UltraSceneryXT - large terrain/landscape generator

ED3D_3188521

I'm lovin' it! Thanks for the amazing product. 

 

richardandtracy

EddieWilton, that is a great image. Love the colours. However, I think yo may have done something I've done too, and that's have the minimum biome height below water level, giving a bit of a flooded forest effect. If the minimum level is set to 0 or 1, then there will be a shoreline effect.

ED3D_3188521

richardandtracy said:

EddieWilton, that is a great image. Love the colours. However, I think yo may have done something I've done too, and that's have the minimum biome height below water level, giving a bit of a flooded forest effect. If the minimum level is set to 0 or 1, then there will be a shoreline effect.

Great info richardandtracy!  Thank you 

videoninja719

is the scene created exportable to like unreal engine maya or 3ds max?

alexhcowley

videoninja719 said:

is the scene created exportable to like unreal engine maya or 3ds max?

USXT, like the original US, generates bog-standard DAZ Studio geometry plus loads and loads and loads of instances. If the unreal engine or 3DS Max support instances then you should be able to export them. If they do not support instances then it won't work. 

Cheers,

Alex. 

videoninja719

alexhcowley said:

videoninja719 said:

is the scene created exportable to like unreal engine maya or 3ds max?

USXT, like the original US, generates bog-standard DAZ Studio geometry plus loads and loads and loads of instances. If the unreal engine or 3DS Max support instances then you should be able to export them. If they do not support instances then it won't work. 

Cheers,

Alex. 
 

awesome thank you

AnEye4Art

AnEye4Art said:

I thought that I had the terrain banding in USXT figured out but I am still getting very terrible banding mostly from imported maps and I think I know why. The greyscale hight map is the a scaled down version of the high resolution hieghtmap that I imported. Well the scaled down version is what's causing the banding. What ever compression method being employed by USXT is causing the severe banding. My imported heightmaps are 4096x4096 but USXT's version is only 1024x1024, which causes the banding. The greyscale is from the USXT's map folder and the *red map is the imported one. A closer look at USXT's map one can see the visible banding and image tiling squares. No smoothing is fixing it. Any smoothing above 2 only washes out the details for me. Plus I've tried all acceptable image formats and the results are the same. I really hope Howie will fix this soon.

*Please note that this site did compress the red heightmap and so the slight banding in the image is because of this.

An update to the USXT terrain banding issue: While USXT does compress larger imported textures down to 1024x1024, this may not be causing the severe banding. I say this because there's no banding if i import a maptiler sattelite heightmap into USXT - even when compressed to 1024x1024. But if I create some mountain terrains using filters in WC, import into USXT, the banding is there. 8 or 16 bit float will not help either no matter what image format. I am currently seeking info about this issue on the WC forum.

Artini

videoninja719 said:

alexhcowley said:

videoninja719 said:

is the scene created exportable to like unreal engine maya or 3ds max?

USXT, like the original US, generates bog-standard DAZ Studio geometry plus loads and loads and loads of instances. If the unreal engine or 3DS Max support instances then you should be able to export them. If they do not support instances then it won't work. 

Cheers,

Alex. 
 

awesome thank you

Please post some images from Unreal, if you succed to export UltraSceneryXT, there.

I am also interested to see export to Unity, as well.

 

WendyLuvsCatz

nm

richardandtracy

DS does not seem to export instances in any way in an Obj file. The obj file format (explanation given here: http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/obj/) seems to allow for a line that says

call  filename.ext arg1 arg2 . . .

 This could be used for every instance with arg1, arg2 etc being used for translation, rotation and scale offsets. But it doesn't seem to be. That way it is possible for the instance could be specified in the called file & the recieving application could possibly determine how it handles multiple calls of the same file.

So, the file format mechanism to do it is there. The facility isn't written in.

I think there is an additional problem. IIRC, Howie said the instances were created on the fly just before rendering & deleted after the render in a sucessful effort to reduce machine load. So... there won't be any instances in the machine to export anyway. Makes it a bit more difficult.

Regards,

Richard.

 

 

WendyLuvsCatz

NM

jag11

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I think Howie or someone else would need to write an importer plugin, just one that does instances in place as nulls you can select and replace with browser selection would be nice.

