UltraScenery [Commercial]

WendyLuvsCatz

 nm

 

3dOutlaw

mcorr said:

Is there a way to limit the distribution (density) of vegetation aside from the ecology one chooses? Does it require altering Howie’s texture maps?

Yes, you have to create a new feature.  It would be a new feature (JSON and all) that includes a Forest Mask to thin out the forest.

Jason Galterio

Experiment 01

I created a custom height map with small hills. (The dimensions of the height maps are greatly reduced as all is needed was a visual reference.)

I overlaid the road map to show where the forest road should appear. I exagerated the height of the road on purpose. That's why it is so light compared to everything else.

The results:

What I was going for is a road that is above the surronding landscape instead of below. It's somewhat successful in that sense.

daveso

Jason Galterio said:

Experiment 01

I created a custom height map with small hills.

I overlaid the road map to show where the forest road should appear. I exagerated the height of the road on purpose. That's why it is so light compared to everything else.

The results:

What I was going for is a road that is above the surronding landscape instead of below. It's somewhat successful in that sense.

then if that road/height map  was made very narrow, it would be a small footpath through the trees?

Jason Galterio

daveso said:

Jason Galterio said:

Experiment 01

I created a custom height map with small hills.

I overlaid the road map to show where the forest road should appear. I exagerated the height of the road on purpose. That's why it is so light compared to everything else.

The results:

What I was going for is a road that is above the surronding landscape instead of below. It's somewhat successful in that sense.

then if that road/height map  was made very narrow, it would be a small footpath through the trees?

Theoretically, yes. But not with the experiments I am doing. I think you'd have to alter the masks being used in the JSON file. And possibly alter the JSON file itself. At least that seems to be what I am seeing as I experiment with different height maps. (I had a bunch of ugly failures before this example.)

I am trying to remain "in the box" for the moment.

barbult

Jason Galterio said:

Artini said:

barbult said:

You can get water with a custom height map if you select a feature with water, like the Pond. BUT those features alter the height map to pull the terrain gently down to water height, so the end result may not be what you were expecting. As far as I know, you can't get water with No Feature.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

Would be great to have a featured base settings with the water, that allows adjust the level of the water, as well.

This is correct. That was what I was alluding to with pick a setting that works with your height map.

In this case I believe I picked either the river or the lake, possibly the shore.

If you pick a setting that doesn't somewhat line up with your heigh map, you will end up with crazy results. Small jagged out croppings, things like that as it tries to correlate the unrelated features.

Because of this I tend to avoid the settings that have roads on them. The roads will take bizzare paths across the height map and just look unnatural.

There may be a template for where the road will land, which you could use to smooth out the height map. I didn't dig that deeply yet.

There are two different Track features in the basic UltraScenery product. Track 1 follows the terrain, regardless of how jagged that terrain is. Track 2 smoothes the terrain out in the area of the track, to eliminate the wild ups and downs of the terrain in the track area.

Jason Galterio

barbult said:

Jason Galterio said:

Artini said:

barbult said:

You can get water with a custom height map if you select a feature with water, like the Pond. BUT those features alter the height map to pull the terrain gently down to water height, so the end result may not be what you were expecting. As far as I know, you can't get water with No Feature.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

Would be great to have a featured base settings with the water, that allows adjust the level of the water, as well.

This is correct. That was what I was alluding to with pick a setting that works with your height map.

In this case I believe I picked either the river or the lake, possibly the shore.

If you pick a setting that doesn't somewhat line up with your heigh map, you will end up with crazy results. Small jagged out croppings, things like that as it tries to correlate the unrelated features.

Because of this I tend to avoid the settings that have roads on them. The roads will take bizzare paths across the height map and just look unnatural.

There may be a template for where the road will land, which you could use to smooth out the height map. I didn't dig that deeply yet.

There are two different Track features in the basic UltraScenery product. Track 1 follows the terrain, regardless of how jagged that terrain is. Track 2 smoothes the terrain out in the area of the track, to eliminate the wild ups and downs of the terrain in the track area.

Are you sure of this? I am questioning because my experiments are showing a different behavior.

What I am seeing is that the track imposes its height across the scene regardless of the height map used.

I regenerated the UltraScene three more times for comparison. I kept the lighting and camera position the same for referernce. Sadly, I didn't record what Ecology seed I used, so that placement of nature is different.

Here is the scene rendered with the same custom height map, minus the super imposition of the road:

Here is the scene rendered with a random height map generated by the script:

Lastly, here is the scene with the custom height map, but the width of the road was exagerated, keeping the height at the maximum around where the road normally would drop off:

In comparison, the only one with a noticable difference is the last image. The ridge along the edges of the road show, bleeding out from where the default height of the road was imposed.

