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Oh, I understand what you meant by "the horse" now. You meant the horse looking part of the Upland 1 feature, not a rigged horse figure that you added to the scene.
I see that there are things added to the scene, though, but all of them appear to be set to be not visible (eye icon turned off).
I'm still investigating. The problem seems to be related to the verge instances (verge is the area near the path). Your scene has way to many verge instances, and they appear to cover the entire terrain, when they should just outline the edge of the path. Maybe the verge mask is missing??
The horse is part of the Uplands 1 feature. It's horse-like figure embedded in the landscape like the path we've been discussing. There are a couple other small props, a couple of docks I use to replace the default US1 docks on some of the features. They don't interfere with Britain 5, so they shouldn't interfere with anything else.
Most of the missing items are environmental. You see the same issue as I do without those, so they aren't a concern.
I think we did some cross posting there. Yes, I understand "the horse" refrence now. The problem seems related to verge, but I'm not sure yet what caused the problem. Still looking...
It is still important to know if you can build UltraScenery Upland 2 and Britain 6 in an empty scene without other props of any kind. That will help determine whether files are missing or those extra props (even if environmental) are the cause of the problem.
If anything was missing, there were no warnings, either as a popup, or in the log.
I did as you asked and loaded a clean scene, and loaded the Ultracenery Britain 6 and Uplands 2. Same problem. Right now I'm hiding individual layers and re-rendering to see if something is hiding the path. The odd thing is, the path and horse are NOT hidden with the same ecology in Uplands 1.
It is the verge layers that are hiding the path, as far as I can tell. If you sort by type in the UltraScenery Build tab, you will see that there are 3 verge layers.
I have to say that I am shocked that you still see the problem in a clean scene, though. I cannot reproduce that at all. You haven't moved the UltraScenery terrain or anything have you?
I don't see anything called "verge mask" or anything close. The only masks that show up in the terrain surfaces are Roadbase Layer Mask and Roadsurface Layer Mask.
Looks like it's the Base Verge Layer that's hiding most of it. I hide that, and I can now see the path. That seems odd.
If I load your scene, as is, and render it, I see the problem. If I load your scene and select the UltraScene and rebuild it, I do not have the problem. One difference is that I don't have those extra props that you have in the scene. But you said you had the same problem when you did Upland 2 and Britain in a clean scene, so that would imply the the props are not the problem. Evidently, something is different in they way your system builds the scene and the way my system builds the scene.
When you create your clean scene, do you start with a completely empty scene with all default settings, or do you start with a startup scene with some preset render settings and camera and perhaps other things in the scene?
I typically have a custom startup scene. But I disabled that in order to have a perfectly empty scene, and still see the problem. See my last comment, it's the Base Verge layer that's covering the path.
I loaded Upland 1, which doesn't have this problem, and there are no additional masks in that. So I'm at a loss as to why Upland 2 is such a problem child.
The verge mask is used internally in the info.json file of the Feature (Upland 2 in this case). The verge file mask is "/runtime/textures/TangoAlpha/USC/features/TA_Upland_02_vergemask.png"
It is a very strange mystery. I haven't given up. Thanks for all the tests you are doing. I want to get to the bottom of this. It is hard, since I cannot create the problem myself. I only see it when I render the scene you provided.
Well, there we go. I have no TA_Upland_02_vergemask.png in that folder. I do for Upload 1, but not 2. I haven't moved any textures, so it's extremely off that just one is missing. I re-installed everything I have. Where is that file installed from?
Aha! The file should be in UltraScenery - Landscape Features Volume 1. But I don't see it in the DIM package for that product. TA_Upland_01_vergemask.png is there, but not the one for Upland 2. And yet, I have it on my system. This product is about 3 years old, so I don't remember all the history behind it. I have done a lot of pre-release testing for UltraScenery related products. It is possible that the file was included in a test package but omitted from the final release. I can't remember whether that was one of the products I tested, though. I think you found a genuine bug. You should submit a bug report about the missing file.
When I compare TA_Upland_02_vergemask.png with TA_Upland_01_vergemask.png, they look identical. As a workaround, I think you can just make a copy of TA_Upland_01_vergemask.png and name it TA_Upland_02_vergemask.png. (It is even possible that I did that same thing at one point. It has been too long, and I am too old to remember.
