Flowscape And Daz Studio - So Many Backdrops!
BlueIrene
Posts: 1,318
I discovered new landscape generating software Flowscape earlier on after reading about it on Novica's Art Studio thread. As I mentioned on there, I have been unable to leave the program alone since purchasing it (it's just $10 - $12 to us over-taxed people in Europe, and worth every cent). Anyway, while not doing a single stroke of work all day, I've been thinking about how I can integrate Flowscape into my Daz doings and use it in the creation of promos and book covers etc. The software creator mentioned somewhere about a 360 degree camera being a possible future inclusion, but it's not there yet. Then I considered making an infinite cove or something like it in Blender... but wait - not until I've finished creating this Flowscape landscape. And this one. Oh, and this one. After creating my gazillionth landscape today, I remembered the Daz 'Backdrop' under the Environment tab. I hardly ever use this but couldn't believe I'd forgotten it and was stunned enough to drag myself away from Flowscape and off to Daz Studio to see how my landscape images would do.
I thought I'd give it a mention here as a reminder for anyone else who has forgotten the Daz Studio environment tab/backdrops, partly because I can then claim to have done at least one useful thing today, and partly because I felt slightly guilty earlier for using Daz's space to rave about something that I didn't see an immediate use in Studio for.
First, I began with the image that I posted in Novica's thread...
Hit by a bout of bone-idle-itis, I hadn't bothered to crop it square (your screensize is Flowscape's only output at the moment). This meant that I had to click to get the dropdown menu and 'Adjust Aspect Ratio To Backdrop', as the landscape image would otherwise have just been squashed by the square or portrait dimensions that I typically use.
When positioning a model, it really helps to have 'Show Floor' ticked in the viewport window dropdown too. This makes it easy to align the view of the model with the view of the landscape. I've used the iRay Sun Dial (My Daz 3D Library/Render Presets/Iray) to help line the shadows in Studio up with the image behind it.
Since Genesis can't walk on water (maybe in version 9!), I have put her in a boat here, with the bottom of it ouside the image.
I had no idea when I made that image what I was going to do with it, but it's easy enough to leave space on the ground to place a figure if you give it some thought.
These were put together pretty quickly for the purposes of the thread. If I were doing it with the quality of the final image in mind I would probably line the Studio content and lighting up with the backdrop as described, then take the backdrop away and render as a transparent png so that I could layer the image with the backdrop for ease of postwork. I would almost certainly shake myself up enough to do some actual cropping as well :)
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Comments
Another couple of things before I forget/pretend to go to bed and slope off to play work with Flowscape again...
First, both the landscapes were created with Flowscape's 'Low' graphics quality. I've just tried the Medium and the High, and neither have a great impact on performance. My machine is more porky than beefy. Secondly. when I maximise the program window (Windows 10 here), the mouse won't hover over the menu buttons on the right any more for some reason. If I minimise the program to the taskbar and then click there to bring it back again, the menu buttons are once more fully accessible. I haven't seen anyone else mention this behaviour, but that's how to remedy it if it should happen.
Good idea to use as a backdrop!
Just had that happen to me tonight on Win 7. I think it's a bug in the restore command but your workaround fixes it for now.
video showing in the meantime how to make 360 panoramas
works in games too
you can share redistribute, modify and use these on your iray environment dome, to make a VR etc no restrictions whatsoever
There is an update out now and it has Ansel, you can do 360 renders, really big ones great for Iray environment domes, the exr HDR format sadly rendered black for me but jpg was ok, was too hot today and extremely dusty so had to shut my PC down before I could experiment further as to why my HDR failed.
There also are Dragons, trolls and skeleton swordsmen.
Hadn't thought of backdrops... Another excuse to play with Flowscape :)
And yeah, there's a dragon now!
My experience with the exr HDR format was the same as yours (even in Photoshop there is nothing but black data there). I haven't had a lot of time to experiment with it though, and don't know much about it. Even the .jpg should be useful as starting point for something though. It's a huge leap in functionality for the program.
As for backdrops, all that new Asian content in Flowscape should be great in partnership with the Asian figures and associated bundles recently released by Daz. I haven't bought any, but I know that plenty of people have done.
Edited to add that the update includes a few flat pathway pieces and platforms which will come in handy for incorporating into images to make space for figures to stand in when using the images for backdrops in Studio.
Back again...
Rather than spend any more time trying to figure out the .exr files that seem to have no data, I decided to convert the 360 degree jpg exported from Ansel into an HDR file using the free open source Easy2Convert JPG to HDR software and see how that worked out.
