UltraScenery - new territory [Commercial]

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  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    blosse said:

    @barbult

    Because of your explaining about the differences in the way Daz Central, Daz Connect and DIM work with installing things my TAO which was not working at all now works by uninstalling all of UltraScenery and all of it's addons then reinstalling all of it with DIM everything now works with TAO also. Thank you very much for your help with everyone who has any question or problem using these products in Daz studio. I knew, I had a problem but had no idea of where to start to fix it. Again thank you.

    That is great to hear! Thanks for letting me know. You are now at least the second person that has TAO working by using DIM instead of Daz Connect, so I think that will work for other people, too. 

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    Artini said:

    Does UltraScatter works well with the terrains made with UltraScenery or is it some limits, one need to take to account?

     

    UltraScatterPro works great with UltraScenery terrain, and I imagine UltraScatter does, too. You can even use the UltraScenery Feature masks (in your runtime directory) with UltraScatterPro as distribution maps, to control where UltraScatter places instances.  

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    daveso said:

    barbult said:

    @daveso This doesn't look too bad, actually, as long as your C drive will be large enough to hold all you content. The biggest problem, I think, is that Tangy Apple Orchard and UltraScenery - Tangy Apple Orchard did not get uninstalled from within Daz Studio (Daz Connect). I'll work with you tomorrow (Jan 24) to make that happen.

    thanks ... this is super that you're willing to take the time.   As far as my C drive..no, it cannot hold my stuff. I wanted to get DS working at least before I tried to move it all to the D drive.  

    Good idea. We'll get it working on C first. I'm going to write some step by step instructions to get those Daz Connect things uninstalled. I'll stick with it until I have no more ideas to help. I'm pretty sure we can get this all straightened out. I need to capture some screenshots and then I'll post again.

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 8,528

    barbult said:

    Artini said:

    Does UltraScatter works well with the terrains made with UltraScenery or is it some limits, one need to take to account?

     

    UltraScatterPro works great with UltraScenery terrain, and I imagine UltraScatter does, too. You can even use the UltraScenery Feature masks (in your runtime directory) with UltraScatterPro as distribution maps, to control where UltraScatter places instances.  

    Thanks and great to know. I have not used UltraScatter for ages, and has put all of my attention to figure out UltraScenery, instead.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    edited January 2021

    barbult's longwinded instructions for fixing double installation problems

    Quick summary of the problem:

    • Some products (many scripts) don't work if installed with Daz Connect.
    • Some products don't work with content that is installed with Daz Connect.
    • If a product is installed with both DIM and Daz Connect, Daz Studio always uses the Daz Connect version, which might not work.

    My recommendation:

    • Whenever possible, uninstall a product from Daz Connect and install it only with DIM. Your life will be better!

    To the best of my ability, I have documented the steps necessary to remove a product from Daz Connect and reinstall it with DIM so that it works properly in Daz Studio. This example focuses on the Tangy Apple Orchard UltraScenery products that some people are having trouble with. The technique is valid for other products as well, or course.

    1) Open Daz Studio and go to the Smart Content tab. If you don't already have the Smart Content pane in your layout, you can add it to your layout from the Window/Panes (Tabs) menu. I have a custom layout with Smart Content on the right of the viewport. Your layout might look a little different.

    2) Select the Products tab in the Smart Content pane. Uncheck Filter by Context and select the All Products category and the Installed tab.

     

    3) Enter Tangy in the Smart Content search box. (Be sure you are on the Products tab, not the Files tab in Smart Content.) Daz Studio will filter products to show you only the ones with Tangy in the name. I only own two, which happen to be the two we want to fix.

    • When a product has been installed with Daz Connect, the thumbnail will be in color and there is no extra icon in the upper right corner. Unfortunately, you can't tell whether the product was also installed with DIM.
    • It you install a product with DIM and with Daz Connect, Daz Studio will always use the Daz Connect version. It doesn't matter which order you install them in. Installing with both DIM and Daz connect uses double the space on your hard drive and does you no good. 

    • If your Smart Content pane looks like this screenshot below, with thumbnails in color and a broken circle and down arrow icon in the upper right corner of the thumbnail, then your product is NOT installed with Daz Connect and you do not have a double DIM/Daz Connect installation. Congratulations! You don't need to perform the steps in this forum post.

    4) So, assuming that you have identified that you do have the product installed with Daz Connect, right click on one of the product thumbnails and select Uninstall from the popup choices. Repeat this for the next product you want to uninstall. (You can also select multiple products then  right click and uninstall them all at once.)

