I changed height map to a twill fabric bump map that I got from Filter Forge. I changed the time of day and the sky backdrop and smoothing value - in other words, I played around until I was happy.
One great thing about USC2 and Alienator Pro II is that once I make the Alienator substitutions, those are remembered in USC2, and I can change various settings, like height map, noise, smoothing, etc, without having to redo the Alienator every time. Of course if I change Ecology, that will change all the plants, so then I would have to redo Alienator.
USC2 River 04 Pasture 03 Oaks Alienator 2 LowPi Width 128 Res 512 Twill Height Map.jpg
Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.
Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch
and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.
I tried to do that for USC1, did several attempts, but it became so increadible complex that I threw all attampts away, was easier to just use the Ecology Engineer in UST2 to pick the layers I wanted and then Alientor them.
Here is an UltraScenery render I made last night with a more rugged terrain from a height map. The terrain width is 128 and the resolution is 512. I added a couple LowPi on the path along the river, inspired by Artini's image with the people on the shore. The lighting is 8:30 AM sun sky lighting. The terrain is River 04 and the ecology started as Pasture 03, but I added Oaks, River Pebbles and River Rocks biome layers. Then I used Alienator Pro II to swap out the large oak trees for MJF Hawthorn trees. I liked their more rugged look. I also swapped out some medium and small oaks for various plants and swapped out some dandelions for flowers. The cloudy sky is an image in the Environment pane. I rendered a version with DOF and one without. Which do you like better? I like the DOF one, but the flowers are more identifiable in the non-DOF one.
I attached the crazy terrain height map I used. I added some smoothing to it in USC2 to make it less jagged. It is fun to try crazy things.
@barbult - when you say you used a sky image in the envoronment, and that you used sun-sky lighting at 8:30, how do you get both to exist at the same time? When I use sun-sky it turns off the ability to load an image.
Ah, look again closely at what I posted. "The cloudy sky is an image in the Environment pane." Environment paneis the significant phrase in that sentence. This is not the Environment section of the Render Settings pane. See the screenshot. Daz confused everyone by calling two different things "Environment".
@barbult
oh ... isn't that interesting. Thank you very much ... I likr this method a lot. Here's my first attempt of using the background clouds at 6PM... very nice..I stopped this render just after the image became evident. the shadows are cool for sure. Now to learn Alienator Pro 2.
Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.
Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch
and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.
I tried to do that for USC1, did several attempts, but it became so increadible complex that I threw all attampts away, was easier to just use the Ecology Engineer in UST2 to pick the layers I wanted and then Alientor them.
At least you have tried. Thanks for the information.
I dont want to post too much on this, but I really like this backdrop technique, explaind by @barbult a few posts up. This allow near limitless cloud background or your own photos. I'm sure there are other ways to get this result?
I'm am currently following Tottes instructions on the alienator2, so when it comes to incorporate the alieneator packs Totte used the USC2 track 3 and the USC 2 oaks 09
which I did then as well and just to see what I got made a quick render
to my big surprise the oaks look very much like birches. did that get mixed up in my library at some point or is there a general swap of ecologies?
It's not a big problem for me right now, just wanted to ask
Also My DAZ froze when I tried to execute the alienator set
I have made another discovery, so when I create a landscape with height differences lika a mountain scape, the whole thing often ends up being very high in general, like +2000 on the y scale.
this might cause problems with the eyes of some characters so I tried to move the whole thing down a considerate amount but this seems to remove a large amount of my grass and daisies (that's what I had on my landscape, so probably other stuff as well) but not all of it. it took me quite some time to understand what even is happening but I finally found out
I have made another discovery, so when I create a landscape with height differences lika a mountain scape, the whole thing often ends up being very high in general, like +2000 on the y scale.
this might cause problems with the eyes of some characters so I tried to move the whole thing down a considerate amount but this seems to remove a large amount of my grass and daisies (that's what I had on my landscape, so probably other stuff as well) but not all of it. it took me quite some time to understand what even is happening but I finally found out
This is an interesting discovery, and the inconsistency is certainly surprising to me. I'm going to see if I can replicate the situation.