I had to create another landscape .jpg in Ansel without hitting the HDR slider this time, as the .jpg which is produced with that is just a low res thumbnail. The result was a bit bright in Daz, but it worked. As far as I could tell though, I'd forgotten to adjust the tiling scale of the ground materials in Flowscape, and so Genesis was surrounded by leaves that were almost as big as her head and could not have fallen from the trees behind her. Then I did another, remembering to adjust the tiling, as well as adjusting the gamma down in Easy2Convert, which made the light look a bit less dazzling. The ground materials still looked a bit big in places, but in others they were fine. However, the ton of other things I'm supposed to be doing were playing on my mind and I had given very little thought to leaving a place for Genesis to stand. All I can say is that she does not look her best when balancing on the top of a small pine tree.
I think the Easy2Convert method might get us somewhere with a bit of experimentation, but it's not something I've got time for right now. If anyone else wants to give it a good kicking or knows of a better way to get a usable HDR out of the Ansel/Flowscape combination then I'd love to hear about it.
I've bought it, but can't seem to download it. The download always breaks off somewhere around 1GB. I'm pretty annoyed by now,
Yeah I had that, had to use the seldom opened Internet Explorer browser
Saw but suspect a regclean with CCleaner might fix but I went back to 417 as my Octane 4 plugin in Carrara hates all later drivers so not updating to test.
C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Ansel\Tools\nvCameraEnable.exe" whitelisting-everything
a suggestion on Unreal forum for stuff
Thanks for the suggestion Wendy, I couldn't get C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Ansel\Tools\nvCameraEnable.exe whitelisting-everything to fix the problem.
It appears to be a problem with GeForce Experience 3.18 , since when I revert back to GeForce Experience 3.17 I can use Ansel in Flowscape again. It looks like in GeForce Experience 3.18 one of the updates is that Ansel RTX comes out of beta and that may be causing the problem.
video
Mr Woo in Flowscape it seems
I better add this is a background
I used Hitfilm to do composition
Bought a copy for lucky $13.00 today. Navigation is sort of strange. Any tips on how to keep the land mass from flying out of range? I know it's the Ctrl + MM or RM buttons to rotate and pan but yea, things move very fast and even after release it was still moving. Also is there a way to center the landmass if it DOES go out of range?
Next to Home is the camera settings. Click that and you can control the camera speed. I use the arrow keys and 0 and 1 on the keypad to move around.
You can set the camera movement slower
also there is a shortcut to go back to the centre but am on my iPad and cannot link the itch forum here
will on Facebook
I only post renders with DAZ content no explanation on this forum as is an off-site software/game
OK, thanks so much to you both!
I missed this thread before and I immediately went and picked this up. What an awesome program, thank you for posting about it!
I'm getting closer to exporting complete figures from Daz to import into Flowscape. This is Aryn for G8F. By complete I mean that either eyes are missing once the import completes, or skin is just clay, like with Orc HD (assuming it is due to the HD mats), or the hair doesn't look right (notice the hair scalp).
Just a note that the import process can take several minutes, as it appears that it brings in parts of the body at a time, then parts of the outfit. The figure will be in lying face up, but will bounce into the pose you gave it once the materials have finished applying.
Also, it can be very difficult to find the figure if you have a well developed environment in Flowscape. I suggest that you use a flat ground so you can easily see the figure, then press P in FS to generate a new environment.
One last thing I experienced was during the save/load process: I assumed that once I saved everything in FS and later loaded it, that it would be like an image, with everything in its place. Nope! The environment will load nicely, then the import process kicks in to generate your figure again, which can take several minutes.
Anyway, I'm having fun with it! The lighting and entire environment are all from Flowscape.
Edited to add that Anselm works again with FS, so this image was DOF'd and snapped using Anselm!
That's useful information for those still dithering, thanks.
Love what you're doing! I haven't tried/bought Flowscape yet, but you're getting me twitchy LOL.
Yesterday I just have discovered this great software thanks to you. Great !
I have made some normal quick renders from Flowscape for testing... Then I have given these backdrops a more Cartoon effect to use in Daz. I have added my Toon characters.
6R
Other backdrop :
6R
BlueIrene: Great backdrop example usage.
Question for you, or anyone else with the 'game' -- Is there any way to purchase and use an offline, non-gaming mother platform (Steam/itch.to) ?
In other words, as a stand-alone program not dependent on being connected to internet, and using the program/game through an online gaming platform.
I have been tempted to purchase this for awhile now, but the whole online gaming aspect is what kills it for me. I understand it is a game, but for 2 Gigs, it should be self-contained.
6r : I love your examples -- That is exactly what I want it for -- I would love to know which software you used to accomplished the Cartoon effect on the backgrounds.
its in a self contained folder you can run it offline
You can get it on itch and it will be available on Steam Aug. 15.
Here is a test in Flowscape to create a great background (for platformer or fight games !?!) within 1 minute... thanks to the randomly option when you paint trees, rocks, plants,... :
6R
Well, I now know what is on my shopping list next month.
It is interesting to see that there are only 2 different tree models, but the impression is good. The more realistic top image (before being 'tooned') is good too. Thanks,
Richard.
There are several tree models