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Both UltraScatter Advance Instancing 1.5.0 and UltraScatter Pro 1.0.1 work fine for me in DS 4.12.1.40 Public Beta. The script is encrypted, so I don't know what line 584 is supposed to do. You should probably submit a help request if they are not working for you. Perhaps customer service can find the problem. Or, create a scene with only Daz Primitives or Genesis base characters and run UltraScatter. Then attach the scene file here. I will be glad to try your scene and see whether it works for me, or whether I see anything wrong. Maybe you hit on something problematic that I haven't run into before.
That's strange. What dandelion are you using? Does the rotate work for you on other props or characters? I tried a dandelion (Erock3D Dandelions, a freebie) that I have, DS 4.12.1.40, and UltraScatter Advanced Instancing 1.5.0. The dandelion I have rotates OK on the Y axis, but the dandelion is so symmetrical, it is almost hard to verify that it really rotated! I do believe that yours shows no Y rotation, though.
I was using: Dandelions - Grassland and Lawn Plants and Seeds
There was indeed rotation settings in both images. Yet, it did not seem to work as anticipated. After reviewing some field of dandelion pictures, I gave up on the leaves and hid them. Also, some of the props from that product load with scaling already dialed in. Perhaps a step was missed during the product finalization.
I used ultrascatter pro later, with another product, and did not have issues with rotation.
So, it sounds like it might be a product problem with Dandelions - Grassland and Lawn Plants and Seeds, and not an UltraScatter problem.
The free Erock dandelions are so good, that I have never heen tempted to buy Dandelions - Grassland and Lawn Plants and Seeds. I like Martin J Frost plants in general, and I own several. I usually delete the displacement, because with the Surface SubD he uses as default, they take up way too much memory. Unless I am doing a closeup of a single plant, I don't need that level of minute detail.
If you are scattering a lot in UltraScatter, remember to set your Render Settings Instancing Optimization to Memory.
Edited to add. The Erock stuff is so good, I made a donation several months ago. I don't want you to think I am a total cheapskate!
I might be missing something but how come when you tell Ulstrascatter Pro Upgrade to used 5000 instances it's always a lot less? It seems like it's Random. I am using the Random setting but, it still asks me how many instances.
Thanks
I believe the "5000" means how many times the script will compute a random location for an instance, and then verify that the computed location is within other constraints that you have set. For example, if you used the controls for elevation, minimum distance between instances, noise pattern, affinity, etc,. a lot of the 5000 random locations may not meet all constraints and will be discarded. There is not a way to specify the exact number of instances that will finally be created in the end. I usually specify a higher number than I actually want, in cases where my constraints might result fewer than specified. You can select the UltraScatter group in your scene pane and run the script again, specifying a higher number of samples the next time, if you didn't get enough.
Barbult is correct and it's also why I named the label for the number of instances to "Number of Instances/iterations" - it's more like choosing the maximum possible number of instances but using other options to filter or limit the placement of them will have an effect om the final number generated. If you select 5000 then the script will iterate 5000 times - each iteration it randomly generates a point for an instance then tests that point against other factors such as elevation, nearness to other points, distribution maps etc (depending upon what you have chosen) to determine whether that point "lives" or is discarded.
Thanks @barbult
I think I'm too literal. I do expect the 'EXIT' to be the way out rather than a possibility. :) Thanks.
@HowieFarkes
Hi there. I love this product but it's giving me grief. And I'll sure it's user error or old age, but I can't get the scatter (trees, at the mo, haven't tried anything else till I get this right) to scatter ON the prop I choose. It's always out to the side of it and above it. 'X' seems to be correct, but 'y' and 'z' are so off the mark it's just not funny. If I have the prop (it's a hill from 1st Bastion's Highland Lake) at 0,0,0, it's fine, I can scatter trees over it and merge into my scene, sweet as. But if I have the hill where I want it in the scene, I can't get the scatter to scatter on it. In the scene the hills are in three different places, at -240 'y' but different 'x' and 'z' as you'd expect. Each hill has its own group of trees parented to it. For each hill I choose its group and prepare to scatter. I choose lowres tree, the hill, 100 iterations, metres, 60° slope. I've tried 10m, 5 m, 0m, and -230m elevation. The lower elevation seemed to be better, not right, but better. How do I get the 'z' to be correct? At the moment they are scattering at world 'z, 0,' instead of prop 'z, 0'. What am I doing wrong?
Cheers
Lorraine
I can't say for sure but it sounds like it could be because the group you are scattering is already a child object of the hill terrain you are trying to scatter on (too many levels down and the script won't know what the correct origin point is). Try to have the trees or their group at the root level of the scene and see if that works.
Edit: that was the problem. I did some experimenting today and the scatter is put on the prop in the right place only if that prop is not inside an existing group. I unparented the hill, applied the scatter, then popped it back into the group again and all was well.
Thank you for the ultra quick response! That does make sense, I tend to have groups, inside a group, inside another group, all nested and generally not giving me a problem. I shall deparent the hill and tree group from their group (so many groups!) and try again tomorrow. Thanks again for the prompt reply, I appreciate it.