Don't get me wrong, the road's default height is dependant on the surronding terrain height, so there is no question about that.

barbult

I am sure. You appear to be using the same track feature in each image. Dirt Track 1, which follows the terrain faithfully has two dirt paths. Dirt Track 2, which smooths the terrain has a single dirt path. 

Jason Galterio

I retract my previous statement. You are absolutely correct and I sit corrected, sir.

All three of these images use the same height map; from my original message, minus the road plateau I added.

One image is the dual track feature, one is the single track feature, and the last is no track.

The differences in the layout are quite obvious when the nature items are turned off.

barbult

Jason Galterio said:

I retract my previous statement. You are absolutely correct and I sit corrected, sir.

All three of these images use the same height map; from my original message, minus the road plateau I added.

One image is the dual track feature, one is the single track feature, and the last is no track.

The differences in the layout are quite obvious when the nature items are turned off.

Not sir, I'm female. But I'm glad you see the light. I prepared a drastic example, but you have already shown the results. I'll post mine anyway.

 

Daventaki

barbult said:

I am sure. You appear to be using the same track feature in each image. Dirt Track 1, which follows the terrain faithfully has two dirt paths. Dirt Track 2, which smooths the terrain has a single dirt path. 

Very interesting, I did not realize this.  Thanks for the info!

Jason Galterio

barbult said:

Jason Galterio said:

I retract my previous statement. You are absolutely correct and I sit corrected, sir.

All three of these images use the same height map; from my original message, minus the road plateau I added.

One image is the dual track feature, one is the single track feature, and the last is no track.

The differences in the layout are quite obvious when the nature items are turned off.

Not sir, I'm female. But I'm glad you see the light. I prepared a drastic example, but you have already shown the results. I'll post mine anyway.

 

Oops. Sorry about that.

And yes, that's a very good example.

I need to dig into the JSON file and see what other mischief I can get myself into. Playing with the feature masks didn't lead very far.

I did modify the USC_River_01 files, just to see what would happen. The results are below.

sandmanmax

I'm absolutely stoked!! Here's my first test, pretty much out-of-the-box, but close-up.  I added an HW Cat with LAMH just for grins, and had to check out the fur - that's how I ended up with a closeup. I didn't even let it finish - this is only 12%. This is the BEST landscape close-up I've ever got from DS. And NOW it's time to play...

 

daveso

sandmanmax said:

I'm absolutely stoked!! Here's my first test, pretty much out-of-the-box, but close-up.  I added an HW Cat with LAMH just for grins, and had to check out the fur - that's how I ended up with a closeup. I didn't even let it finish - this is only 12%. This is the BEST landscape close-up I've ever got from DS. And NOW it's time to play...

 

isn't it great :)

daveso

Jason Galterio said:

barbult said:

Jason Galterio said:

I retract my previous statement. You are absolutely correct and I sit corrected, sir.

All three of these images use the same height map; from my original message, minus the road plateau I added.

One image is the dual track feature, one is the single track feature, and the last is no track.

The differences in the layout are quite obvious when the nature items are turned off.

Not sir, I'm female. But I'm glad you see the light. I prepared a drastic example, but you have already shown the results. I'll post mine anyway.

 

Oops. Sorry about that.

And yes, that's a very good example.

I need to dig into the JSON file and see what other mischief I can get myself into. Playing with the feature masks didn't lead very far.

I did modify the USC_River_01 files, just to see what would happen. The results are below.

that river render is awesome nice. i need to try that. 

Jason Galterio

daveso said:

Jason Galterio said:

barbult said:

Jason Galterio said:

I retract my previous statement. You are absolutely correct and I sit corrected, sir.

All three of these images use the same height map; from my original message, minus the road plateau I added.

One image is the dual track feature, one is the single track feature, and the last is no track.

The differences in the layout are quite obvious when the nature items are turned off.

Not sir, I'm female. But I'm glad you see the light. I prepared a drastic example, but you have already shown the results. I'll post mine anyway.

 

Oops. Sorry about that.

And yes, that's a very good example.

I need to dig into the JSON file and see what other mischief I can get myself into. Playing with the feature masks didn't lead very far.

I did modify the USC_River_01 files, just to see what would happen. The results are below.

that river render is awesome nice. i need to try that. 

Thanks!

I got that by replacing the USC_River_01_512 and USC_River_01_texture images then using the corresponding Feature in the script. I tried a few of the others, but I didn't have much luck with them.

