THE SECRET VALLEY "Iray Skydome" Magix-101 [Commercial]

magix101

Hi I just thought I would put a post here about "The Secret Valley", that I am currently uploading for sale at Daz, this is a highly detailed and self contained scene that can also work with the Iray Skydome and also the "Superpak" for extreme  versatility.
I have been working on this scene for several months, this is not just a highly detailed and realistic scene, it has many included extras such as 10 Pre Set Scenes, 15 Camera positions, plus Flower MATS and Tree Instance Positions as well.
It also includes the Skydome and Sun from the Iray Worlds Skydome Pak, plus 2  extremely hi resolution Sky textures from those Paks as well.

Also included are 2 new invisible light throwing Illumination spheres, plus a Magix-101 innovation, an invisible Skylight that can influence the entire hue of your scene.
See the Lotus in the Pond close up night scene as an example of how this looks...[No Post Work]
Magix-101 has been the original seller of 3rd party World Base Environments for Poser and Daz Studio, dating back over 10 years ago with WorldBase, World Base XT and Iray Worlds and many scenes that work in those environments.

Anyway I will let the renders speak for themselves, and happy to answer any questions, if anyone has any.
Cheers

 

Llynara

These are very beautiful! Excited to see it come out, as I have many of your products and they are very good.

The new flowers and sets are beautiful, and I love that moon. It found its way (along with one of the Iray Worlds cityscapes) onto my first Black Kat book cover. Great work!

magix101

I forgot to add, there is NO Postwork at all on any of these renders

Charlie Judge

I love it; but then I'm always wanting good vegetative environments.

magix101

Llynara said:

These are very beautiful! Excited to see it come out, as I have many of your products and they are very good.

The new flowers and sets are beautiful, and I love that moon. It found its way (along with one of the Iray Worlds cityscapes) onto my first Black Kat book cover. Great work!

Hey thanks Llynara  thansk for the feedback...I am really glad you like it. Super stoked that the Moon Scene made it to one of your book covers "awesome"
Yep the flowers are all hand modeled, some tool ages especially the Lotus Stamens, also the Hibiscus flower and Creeping Vines and so on.
Cheers

magix101

Charlie Judge said:

I love it; but then I'm always wanting good vegetative environments.

Thanks Charlie...Glad you like it, as far as vegetation goes there is a ton of stuff in here...that can also be used for other scenes.
I like vegetative scenes myself...see caps for whats in the scene

 

 

ALLIEKATBLUE

Could you post a link to this, I don't see it in the store when I search for it.

Wonderland

Really beautiful! Wish I could get it, but have realized I can't do anything with things like that until I get a Windows PC with NVIDIA card. Rendering IRay on my Mac or Windows laptop is like watching paint dry. No, actually, paint dries faster. Will go in my wishlist until I can afford a new machine. But just stunning! 

magix101

ALLIEKATBLUE said:

Could you post a link to this, I don't see it in the store when I search for it.

Hi its not in the store yet, ptrobably be for at least 2 weeks,
As I mentioned I am uploading it, but it has to go thru the Daz QA and be tested.
Once that is done a release date will be put on it...once I know I will post that release date here.
Cheers

magix101

Wonderland said:

Really beautiful! Wish I could get it, but have realized I can't do anything with things like that until I get a Windows PC with NVIDIA card. Rendering IRay on my Mac or Windows laptop is like watching paint dry. No, actually, paint dries faster. Will go in my wishlist until I can afford a new machine. But just stunning! 
 

Yep will need a pretty ballsy card too...Nvidia Cards can be quite slow (especially on Adobe Premiere).
Get a good one and things can be pretty swift...but yeah its another outlay

BeeMKay

It's really beautiful, but what breaks the spell every time is the ground surface, like in the last image posted. It totally jolts you back to reality... It's not something specifically related to this set, but a general problem with grounds in Iray. They'd need much more geometry to work properly with shaders; otherwise, you get the result like in this ground, and in many other grounds.

cherpenbeck

I know, I'm nitpicking, with this lovely set, but....

There's one detail with some plants which can break the illusion really fast. It's obvious in the third picture. the Leaves of the vine-like plant in direct view are totally aligned in one level. Real leaves would differ, some pointing upwards, some downwards, bent, twisted, showing more variety.

The pond looks lovely, I really like the big tree and the flower on the last picture.

magix101

Believ

cherpenbeck said:

I know, I'm nitpicking, with this lovely set, but....

There's one detail with some plants which can break the illusion really fast. It's obvious in the third picture. the Leaves of the vine-like plant in direct view are totally aligned in one level. Real leaves would differ, some pointing upwards, some downwards, bent, twisted, showing more variety.

The pond looks lovely, I really like the big tree and the flower on the last picture.

Nitpicking is fine.

Believe it or not tho,  that exact leafy plant is growing at our house..I modeled mine off that one (actually a few samples)
And I did angle the leaves actually and also the shootoff stems, it doesnt show that much in the image 3 tho I know.

