn't pick them up myself but will wishlist them now (20% discount is below my tolerance level, except for the wonderful USC-XT for which I was unwilling to wait!)
I hope they find helpful inspiration!