I think the issue with character eyes far from the world center has been resolved by changing Instancing Optimization and then changing it back to your desired setting (Memory to Speed and back to Memory for USC).
Edit: @Linwelly can you give more details about the settings you are using in that scene? Is that USC, or USC2, or USC2 with Classic Content? I can't tell what terrain preset that is.with the single dirt track. Or is that a river terrain with no water? Is the Ecology one of the Grassland ecologies? Which one?
@Linwelly after playing with lowering USC2 terrain, I believe you problem is caused by the Backface Culling feature of USC2 biome layers. The clue was that changing the camera position changed the results of what vegetation was visible. Backface Culling is intended to hide vegetation that is hidden behind hills (from the point of view of the camera), to reduce load on rendering. In the case where the UltraScenery2 terrain object location is changed (you lowering it), it looks like the Backface Culling is being computed incorrectly.
The reason you see some plants and not others, is that not all layers use Backface Culling. Those that don't use it are still visible in your render.
You can turn off Back Face culling on each layer that uses it, by unchecking the Backface Culling box for each layer in the Biome Layer Settings section. Then your missing vegetation will be rendered.
To save computing time, backface culling is probably being done once at selection time rather than being triggered by every moment - a sensible approach but with an occasional unexpected side effect.
To save computing time, backface culling is probably being done once at selection time rather than being triggered by every moment - a sensible approach but with an occasional unexpected side effect.
the scene I used was a USC2 with classic content (USC Walking trail1) with some hight modifications (I used the walkingtrail roadbase inverted as a hight map) but an USC2 ecology preset (Grassland 3) in the background is a USC XT
you are right, the backface culling is activated for the items in the biome AND again you are right that ditching the culling returns the scene to its original state, thanks a lot, though I guess if I test for the eyes thingy positive in it working at the greater distances, I propably will chose that because all the culling will help with my scenes.
This is great infornmation, thanks again for taking the time to investigate
was experimenting with clouds and sun position using sun-sky rendering. Thanks again to @paulawp (marahzen)and NorthOf45 in the other thread, Sun-Sky render - How to see the sun and cloud placement - Daz 3D Forums
and of course those that helped in this thread. Its somewhat a task to get the sun lighting correct, that's for sure. I went from a hard disk to this softer one, which for sure gives a more dramtic cloud color.
Comments
Cool!
That's a big crowd and they look good. Is that a maze they are in?
Thanks, @Totte and @barbult
The maze is created with the heightmap.
Without trees, so the maze is better seen.
I changed height map to a twill fabric bump map that I got from Filter Forge. I changed the time of day and the sky backdrop and smoothing value - in other words, I played around until I was happy.
One great thing about USC2 and Alienator Pro II is that once I make the Alienator substitutions, those are remembered in USC2, and I can change various settings, like height map, noise, smoothing, etc, without having to redo the Alienator every time. Of course if I change Ecology, that will change all the plants, so then I would have to redo Alienator.
Looks interesting, @barbult
Great idea of using Filter Forge.
Have to install it again.
Have not used Alienator Pro II yet, so something to experiment with, when I got a time.
Is it possible to save new ecologies with substitutions and save it as a preset?
Just a thought - would be great to have a tool to create ecology from the scratch
and does not need to rely on substitutions made by Alienator.
Something like a Biome\Ecology Creator.
I tried to do that for USC1, did several attempts, but it became so increadible complex that I threw all attampts away, was easier to just use the Ecology Engineer in UST2 to pick the layers I wanted and then Alientor them.
@barbult
oh ... isn't that interesting. Thank you very much ... I likr this method a lot. Here's my first attempt of using the background clouds at 6PM... very nice..I stopped this render just after the image became evident. the shadows are cool for sure. Now to learn Alienator Pro 2.
At least you have tried. Thanks for the information.
Another crowd on UltraScenery 2.
Just noticed, how tricky is to find a good light settings for the scenes with big crowds.