    5) After both products have been uninstalled, their thumbnails will turn gray (no longer in color). Since they are now available to be installed with Daz Connect again, they once again have the broken circle and down arrow icon in the upper right corner of the thumbnail. Unfortunately, this display gives us no clue about whether the product was installed with DIM, too.

    • IMPORTANT: DO NOT DOUBLE CLICK ON THE GRAY THUMBNAIL OR DAZ CONNECT WILL INSTALL THE PRODUCT AGAIN!

    6) This step is optional: Right click on the All Product line in Smart Content and select Refresh from the popup choices. After the display refreshes, both Tangy products disappeared from the product list. This indicates that they are no longer installed.  Daz Studio doesn't seem to know that these products had been installed with DIM. Next we need to fix that problem.

    7) Now we are going to reinstall the product with DIM so Daz Studio realizes that they are there again.

    • Open DIM and log in (I think it works equally well in offline mode, if you have not deleted your downloaded DIM packages.).
    • Click the gear icon in the upper right corner of the DIM window and select Basic Settings.
    • Verify that the Base Dirrectory is set to Current. I think this is necessary to be sure that products are reinstalled to the same content directory that they were originally installed in.  Ignore my directory paths in the screenshot; your paths will undoubtedly be different.
    • Close the Basic Settings dialog. (Click Cancel if you didn't have to make any changes or click Accept if you had to change something.)
    • Select the DIM Installed tab.
    • Enter Tangy in the DIM search box.
    • In the product list, put a check mark on the two Tangy Apple Orchard products that we just uninstalled from Daz Connect.
    • Right click in the product list and select Re-Install Package(s) and then All Selected.
    • DIM will quickly uninstall and reinstall the selected products.

    8) Now go back to Daz Studio and open Smart Content again.

    • Select the Products tab in the Smart Content pane. Uncheck Filter by Context and select the All Products category and the Installed tab, just like we did in step 1).
    • Enter Tangy in the Smart Content search box. 
    • Smart Content should now show the thumbnails in color again (indicating that they are installed, because we just reinstalled them with DIM). The broken circle with down arrow icon should be visible in the upper right corner of the thumbnail. That icon indicates that the product is AVAILABLE to install with Daz Connect, but is NOT installed with Daz Connect. THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! yesyes

    9) People sometimes get in trouble, because they see the broken circle with down arrow and think they need to do someting finish installing their product. That is incorrect. Please do NOT right click on these thumbnails and select Install. That will install the product with Daz Connect again and you are right back to double installation and step 1. crying  If your product still does not work after performing steps 1-8, the problem is probably that your Daz Studio Content Directory Manager is not looking in the place that DIM installed the files. That is a different issue. Ask for help in the forum or ask Customer Service, don't shoot yourself in the foot by installing with Daz Connect again.

     

    - Smart Content Products tab.jpg
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    - Smart Content Products Installed tab.jpg
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    -TAO products installed with DIM.jpg
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    - Do not click Install.jpg
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    - TAO products installed with Daz Connect.jpg
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    - Uninstall products from Daz Connect.jpg
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    - Both TAO products uninstalled from Daz Connect.jpg
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    - Right Click and Select Refresh.jpg
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    - After refreshing they disappeared from the Installed tab.jpg
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    - Reinstall with DIM.jpg
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    - DIM basic settings current selected.jpg
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    - Do not click Install.jpg
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    Post edited by barbult on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    edited January 2021

    @daveso, the post above should help you get those Tangy Apple Orchard products out of Daz Connect and working. Please let me know how it goes.

    Post edited by barbult on
  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,365

    barbult said:

    @daveso, the post above should help you get those Tangy Apple Orchard products out of Daz Connect and working. Please let me know how it goes.

    Well, now I know how my installation got screwed up. I always wondered why the products had the down arrow and circle after I've already installed them with DIM, so I've been going in, right clicking the icons, and doing the listed install. That means that most if not all of the current products in my installation of DS were installed with DIM but then with DAZ CONNECT ....  I had no idea that down arrow thing in the right corner was for DAZ  Connect installation. 

    I will need to go in and uninstall pretty much everything that does not have that arrow and redo them in DIM. Luckily I only have about 300 items installed compared to my old installation where there were more than 3000. 
    aFTER THIS, WELL, i WILL START WITH ALL THE ULTRASCENERY PRODUCTS 1ST ..THEN WE WILL KNOW IF THEY ARE WORKING RIGHT AWAY. 

    THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS GUIDE AND ALL THE HELP YOU HAVE GIVEN, NOT JUST ME, BUT EVERYONE.  