I do know other softwares can see Carrara replicators as null locations in an FBX export and I have used that to my advantage with replace functions but I have had no luck with DAZ instances.

they all land at 0,0,0

with one exception, iClone, but it's a one at a time duplicate, attach in place job

UltrasceneryXT creates instances at render time, once the render is done the instances are disposed. For someone to be able to export scene with instances, UltrasceneryXT should have an option to create non disposable instances or even better, include an export module.

smaker1

WendyLuvsCatz said:

yeah Ultrascatter also collapses like instances which is why it doesn't work in Octane render let alone export to another software

(I obviously don't have USXT, I do look at your posts out of curiousity only, but as an Unreal user am interested in any thing that would make exporting DAZ scenes with instances in general easier to use)

Octane works with Ultrascatter (see image), Ultrascenery XT (see Tugpsx renders on page 8 of this topic) and Ultrascenery . Only limitation on my config is I can't work with Ultrascenery (and maybe XT) and Octane plug at the same time but there is a way to manage it.

SimonJM

I seem to have resolved the issue I had with US XT - BE SURE TO SET Instance Optimization to Memory!

Small exmaple of me using it

Tugpsx

SimonJM said:

I seem to have resolved the issue I had with US XT - BE SURE TO SET Instance Optimization to Memory!

Small exmaple of me using it

Awesome  job. Thanks for sharing your drone cam footage. 

Tugpsx

 

On the Octane issue:
Since the instances are generated just prior to rendering, if you want to use them in Octane start an iRay render to allow them to generate and pause the render in early stage or set pass to very low.  The instances will become available to Octane and the viewport will update. 
The above process is not necessary for all USXT scenes just the more intense scenes with lots of lush vegetation. 

smaker1

Tugpsx said:

 

On the Octane issue:
Since the instances are generated just prior to rendering, if you want to use them in Octane start an iRay render to allow them to generate and pause the render in early stage or set pass to very low.  The instances will become available to Octane and the viewport will update. 
The above process is not necessary for all USXT scenes just the more intense scenes with lots of lush vegetation. 

Thanks for the tip Tugpsx as I still didn't have time to test . Was worried about compatibility but after seeing your renders not anymore :-) !   

Paper Tiger

barbult said:

Gogger said:

HowieFarkes said:

Gogger said:

Sooo... I seem to be missing something. Purchased, and installed via DIM, the directory shows up right next to Ultrascenery but there are only supporting folders, Materials, Plants, etc. but nothing to actually run like Ultrascenery has in its root. I tried loading a preset, thinking it might trigger USXT to pop up - nothing. I even ran Ultrascenery and looked for XT elements in that but nothing. What am I missing?  I uninstalled USXT, shut down DAZ and reinstalled USXT then restarted DAZ - still nothing. 

USXT shows up in 'Installed Plugins' with a green plug.

DAZ Studio v4.20.0.6 Pro Edition and my computer hardware is well within spec. The original Ultrascenery runs fine.

Any ideas?

 

Go to Window -> Panes (Tabs) -> UltraSceneryXT from the Studio menu bar to open the UI

Excellent - thanks, that's got it. So, uh, I normally can figure stuff out, or at least not get helplessly lost. Was how to launch USXT super obvious to everyone else but me? Did I miss some documentation some where? Regardless, I am happily rendering my little heart out right now!

There's documentation in PDF form. UltraSceneryXT Reference Guide.pdf in the ReadMe's folder.

Am I the only one who got USXT with no documentation whatsoever? There are no pdfs. There is no readme folder. It was installed using install manager :/ I've got the USXT Terrain loaded, SunSky settings apply just fine, but no material settings or presets ever seem to apply. The terrain is just a barren rock when it's rendered, and no documentation to help me figure out what im doing wrong :(

DoctorJellybean

The PDF should be in

C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\docs\Plugins\UltraSceneryXT.

Do a search for UltraSceneryXT.pdf

Paper Tiger

DoctorJellybean said:

The PDF should be in

C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\docs\Plugins\UltraSceneryXT.

Do a search for UltraSceneryXT.pdf

Thanks, I've got my daz library and plugins saved to an external drive, it appears it installs the documentation on C:/ drive regardless of the plugin install path you have set, so that was causing the confusion. Also had some issues where it wasn't saving any of the image maps, this only changed when i moved the save directory to the same location as the scene file. But, it's all figured out now, I appreciate it :)

barbult

Paper Tiger said:

DoctorJellybean said:

The PDF should be in

C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\docs\Plugins\UltraSceneryXT.