Cheers
Lorraine
Version 1.5 would be refering to the non-pro version. The latest UltraScatterPro version is 1.0.1
Yippee-ki-ay! Wow.
I've had Ultrascatter and Pro for some time but just never spent time to check it out. The release of the UltraScenery presets prompted me to dive into UltraScatter Pro. Yay!!!
Here is my first real foray into customizing a set using UltraScatter. Just 15-20 minutes from beginning to end. I have no idea what I am doing, yet I am getting pretty good results (in my view) already. I used Carrara's terrain modeler to make a simple hill with a plateau ring about 2/3s up. I used Carrara to convert the hill to an obj. I used Carrara's vertex modeler to assign material zones to the lower slopes, the plateau, and the upper slopes. I exported the obj to Daz Studio. I applied a ground shader to the upper and lower slopes and a different ground shader to the plateau ring. I used UltraScatter Pro to copy instances of some plants from a TangoAlpha set on just the lower slopes of the hill. Bang, zoom, I have a simple hill set. Of course, I need to see if I have better ground shaders and sky domes for Daz Studio, but this is a game changer for me.
Thanks, Howie. Can't wait to go through this thread and get more tips!
Looking at that scatter, I think you should check out the Rotation settings and at the very least have 180 random Y alignment.
That will randomly turn the trees this way and that, which will greatly help the look.
Also if you haven't set it set some spacing so trees don't end up on top of one another, and some random size scaling (I usually do 50%-125%, but ymmv)
Thanks for the tips - I will need them all. That was my first attempt to create a custom object and invoke the ultrascatter pro script. Almost all of the settings are on default (except restricting the scatter to the material zone for the lower slopes). Will be checking out the manual and this thread and coming back with questions.
I am even more excited about UltraScatter Pro than UltraScenery, and that is saying a lot.
They are both EXTREMELY useful/cool products and I'm so thrilled HowieFarkes did them. ;)
(And all the people creating additional material for it!!)
Is there another Ultrascatter pro thread in the art studio or commons forums? I'm like a kid with a new toy.
At the proof of concept stage for myself. Having encouraging early success creating sample terrain objects, material zones, and maps to control distribution. In the following, I used the Carrara terrain modeler to create the hill and plateau, then within Carrara I converted it to an obj. I used Carrara's vertex modeler to create material zones and further edit the terrain shape. I used Carrara's 3D Paint tool to paint distribution maps directly on the model.
So here are three very simple proof of concept tests customizing a terrain and controlling distribution of primitives on it with UltraScatter.
1) Create the terrain, converting to obj, scatter primitives over the whole thing, and simple render in Daz Studio.
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2) Use the modeler to select polygons and create material zones to restrict the distribution of the primitives
3) Use the 3D Paint tools to paint a distribution map directly on the model to restrict the distribution of the primitives
Here is my thread. It should give you some tips and inspiration.
Here is the commercial thread.
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Thank you. Looks great.
You can use the Elevation setting in the Distribution tab to control how far up the trees will grow. Then use Falloff to have them fade out.
But beware, the slider only goes up to 1000, and the default units are cm. So if your hill is higer than 10m, you'll need to change units (on the Settings tab).
Similarly, Slope will limit the steepness of the ground, and so on.
Thanks for height the tip, Tim. Many of the UltraScatter controls seem to be analagous to replicator controls in Carrara. In other words, if I could potentially control where white/black are located with a shader function like slope, then I can control the distribution area of the scatter. I'm sure there are exceptions so I will be back with more questions. More tips are most gratefully accepted, and I will dive into the thread that Barbult started. Thanks, all.
I did have the Carrara replicator in mind when designing UltraScatter but some things are not quite analogous - and using slope or elevation shaders to control distribution is one area that differs. UltraScatter has direct controls for those sorts of constraints and doesn't need to be done via a shader. And then I had the freedom to take things much further and implement features like distribution density, instance scale and rotation driven by image maps which are things the Carrara replicator can not do. And also things like affinity - make the instances be attracted to or repelled from other objects or instances.
Wonderful additions. Can't wait to try distribution density and scale with painted maps. Thanks again for the tips.
Old thread, but,...
I have just recently started using DS again. I downloaded the latest version of Ultrascatter (1.5), but find that "Alignment:- Surface Normal" fails to function. It worked OK in previous version, but that previous version gives errors(will not work) in DS 4.15
Note: I checked on a very simple scene, scattering cubes around a shere (both object are DS primitives.)
Is this a known bug, or am I missing some new extra setting for aligning to normal?
You are correct. Align to Surface Normal does not seem to work in UltraScatter 1.5 and DS 4.15. I just checked.
I own UltraScatterPro now, so I use that exclusively these days. Align to Surface Normal works correctly in UltraScatterPro and DS 4.15.
Please submit a help request so Daz can tell Howie Farkes that UltraScatter 1.5 has a problem.
A fix is in the works