Instances Plus
Melissa Conway
Posts: 590
in The Commons
I snapped this up as soon as I saw it in the store, as I'm working on a forest scene where it will surely come in handy instancing the trees, plants and grass. I watched the video on YouTube, but because the DAZ workspace viewport is zoomed out in the video, I can't read anything, and there is no voice-over instruction. Does anyone know whether there are written instructions for the product? I looked, but didn't find them.
Thanks. 
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I saw that, too. Even at the max resolution of 720 HD and full screen, I couldn't read it. I don't know if there is other documentation or not.
The product looks interesting, and I am very tempted. I like the way you can specify an uneven ground object in order to drop down on. On some other threads it has been discussed how to get good looking geometry grass onto uneven hills, since the AoA grass shader does not work in iRay. One option using this, would be to create a few small grass clumps, instance them over the top of the hill (the script can vary the size slightly for each clump), and then getting the script to drop the clumps down onto the hill in to the correct position.
As far as documentation is concerned, if you understand instancing, then how to use the script looks fairly self explanatory by looking at the titles in each box inside the screen shots. However I agree with you regarding the video, it has been too heavily compressed making the text totally unreadable.
Even on my sharpest (28in monitor), with my best reading glasses and zoomed in, there is no way I can read much of that.
Maybe ask DraagonStorm if you can download the video, use a player you can control the speed/pause in (on another screen) and step through it side by side with DS???
Can't find any other documentation. There is no PDF/HTM with the installed content nor linked from the ReadMe page.
I am tickled to have inspired DraagonStorm (in the product suggestions forum) to make this. ;)
I'm sure I'll figure it out. Just checking if there was documentation I missed. It really does look like an excellent product, and I'm a big fan of anything that will help make things easier.
Ah, so it is your fault I'll be spendng more money, Will.
edit: forgot to add: It looks like a great product. I saw the video before the release on DraagonStorm's Youtube channel and the only thing I could think of was when? I was waiting with baited breath for this to come out.
I didn't write a user's guide... I'm just not that good at writting in human..... It always tends to look like sudo-computer code.
As for the quality of the video, I'm pretty sure that's from the compression when adding titles and such for upload... I do have the original screen captures that are readable in .avi format. The link to download those is: http://www.draagonstorm.com/tempdl/BSR_Instances.zip
And yes, Thank timmins.william for making the suggestion in the product suggestions forum :)
Great, thanks so much DraagonStorm! And thanks to Will for suggesting the product. I wonder if I might suggest something (assuming it's not already something the script does)? Would it be possible to have a ring-shaped bounding box? That would make it beyond simple to create a surrounding forest...
Brilliant DraagonStorm. Those avi's are much sharper. I can read them on a 19" monitor without reading glasses. Cheers.
I'm sure it's possible, but my math skills lack in that area... It's been over a few decades since I've done that kind of math :(
You and your fellow vendors need a technical writer willing to write the documentation and/or user guides in exchange for a copy of the products. Technical writers are trained how to take the code you programmers write and turn it into plain English. At least, they did when I took classes in college eons ago. Who knows what they are taught now. But, it would definitely save you some money if you could find one and some lucky smuck er talented writer would get free DAZ products.
Ahhh college and the Real World... I remember those days in college (the early 80's) when all you dealt with was theory, and no one warned you what it's really like out there...
I've been a professional programmer since 1985... I've worked from hugh aerospace to a company with 4 employees... And never once had a Technical Writer I could turn my program over to. We all just winged it. But then again what I wrote was usually to a customers request, or the system had been demo'd by a salesman and included training when installed.. So they had some idea of what they had in front of them. Twice I attempted to write a user's guide per my bosses request for a large program that I was working on..... He rewrote both of them.
Which is precisely why I never actually got a job as a technical writer. I got a job for something else and did technical writing. Back in the early eighties. My husband is a programmer and he does all of his own documentation and user guides. He never had a technical writer in any of his consulting jobs either. Very rarely, he gave me stuff to go over, but usually only to see if a new user would be able to follow it. Most people get trained how to use the equipment he programs so brand spanking new users are actually quite rare. At least, they are supposed to get trained. There have been rarely occasions where he has had phone conferences with new users in a company that had been trained or trained without all of the information needed. He can't do let me help with his latest job as he now works for someone else instead of himself and things have to stay 'in' the company since a lot of their stuff is proprietary. I haven't even done technical writing in years as my first love is fiction, so I don't even know if they still have technical writing as a track in any English departments anymore. That may be one of those things that went by the wayside.
draagonstorm - if you have a few moments, could you compare/contrast this product and http://www.daz3d.com/send-in-the-clones-ds4-pro.
Much appreciated!
Ray
For one Send In The Clones does not do true instances, So more memory is being used... And there's a few things I've 'learned' that has been included in Instances Plus+, Like the bounding box, and camera movements to view the bounding box.