However the original plant also had angles in the main stem as well.
Its pretty easy to do, but I chose not to do that simply because the scene was heading up to 3 million polys...so I had to make a few
small compromises to keep the size down a bit.

Maybe if I use them again in a smaller scene I will re model them a bit and make them more organically erratic
Cheers

 

Novica

Hey magix101!

Thanks for sharing the preview, it's quite lovely. I do agree about the ground, it looks stretched, on surfaces like that I simply add tufts of grass (only to the area that's in the camera view)  and place foliage in the foreground which conceals more of the area since it's larger due to being in front. I really like the flow of the landscape with the little hills and dips. I'd like to see the lily pads have more depth and IMO the V section rims need to curve up slightly.  What I really like about all your work is the effort to put in details of things that would be there, aka, the pond indeed has the lily pads, the trees have vines that tumble onto the ground, the leaves on the trees don't follow a pattern, the list goes on and on. This set is a place where I'd love to go spend a relaxing day!

Edit- and those flowers are absolutely stunning- my favorite thing about all of it!

xyer0

My faerie wants to frolic there! Oh yes!

alexhcowley

BeeMKay said:

It's really beautiful, but what breaks the spell every time is the ground surface, like in the last image posted. It totally jolts you back to reality... It's not something specifically related to this set, but a general problem with grounds in Iray. They'd need much more geometry to work properly with shaders; otherwise, you get the result like in this ground, and in many other grounds.

I agree. I think this set needs some ultrascattered grass, otherwise it's very good indeed.

Cheers,

Alex.

magix101

Novica said:

Hey magix101!

Thanks for sharing the preview, it's quite lovely. I do agree about the ground, it looks stretched, on surfaces like that I simply add tufts of grass (only to the area that's in the camera view)  and place foliage in the foreground which conceals more of the area since it's larger due to being in front. I really like the flow of the landscape with the little hills and dips. I'd like to see the lily pads have more depth and IMO the V section rims need to curve up slightly.  What I really like about all your work is the effort to put in details of things that would be there, aka, the pond indeed has the lily pads, the trees have vines that tumble onto the ground, the leaves on the trees don't follow a pattern, the list goes on and on. This set is a place where I'd love to go spend a relaxing day!

Edit- and those flowers are absolutely stunning- my favorite thing about all of it!

Hi Novica

Thanks for the feedback...all very good points too.

Yes the more realistic you make things, the more those little parts that dont look quite as ultra realistic stand out more.
It kinda comes with the territory,  but as I am sure you know...you have to reach a certain cutoff point to preserve your sanity LOL!!
I had just spent sooo much time tweaking and re tweaking that it stretched into weeks...and weeks ...months.

I used 3d Coat for the ground which has some great subdividing features, but I could not avoid some UV stretching in places.
I may use a Camera Focus depth of field to deal with that for the display images, there are 15 camera Pre Sets
I also PixPlant which was very helpful with generating Normal Maps etc...

Yes I modeled the flowers...with those flowers right in front of me to make sure I got the details right...
All in all it was fun to build, but as the months passed I decided I better finish it before it finished me LOL

BTW The Grass Trees, Flowers Ground Leaves and everything else is seperately modeled and available that way in the scene,
so anyone who wants to use more grass or grass instances or re arrange anything can easily do that.
Its entirely flexible in that way.

Cheers

 

magix101

BeeMKay said:

It's really beautiful, but what breaks the spell every time is the ground surface, like in the last image posted. It totally jolts you back to reality... It's not something specifically related to this set, but a general problem with grounds in Iray. They'd need much more geometry to work properly with shaders; otherwise, you get the result like in this ground, and in many other grounds.

Yes agreed.

I think right now I may use a depth of field in the close cams so there is a soft blur.
What you say is true I see many grounds in environments in Iray that look pretty gross and prehistoric, not much finesse, definitely not my type of thing.
I largely managed to avoid that I feel, but as you say the close ups can be a problem, extra tiling can help but does not work that great
for wide view and distant shots.

The ground is actually very high resolution in parts (created using the sculpturing tools in 3d Coat) ...but in future projects I may use more displacement and Normal mapping to creat variety. But everything has its limitations one way or another.
Anyway thanks for your input, much appreciated, it all helps.

Cheers

 

Stormlyght

magix101 said:

BeeMKay said:

It's really beautiful, but what breaks the spell every time is the ground surface, like in the last image posted. It totally jolts you back to reality... It's not something specifically related to this set, but a general problem with grounds in Iray. They'd need much more geometry to work properly with shaders; otherwise, you get the result like in this ground, and in many other grounds.

Yes agreed.

I think right now I may use a depth of field in the close cams so there is a soft blur.
What you say is true I see many grounds in environments in Iray that look pretty gross and prehistoric, not much finesse, definitely not my type of thing.
I largely managed to avoid that I feel, but as you say the close ups can be a problem, extra tiling can help but does not work that great
for wide view and distant shots.