  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,365

    LET THERE BE APPLE TREES !!!

    now to get the rest of my products uninstalled from Connect and reinstalled by DIM ... THANKS AGAIN BARBULT

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    daveso said:

    LET THERE BE APPLE TREES !!!

    now to get the rest of my products uninstalled from Connect and reinstalled by DIM ... THANKS AGAIN BARBUL 

    You did it! yessmiley

  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,365
    edited January 2021

    @barbult .. now that I've been uninstalling those products installed twice ..DIM and Connect, once I uninstall the connect products, do the files go away from where they were? Will I then have 1 installation.?

    Post edited by daveso on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    edited January 2021

    daveso said:

    @barbult .. now that I've been uninstalling those products installed twice ..DIM and Connect, once I uninstall the connect products, do the files go away from where they were? Will I then have 1 installation.?

    Yes, those files in your Daz Connect directory (in that strange subdirectory of your CMS directory on drive D) will be deleted. Empty folders will be left behind, if I recall correctly. You will have only one installation of each product and it will be in the directory specified in DIM. Right now you have that set to the default location on the C drive.

    Our next task will be to move your DIM content library off of C drive and onto another drive with more space. I've never done this, but I have seen Richard Haseltine post messages about how to do that. It is easy. I just need to track down his instructions again so I don't go from a possibly faulty memory.That is a task for another day.

    Post edited by barbult on
  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,365

    barbult said:

    daveso said:

    @barbult .. now that I've been uninstalling those products installed twice ..DIM and Connect, once I uninstall the connect products, do the files go away from where they were? Will I then have 1 installation.?

    Yes, those files in your Daz Connect directory (in that strange subdirectory of your CMS directory on drive D) will be deleted. Empty folders will be left behind, if I recall correctly. You will have only one installation of each product and it will be in the directory specified in DIM. Right now you have that set to the default location on the C drive.

    Our next task will be to move your DIM content library off of C drive and onto another drive with more space. I've never done this, but I have seen Richard Haseltine post messages about how to do that. It is easy. I just need to track down his instructions again so I don't go from a possibly faulty memory.That is a task for another day.

    yes, another day. I'm in process of uninstalling all the Connect stuff and reinstalling via DIM. will take some time. then I need to render some tangy apples . 

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050
    edited January 2021

    @Sevrin I can reproduce your problem with the TAO trees having strange looking leaves in some places. They look kind of gray and half transparent or something. I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out. I believe the problem is related to the opacity mask. Something strange is happening in Iray with opacity masks. Try just deleting the opacity mask from the two leaf surfaces of the tao_Chestnut1 and tao_Chestnut2 props in the Chestnuts Layer. You will lose a minute amount of leaf edge definition, but in a large UltraScene, you won't even notice. The leaves are modeled, so you won't end up with just big rectangles.

    I don't have the volume prop that you used in your other test. I'll have to search my content and see if I have one I can try.

    UltraScenery TAO 2 Crossing 2 Clear Stream as built by UltraScenery

    UltraScenery TAO 2 Crossing 2 Clear Stream with TAO Chestnut Leaves Cutout Opacity Map Deleted

     

    USC TAO 2 Crossing 2 Clear Stream USC Late Morning.jpg
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    USC TAO 1 Crossing 2 Clear Stream USC Late Morning Chestnuts Layer leaf opacity map deleted.jpg
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    Post edited by barbult on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    daveso said:

    barbult said:

    daveso said:

    @barbult .. now that I've been uninstalling those products installed twice ..DIM and Connect, once I uninstall the connect products, do the files go away from where they were? Will I then have 1 installation.?

    Yes, those files in your Daz Connect directory (in that strange subdirectory of your CMS directory on drive D) will be deleted. Empty folders will be left behind, if I recall correctly. You will have only one installation of each product and it will be in the directory specified in DIM. Right now you have that set to the default location on the C drive.

    Our next task will be to move your DIM content library off of C drive and onto another drive with more space. I've never done this, but I have seen Richard Haseltine post messages about how to do that. It is easy. I just need to track down his instructions again so I don't go from a possibly faulty memory.That is a task for another day.

    yes, another day. I'm in process of uninstalling all the Connect stuff and reinstalling via DIM. will take some time. then I need to render some tangy apples . 

    Keep an eye on your C drive so it doesn't get overly full while you do this. Remember that the ones you are deleting from Daz Connect are getting removed from D, not C, according to your configuration. If you are just reinstalling ones that are already installed with DIM, C should not get any fuller that it is. You should be OK. 