)
I'm with ya on the remembering
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I did make a copy of the upland 1 verge mask, and renamed it. It sort of worked. The base verge layer is still covering the path, but I can see the path underneath it. There are also 2 other maps that upland 1 has that 2 doesn't: TA_Upland_01_heightmap, and TA_Upland_01_forestmask. I made copies of those as well. And voila! The path is now clear!
Thanks very much for your help!
That is strange that you had to copy those additional 2 masks, because the Upland 2 feature uses the TA_Upland_01_heightmap; it does not use an 02 versions. It does not use a forestmask at all. it uses TA_Upland_02_fieldmask for the forest layer type. (At least in the version of the info.json file I have.) You can see all of this information in the feature's info.json file in Environments\Landscapes\UltraScenery\Features\TA Upland 02.
You are welcome for the help!
All I know is what works, and I'm happy. It's kind of a dirty trick that those files aren't in the materials settings. Would have saved me a lot of trouble.
FWIW I just checked my features folder, and I don't have the verge mask for Upland 2 either. But I do have it for Upland 1. I haven't had a chance to check in DS, but I'm assuming I'd get the same bug.
Well, I'm glad to know it's not just me. It may also depend on whether you've got some of the add-ons.
The reason I found this was because I've been rendering, systematically, all the feature sets and ecologies I own, as battlemaps for role-playing games. I've done several hundred so far, and this one feature has been a thorn in my side the whole time.
Just tested this. Without copying the verge map, the scene took about 20 minutes to build, and my whole system was unresponsive. Wouldn't render.
Having copied and renamed the verge map, the scene built in 23 seconds and rendered in three minutes.
Hard to believe no-one has had that exact combination before, but that was some sleuthing Barbult & SteelRat.
I have just noticed (& I may be a bit late) that US1 is on sale. If you haven't got it - why not? The time to remedy that oversight is now.
Regards,
Richard
I've messaged TangoAlpha about the problem with the missing file. I haven't heard back yet.
I spoke to soon. He has responded and said he would submit a fix.
I've never met an UltraScenery problem I couldn't eventually resolve. Now I have probably jinxed myself!
UltraScenery (the original) is on bargain basement sale, but UltraScenery2 is MUCH faster and has a more informative and interactive interface.
Good work on these issues. Hope to get updated version in Dim.
Funny, I do actually feel more comfortable with the US1 layout. US2 is quicker and it's nice to be able to make different components of the biome visible at a time to check for camera occlusion. But.. I feel I've got the model in the machine with US1 in a way it doesn't seem to be visibly present in the scene tree in US2. With US1 you can <theoretically only because there are too many> pick an individual tree instance & delete it. I don't feel I have that theoretical control in US2. It's probably a 'me' problem..
Regards,
Richard
Just read the full 30 posts and yeah, great work on the sleuthing @barbult. My weird memory seems to remember an issue like this, if not this one years ago. But it only clicked when you came up with the fix.
I've only dabbled with US2. For my needs, US1 is superior, unless US2 has changed recently.
With US1 I can hide all the trees with a few clicks, and render just the ground. Then I can hide the ground and all the groundcover, and render just the trees. It's what I need to make role-playing game encounter maps so that the trees can be hidden or made transparent for icon placement. If US2 allows that now, I will definitely have to take another look.
That's kind of what was happening to me. Though it would render, but did take a very long time to build, especially on geometry and materials. I suspect part of it was the system scanning the entire runtime (mine is VERY large) for the missing file. But since it's inside a .json and not a "regular material", there were no error messages.
I was curious because USC1 is a script if the scene would call for anything during a render and have issues in the DS6. I put together a simple scene in DS 4.24 to test it. When I opened it in DS6, I realized I needed adjust the scene size and a few other things on the render screen. DS6 jammed up. I killed the process. Reopened DS 4.24, fixed the file, saved and closed down. Rebooted. Opened DS6, loaded the new scene and started the render. This was on my MacMini M4. An hour and 48 minutes later, it finished. (While I was doing this, I was opening my Windows 11 laptop and ran right into Nvidia Studio Driver and Windows OS updates and then noise, lots of noise.)
The one thing I love about USC2 is the ability to not render what is not in the camera view. But when I am not stressed I am going to try USC2.
Mary