I've also been using Filter Forge to create the replacement images and height maps. There are a wide array of 'terrain' filters, a lof of them having Bump map exports. For the ones without Bump maps, its usually easy to change the colors to gray scale within FF.

sandmanmax

Oso3D said:

I had to stop myself from trying to do godrays and lens flare and and and... because 3dl is really annoying and as it was the stupid render took 30, 40 minutes.

I gave the leaves a small amount of translucency. I'm not sure it made much difference.

The water ended up stupid looking but, again, this is more proof of concept; use 3dl water you like.

This is MUCH nicer than anything I could ever do with 3DL.  Way to go, Oso!

sandmanmax

Ohhh!!!  I was playing around with the meandering river, couldn't figure out where the trees went (oh, right - I chose meadow), dropped a duck in the river and tried to UltraScatter some more, then hit Render.   Nothing much was happening - it was just churning and churning, so I canceled it and closed out DS with a note to self to learn how all these tools work.  And this is what was left open...  I totally wasn't paying to attention the render window hiding behind everything...

 

Jason Galterio

sandmanmax said:

Ohhh!!!  I was playing around with the meandering river, couldn't figure out where the trees went (oh, right - I chose meadow), dropped a duck in the river and tried to UltraScatter some more, then hit Render.   Nothing much was happening - it was just churning and churning, so I canceled it and closed out DS with a note to self to learn how all these tools work.  And this is what was left open...  I totally wasn't paying to attention the render window hiding behind everything...

 

Nice. Hopefully you saved the scene file. :)

Daventaki

Anyone know how to increase the bump or normals on the path?  I looked at the surfaces and I see the normals map but i see no way to set the value on it.

AllenArt

sandmanmax said:

Ohhh!!!  I was playing around with the meandering river, couldn't figure out where the trees went (oh, right - I chose meadow), dropped a duck in the river and tried to UltraScatter some more, then hit Render.   Nothing much was happening - it was just churning and churning, so I canceled it and closed out DS with a note to self to learn how all these tools work.  And this is what was left open...  I totally wasn't paying to attention the render window hiding behind everything...

 

Fun stuff, isn't it? :)

Laurie

HowieFarkes

Daventaki said:

Anyone know how to increase the bump or normals on the path?  I looked at the surfaces and I see the normals map but i see no way to set the value on it.

It is a _very_ complex shader that I put together in the shader mixer... and it does not have a way to adjust the strength of the normal map other than using a different map. (I mean this shader has something like 7 layers for things like the road, and fields and soil and rock etc all able to be masked seperately etc so to keep things sane there were a lot of options not added)

memcneil70

@sandmanmax and @Daventaki 

Wonderful renders to wake up to this morning. I have a smile on my face.

Mary

3dOutlaw

3dOutlaw said:

mcorr said:

Is there a way to limit the distribution (density) of vegetation aside from the ecology one chooses? Does it require altering Howie’s texture maps?

Yes, you have to create a new feature.  It would be a new feature (JSON and all) that includes a Forest Mask to thin out the forest.

To Clarify, here is an example, 'cause I wanted just a clearing in a forest, so I copied the NoFeature feature folder, called it Clearing, and updated the names inside the new JSON  to Clearing as well.  Then I copied the Forest Mask from one of the Path Feature JSON's, and updated the new Clearing JSON with it.  Then I inverted one of the Pond masks and saved it as new, then pointed to it with the Forest Mask line from the Clearing JSON.  Result is below...clearing in a Forest, and a new Clearing Feature, with an editable mask.

So to thin out a forest, you can do similar, but the mask may be a speckled mask to prevent trees from being "planted" here and there.

Daventaki

HowieFarkes said:

Daventaki said:

Anyone know how to increase the bump or normals on the path?  I looked at the surfaces and I see the normals map but i see no way to set the value on it.

It is a _very_ complex shader that I put together in the shader mixer... and it does not have a way to adjust the strength of the normal map other than using a different map. (I mean this shader has something like 7 layers for things like the road, and fields and soil and rock etc all able to be masked seperately etc so to keep things sane there were a lot of options not added)

Ok I thought that maybe the case but I wanted to ask first just in case.  Thank you!

barbult

Here is UltraScenery as never seen before (by me, anyway). Small World Camera is in today's $1.99 PC+ for a day offerings.

Jason Galterio

Neat. I've had that camera for a while now but I've never actually used it for anything.

41cessna

I really don't think you can do a bad render with UltraScenery.

 

memcneil70

@barbult - That camera shot is just... well let's just say I almost fell off my chair with a dizzy spell. Good work!

@41cessna - I agree with the product, but considering the number I never show to anyone, I have to say 'operator error' comes in to play. Love your renders.

Oso3D

Cessna: That's f'in astonishing!!

Kudos