  • goggerfett@gmail.com[email protected] Posts: 2,291
    edited January 2021

    Nothing fancy like custom masks or anything, just some good ol' prehistoric fun with Herschel Hoffmeyer's Tyrannosaurus Rex 2 Berserker lurking about in an UltraScenery Environment. US STILL just utterly amazes me on a regular basis!

     

    DS_TREX_Trail_3D_Erik_Pedersen.jpg
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    VT_TREX_Old_Game_Trail_3D_Erik_Pedersen.jpg
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    Post edited by [email protected] on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    Gogger said:

    Nothing fancy like custom masks or anything, just some good ol' prehistoric fun with Herschel Hoffmeyer's Tyrannosaurus Rex 2 Berserker lurking about in an UltraScenery Environment. US STILL just utterly amazes me on a regular basis!

     

    Nice dinos! That looks like Mossy Hollow. It is a good choice of ecology and looks prehistoric in your renders. 

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 14,878

    One thing to try, maybe, is AM's mesozoic badlands flora used in ultrascenery (using alienator or similar)

     

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    @daveso, well, I searched around for instructions on moving your Daz stuff from C drive to another hard drive. I found a lot different opinions on how to do that. There are multiple levels of moving stuff, too. Move just your DIM content, also move your DIM downloads and manifests, also move your CMS database. You can move just one or multiple of these things, depending on how much C drive space they use and how much you need to recover. So, things aren't as straightforward as I thought they would be.

    Even if you choose to move only your DIM content, there are at least three steps involved. 1) physically copy the content folder to a new location, 2) Configure Daz Studio to look for content in the new location, and 3) reconfigure DIM to install things, including future updates, to that new location. The DIM reconfiguration steps depend on whether you have kept all your old download zip files and manifest files or deleted them.

    Here are a couple links to fairly recent instructions I found in the forum, but there are many more. The phatmartino post is extremely detailed and looks pretty intimidating. Richard Haseltine's instructions are terse, and no doubt accurate, but lack detailed instructions on how to accomplish the stated goals.

    How do you want to proceed?

     

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    Oso3D said:

    One thing to try, maybe, is AM's mesozoic badlands flora used in ultrascenery (using alienator or similar)

     

    I don't own that one, so I never even thought about that. You are right, Will, I bet Alienator or Alienator Pro would work well for that! 

  • davesodaveso Posts: 6,365

    barbult said:

    @daveso, well, I searched around for instructions on moving your Daz stuff from C drive to another hard drive. I found a lot different opinions on how to do that. There are multiple levels of moving stuff, too. Move just your DIM content, also move your DIM downloads and manifests, also move your CMS database. You can move just one or multiple of these things, depending on how much C drive space they use and how much you need to recover. So, things aren't as straightforward as I thought they would be.

    Even if you choose to move only your DIM content, there are at least three steps involved. 1) physically copy the content folder to a new location, 2) Configure Daz Studio to look for content in the new location, and 3) reconfigure DIM to install things, including future updates, to that new location. The DIM reconfiguration steps depend on whether you have kept all your old download zip files and manifest files or deleted them.

    Here are a couple links to fairly recent instructions I found in the forum, but there are many more. The phatmartino post is extremely detailed and looks pretty intimidating. Richard Haseltine's instructions are terse, and no doubt accurate, but lack detailed instructions on how to accomplish the stated goals.

    How do you want to proceed?

     

    I'll look at the instructions given. I finished uninstalling Connect products and unistalled/reinstalled everything via DIM. It was interesting how many products I had installed with Connect and not DIM at all. Probably half. My C drive is now 65% full, so it will be good to move them. I'll check all the files to see what's being used. 

    One other thing I noted, I have several products that do not have an uninstall command ... various thing not from any one particular vendor. That's sort of interesting. 
    Should we take this from her to PM or maybe a new thread to not clog up this Ultrascenery topic?  

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    daveso said:

    barbult said:

    @daveso, well, I searched around for instructions on moving your Daz stuff from C drive to another hard drive. I found a lot different opinions on how to do that. There are multiple levels of moving stuff, too. Move just your DIM content, also move your DIM downloads and manifests, also move your CMS database. You can move just one or multiple of these things, depending on how much C drive space they use and how much you need to recover. So, things aren't as straightforward as I thought they would be.

    Even if you choose to move only your DIM content, there are at least three steps involved. 1) physically copy the content folder to a new location, 2) Configure Daz Studio to look for content in the new location, and 3) reconfigure DIM to install things, including future updates, to that new location. The DIM reconfiguration steps depend on whether you have kept all your old download zip files and manifest files or deleted them.