Hi,​

First off, I'm really excited about your upcoming release! I can see using it in alot of my renders. In regards to the ground surfaces that are depicted in your images, I think that they are pretty realistic considering that grass, moss and vegetation on a rocky, eroded surface is not going to be a "blanket" of vegetation--it will be sparse. The foreground in the last image in my opinion may be just the camera angle making the ground appear more distorted and stretched than it really is. 

Trish

magix101

Stormlyght said:

magix101 said:

BeeMKay said:

It's really beautiful, but what breaks the spell every time is the ground surface, like in the last image posted. It totally jolts you back to reality... It's not something specifically related to this set, but a general problem with grounds in Iray. They'd need much more geometry to work properly with shaders; otherwise, you get the result like in this ground, and in many other grounds.

Yes agreed.

I think right now I may use a depth of field in the close cams so there is a soft blur.
What you say is true I see many grounds in environments in Iray that look pretty gross and prehistoric, not much finesse, definitely not my type of thing.
I largely managed to avoid that I feel, but as you say the close ups can be a problem, extra tiling can help but does not work that great
for wide view and distant shots.

Hi,​

First off, I'm really excited about your upcoming release! I can see using it in alot of my renders. In regards to the ground surfaces that are depicted in your images, I think that they are pretty realistic considering that grass, moss and vegetation on a rocky, eroded surface is not going to be a "blanket" of vegetation--it will be sparse. The foreground in the last image in my opinion may be just the camera angle making the ground appear more distorted and stretched than it really is. 

Trish

Hi Stormlyght

Thanks very much for your comments, it is an exciting release and I feel it breaks new ground (no pun intended) in some areas of world and fantasy lighting (included)

Generally the ground surface is one that works really well...except for extreme camera closeups...it works well because you dont get a tiled effect in the more panned out views.
DS has some pretty cool options in the Iray materials for image overlaying, but its still not enough. I spent many many hours on this and used many different techniques.
However I have grass instances that can be used and more created so anything is possible by placing grass in different places.
All in all I am very happy with this set...besides spending more months trying to perfect it than I already have.
cheers

 

 

 

Spit

Does this fit inside WorldBase XT?

I have ALL your worldbase stuff including for iRay, but I won't be using iRay for a while yet. Meanwhile I'd like to be able to ustilize some of this in 3DL and enjoy your hard work in iray when I"m able.

 

 

 

magix101

Spit said:

Does this fit inside WorldBase XT?

I have ALL your worldbase stuff including for iRay, but I won't be using iRay for a while yet. Meanwhile I'd like to be able to ustilize some of this in 3DL and enjoy your hard work in iray when I"m able.

Yes it does ...its an exact fit (I am pretty sure) as it is in Iray Worlds.
What you have to do is load a basic WorldBase-XT scene...then turn off the "Worldbase-XtrBase, plus XtrCntr and XtrPatches
Then go to a Secret Valley Scene and right click...select merge into scene, then delete the entire IR-Base group (its just one click)
That whole process takes about 2 mins (max) I just tried it

Then select the Film cam and go to any Cameras preset to postion the camera properly...best to use the first to begin with.
However I am not sure how it will render...its designed for Iray renders, but its should be quite good, it looked good in the preview window.

I wouldnt use ray tracing tho...its pretty slow...

Cheers

 

 

magix101

New Grassy render of Scene-9

Novica

magix101 said:

New Grassy render of Scene-9

Love it!!!! 

magix101

Hi Novica.

Glad you like it...Yes I feel its a good improvement...
I am gonna have to upload that scene and the geometry to daz as an update before release tho...as I have already uploaded the main package
Shouldnt be too much of a problem tho....

Actually I may have to do a couple of updates,  cause I didnt include some MATS that turn off the flowers on the Main tree (with the vines) there are 3...actually, one with dense flowers..the one in the image (moderate flowers) and another (no flowers) that one is interesting cause it lets a lot more light thru and that changes the whole feel of the render.

Cheers

 

Summerhorse

Beautiful work, magix101. Any chance you will be selling the hibiscus and trees as stand alone products?

magix101

23Cascade said:

Beautiful work, magix101. Any chance you will be selling the hibiscus and trees as stand alone products?

Hey Thanks 23Cascade

Yes I will definitely consider your suggestion.
I have been not that happy with a lot of the vegetation generators...they are just too basic and rough..understandable in some ways tho cause that keeps the poly count down.
To do proper flowers with proper stamens, lotus hibiscus etc...you have to model all the details and that causes the poly count to go up.
I am currently modeling some more flowers, plants and stuff...pretty challenging, both the modeling part and also the texuring...and I may very well put them in a seperate more general package,
its a good idea.

Cheers

magix101

A quick model only render

 

posecast

magix101 said:

A quick model only render

 

A world covered in ash.

magix101

LOL!!!

AndyS

Hi,

looks really nice.

But please:
If you publish the product, please add the list of additional used assets (Backgrounds, Skies, etc.) in the promos.

Thank you.