It is not really in good scale, but at least the figures are clearly visible.
I dont want to post too much on this, but I really like this backdrop technique, explaind by @barbult a few posts up. This allow near limitless cloud background or your own photos. I'm sure there are other ways to get this result?
Great image, @daveso
Barbult technique is indeed interesting and give such a nice results.
I'm am currently following Tottes instructions on the alienator2, so when it comes to incorporate the alieneator packs Totte used the USC2 track 3 and the USC 2 oaks 09
which I did then as well and just to see what I got made a quick render
to my big surprise the oaks look very much like birches. did that get mixed up in my library at some point or is there a general swap of ecologies?
It's not a big problem for me right now, just wanted to ask
Also My DAZ froze when I tried to execute the alienator set
I have made another discovery, so when I create a landscape with height differences lika a mountain scape, the whole thing often ends up being very high in general, like +2000 on the y scale.
this might cause problems with the eyes of some characters so I tried to move the whole thing down a considerate amount but this seems to remove a large amount of my grass and daisies (that's what I had on my landscape, so probably other stuff as well) but not all of it. it took me quite some time to understand what even is happening but I finally found out
first one is what I wanted
second one is what happend on reduced altitude
I finally had a render of USC2 and a rabbit
Lovely!!!
This is an interesting discovery, and the inconsistency is certainly surprising to me. I'm going to see if I can replicate the situation.
I think the issue with character eyes far from the world center has been resolved by changing Instancing Optimization and then changing it back to your desired setting (Memory to Speed and back to Memory for USC).
Edit: @Linwelly can you give more details about the settings you are using in that scene? Is that USC, or USC2, or USC2 with Classic Content? I can't tell what terrain preset that is.with the single dirt track. Or is that a river terrain with no water? Is the Ecology one of the Grassland ecologies? Which one?
@Linwelly after playing with lowering USC2 terrain, I believe you problem is caused by the Backface Culling feature of USC2 biome layers. The clue was that changing the camera position changed the results of what vegetation was visible. Backface Culling is intended to hide vegetation that is hidden behind hills (from the point of view of the camera), to reduce load on rendering. In the case where the UltraScenery2 terrain object location is changed (you lowering it), it looks like the Backface Culling is being computed incorrectly.
The reason you see some plants and not others, is that not all layers use Backface Culling. Those that don't use it are still visible in your render.
You can turn off Back Face culling on each layer that uses it, by unchecking the Backface Culling box for each layer in the Biome Layer Settings section. Then your missing vegetation will be rendered.
I think culling is computed at render time.
@barbult Thanks a lot for all the input,
the scene I used was a USC2 with classic content (USC Walking trail1) with some hight modifications (I used the walkingtrail roadbase inverted as a hight map) but an USC2 ecology preset (Grassland 3) in the background is a USC XT
you are right, the backface culling is activated for the items in the biome AND again you are right that ditching the culling returns the scene to its original state, thanks a lot, though I guess if I test for the eyes thingy positive in it working at the greater distances, I propably will chose that because all the culling will help with my scenes.
This is great infornmation, thanks again for taking the time to investigate
My latest experiments with UltraScenery 2 with width 128 meters.
Resolution 256
Resolution 512
was experimenting with clouds and sun position using sun-sky rendering. Thanks again to @paulawp (marahzen)and NorthOf45 in the other thread, Sun-Sky render - How to see the sun and cloud placement - Daz 3D Forums
and of course those that helped in this thread. Its somewhat a task to get the sun lighting correct, that's for sure. I went from a hard disk to this softer one, which for sure gives a more dramtic cloud color.
quite a bit of difference in the resolution. Looking good.
Thanks for the comments, @daveso, and for creating such interesting thread about sun position.
I have used USC Late Morning light preset on UltraScenery 2 scene,
but could not get circular sun, but eliptic.
That's interesting (and weird)! What do you have set in Environment -> Dome -> Sun-Sky (on Render Settings tab)?
Below are these settings for my scene.