    Here are a couple links to fairly recent instructions I found in the forum, but there are many more. The phatmartino post is extremely detailed and looks pretty intimidating. Richard Haseltine's instructions are terse, and no doubt accurate, but lack detailed instructions on how to accomplish the stated goals.

    How do you want to proceed?

     

    I'll look at the instructions given. I finished uninstalling Connect products and unistalled/reinstalled everything via DIM. It was interesting how many products I had installed with Connect and not DIM at all. Probably half. My C drive is now 65% full, so it will be good to move them. I'll check all the files to see what's being used. 

    One other thing I noted, I have several products that do not have an uninstall command ... various thing not from any one particular vendor. That's sort of interesting. 
    Should we take this from her to PM or maybe a new thread to not clog up this Ultrascenery topic?  

    I was thinking the same. We are out of UltraScenery/TAO territory now. Time to move to PM. The hard thing about PM is that you can''t edit a message and you can't directly upload images. We'll try. PM me when you are ready.

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 8,528
    edited January 2021

    Just wondered how many characters one can render with UltraScenery, but lost interest already with 9 figures.

    image

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    Post edited by Artini on
  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,140
    edited January 2021

    Sevrin said:

    I'm not sure if this is an issue that's come up with 4.15, but there something weird going on with transparency.   I was having some issues with opacity adjustments in combination with volumetric props, so I wanted to see what the deal was with leaves.  

    I brought an atmospheric prop in from Render Studio 2.0, and that didn't work at all. 

    After removing the prop, there was still some strangeness, mostly visible at the top left corner and on the right, halfway up the image, but also elsewhere in this Iray render.

    For reference, here is a Viewport render in Texture-shaded

    Does Daz Iray support true volumetrics now? I've seen this happen before when I was beta testing Vue 4 waaaay back in the day. Same issue - clash between volumetrics and transparency/alpha maps. 

    Post edited by AllenArt on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 23,050

    smileyAn unexpected and wonderful thing happened to me this week. A forum friend had an RTX 2060 that he didn't need, and he GAVE it to me! He insisted that I not pay him for it. It arrived today and I installed it tonight. It is a two generation graphics card upgrade for me and is making UltraScenery (and other) renders much faster. smiley Thank you, forum angel.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,040

    barbult said:

    smileyAn unexpected and wonderful thing happened to me this week. A forum friend had an RTX 2060 that he didn't need, and he GAVE it to me! He insisted that I not pay him for it. It arrived today and I installed it tonight. It is a two generation graphics card upgrade for me and is making UltraScenery (and other) renders much faster. smiley Thank you, forum angel.

    You will wonder how you manged before with renders taking seconds to hours instead of hours to days, I know I did when I went from CPU only to my RTX 2060 in this Laptop :)

  • tsroemitsroemi Posts: 2,310

    So sorry if this has been asked before, but will there be a winter / snow edition of UltraScenery in the foreseeable future? I would soooo love to have that!

  • RGcincyRGcincy Posts: 2,805

    barbult said:

    smileyAn unexpected and wonderful thing happened to me this week. A forum friend had an RTX 2060 that he didn't need, and he GAVE it to me! He insisted that I not pay him for it. It arrived today and I installed it tonight. It is a two generation graphics card upgrade for me and is making UltraScenery (and other) renders much faster. smiley Thank you, forum angel.

    That's a wonderful friend,good karma for all the help you've been giving

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 8,528
    edited January 2021

    I were recently involved in helping my colleague with the tests of his new computer.

    He has allowed me to run a test with Daz Studio, so I have prepared a quick test scene with UltraScenery

    on my own SSD disk with Windows and DazStudio already installed and rendered it in 8K resolution.

    It was the first 8K render ever for me and the details are amazing even while my scene is not.

    Below is a 4K only (8K jpeg take almost 12 MB and is too big for the forum) render of the scene with more pokethrougs,

    because I have spotted them later.

    image

    FigureTest04pic01res4K.jpg
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    Post edited by Artini on
  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 8,528

    I am amazed, how well UltraScenery scale up and keep up with the details even with the higher resolution renders.

     

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 8,528
    edited January 2021

    barbult said:

    smileyAn unexpected and wonderful thing happened to me this week. A forum friend had an RTX 2060 that he didn't need, and he GAVE it to me! He insisted that I not pay him for it. It arrived today and I installed it tonight. It is a two generation graphics card upgrade for me and is making UltraScenery (and other) renders much faster. smiley Thank you, forum angel.

    That is great, Barbult. You make so much good for Daz community... just amazing.

     

    Post edited by Artini on
This discussion has been closed.