Do a search for UltraSceneryXT.pdf

Thanks, I've got my daz library and plugins saved to an external drive, it appears it installs the documentation on C:/ drive regardless of the plugin install path you have set, so that was causing the confusion. Also had some issues where it wasn't saving any of the image maps, this only changed when i moved the save directory to the same location as the scene file. But, it's all figured out now, I appreciate it :)

For future reference: When you install a product with DIM, you can right click on the installed package in DIM and select Show Installed Files. It will give you links directly to each installed file in that package.

Paper Tiger

Well, sadly. Now it's locking on an attempt to render, gets stuck on "Reading Asset" during UltraSceneryXT Pre-Flight. Been sitting here for 6 minutes now, so that's the next hurdle to figure out. >.<

barbult

Paper Tiger said:

Well, sadly. Now it's locking on an attempt to render, gets stuck on "Reading Asset" during UltraSceneryXT Pre-Flight. Been sitting here for 6 minutes now, so that's the next hurdle to figure out. >.<

As far as I can see, DIM doesn't configure a separate path for plugins. Are you installing the Daz Studio application to your external drive also, not just your content library and plugins? I have my content library on a path other than C, but my Daz Studio application and plugins are installed in subfolders of C:/Program Files. UltraSceneryXT is working fine in that setup.

Paper Tiger

barbult said:

Paper Tiger said:

Well, sadly. Now it's locking on an attempt to render, gets stuck on "Reading Asset" during UltraSceneryXT Pre-Flight. Been sitting here for 6 minutes now, so that's the next hurdle to figure out. >.<

As far as I can see, DIM doesn't configure a separate path for plugins. Are you installing the Daz Studio application to your external drive also, not just your content library and plugins? I have my content library on a path other than C, but my Daz Studio application and plugins are installed in subfolders of C:/Program Files. UltraSceneryXT is working fine in that setup.

I don't, My C Drive is ridiculously small, with all the size of over 400 daz assets, i just decided to move it all to the external drive. I'm guessing i just *assumed* that it would install the plugins on the E:/ drive as well, but they've all worked so far. That said, I managed to get it working. It looks like there was a specific HDRI I was using (that I had never used before) that Daz just doesn't like. I loaded an empty scene with only that HDRI, and it locked up on me. Using another HDRI, i managed to render my first USXT shot :) It's nothing particularly fancy, but at least i have it running now :)

sandmanmax

eddiewhitton said:

I'm lovin' it! Thanks for the amazing product. 
 

This is gorgeous!  How did you set your camera to get so much included in the image?

sandmanmax

Are there any snow-capped mountains in USX somewhere?  I could have sworn I've seen images like that. Every time I click on something that I think is such, it ends up just being grey rocks.  There's nothing in the Terrain Properties Material list that looks like snow.  Have I missed some more materials or settings somewhere? Or is my mind playing tricks on me and making me think the grey rocks are snow because they're so far away?

HowieFarkes

sandmanmax said:

Are there any snow-capped mountains in USX somewhere?  I could have sworn I've seen images like that. Every time I click on something that I think is such, it ends up just being grey rocks.  There's nothing in the Terrain Properties Material list that looks like snow.  Have I missed some more materials or settings somewhere? Or is my mind playing tricks on me and making me think the grey rocks are snow because they're so far away?

Just getting grey rocks usually indicates that the Save Location for the Terrain Maps has been incorrectly set or not been set at all. The material requires a flow map and a cavity map that are generated by the plugin and if it can't find them then it defaults to just grey rock.

JOdel

Purchased it. But didn't get around to installing my last few weeks of purchased content until yesterday.

The installer, for Mac 64bit refuses to run.It launches, but I never get a splash screen or anything beyond the program name in my menubar. 

There was additional content, like most of the rest of the UltraScenery modules which I installed manually like the rest of them. But whatever is in that installer doesn't seem to want to come out.

HowieFarkes

JOdel said:

Purchased it. But didn't get around to installing my last few weeks of purchased content until yesterday.

The installer, for Mac 64bit refuses to run.It launches, but I never get a splash screen or anything beyond the program name in my menubar. 

There was additional content, like most of the rest of the UltraScenery modules which I installed manually like the rest of them. But whatever is in that installer doesn't seem to want to come out.

Are you using an M1 Mac? - because unfortunately UltraSceneryXT does not yet work on that platform.

Destiny's Design

Does the product come with a tutorial at all? Or a guide. I bought it, but couldn't see one, and for some reason I'm really really struggling to use it. No matter what I seem to do it is just a plain displacement mapped plane with what looks like it could be the bedrock texture on it. Nothing else, no trees, no grass or sand, nothing except height and bedrock. And looking at the renders y'all have done i know 8 could really love this product.