If you want things to look different, textures, shaders, poses, morphs or clothing on figures you would want to use Send In The Clones.
Now that I've figured out how to use this product (it's actually quite simple), I'm even more impressed. One thing I did learn is that once you populate your area with instances, you can't go back to the Selections tab and change to another node in order to use the exact same settings. If you do, the plugin will *act* like it's cranking out the instances, but nothing will appear in your scene. You must close out the script and start over each time. Is that right? Or am I missing a check-box or something..?
FINALLY picked up the product I suggested. ;)
Attempting to arrange 200 poplar trees along some sandy soil... I'm excited...
I just bought this and I am completely frustrated by it.
The Create Instances seems to work, but when I try to use the Arrange Selected, as soon as I click the Process button, the script locks up and never does anything, as far as I can see in the viewport. I have to click the X in the upper right corner to close the script dialog, because the Process button and Close button are grayed out forever. Then later when I close Daz Studio, it crashes with a fatal error.
I am running DS 4.9.1.30 on Windows 10 64 bit. HELP!
And what are the LoadCamera, LoadNull, and LoadRandomBoundingBox scripts for? When are they supppsed to be used?
Over all I am very happy with the Instances Plus+.... It does what is says it will do. But there is an issue working with Ginormous spaces. The one part of this tool I loved was the "Drop to Surface" this worked wonderfully, and saved me from having to drop the items to the ground surface. The small tests I did using it with Millennium Environment were excellent, it gave me a nive random covering of about ten different bushes and flowers. (You have to process each item on it's own)
But today I was trying to do the background forest bit for a large set, and I am using Eco Maniac3D's EM - Aspen Billboards And Forests single trees. I would like to use the EM - MultiRes Aspen Trees, but the trees are made up of three parts, place in a Group, and Instances Plus+ can't Instance a Asset Groups or Assets in a Group. (That is not a limitation of Instance Plus+, it is how Instances are Work, you have to work within the rules.)
Again I really like the "Drop Down/Up" function, due to of the rolling hill in my scene, as you can see in the image below.
So I selected a larger area I wanted covered with Billboard Trees, (X min-15000 to 15000 and Z min-5000 to Z max -15000. (Yes that is 30000 virtual Square Meters)) and 250 of the trees, and they all ended up on one side of the boundary, from -15000 to -5000 and -5000 to -10000 or a 10000 x 5000 area)
So my next group was X min -5000 to X max 15000 (same Z) the tree were placed in the from -5000 to 5000 same depth on the Y about 5000 units.
No problem I set X min 5000 to X max 15000 and did it again, Only this time the trees only went to the between 5000 and 10000.
So I moved he box to be from X min 5000 to max 15000 and Z min -5000 Z max 0 and again the trees only filled between 5000 and 10000 again.
A most curious thing happened when I tried to fill in the area between X min 10000 and X max 15000 it put all the trees in a line at 12500 line. We I moved the Z from -10000 to -15000 all the threes were again lined up at the 12500 line. When I moved the box to X min 10000 and X max 15000 and Z from -10000 to -15000, all the trees ended up at X12500, Z-12500.
Thinking there was a Maximum size of the Boundary Box, I moved it to X min -15000 to X max -5000 and Z min -5000 to max 0 but this time the trees stopped at the -10000 line.
Below is the image of the total area and the various tests I made.
SO... from this I've learned:
For most people Instances Plus+ will work just fine, as they fill a small vignette scene with various wild flowers, but for monster Set Builders there might be issues, But there are workarounds, once you know the limitations.
A few Suggestions for people using Instances Plus+:
So again I'm Very Happy. This is a Great Tool for those who want to have more than a flat, pre-rendered, vignettes or you want to add random trash to a street scene that looks like "RANDOM TRASH!", without taking hours. (Our eyes tend to want things in order. Unless your name is Stonemason, his eyes RUIN everything!
) Even with the limitations, which I have found several workaround for, this will work for me and make my life easier.
I do have Two suggestions for DragonStorm:
Build this as a plug in, which would allow us to work with the Viewport.
Give us the option of putting the instances in a Group, it just saves moving them after the fact.
Haslor
I have to say that I finally had a chance to play with this, too, and it certainly saved me time when it came to randomly placing a larg number of plants! I'm just starting to explore what it can do, but so far, I love it. It has already saved me a ton of time with a jungle I wanted to build. Now, I have an ocean floor to populate with coral and I'm excited to get back to a project that I put on the back burner because placing each plant was just too time consuming. I think this script will save me hours of time!
They are created by the script.
LoadRandomBoundingBox This the loading of the Bounding Box or Instancing Boundary Box.
LoadCamera This is the loading of the Instances Camera, (Note: I suggest Creating a Camera Prior to starting Instances Plus+, it is easier to do it graphically in the viewport.)
LoadNull This is the Loading of the Null, Which is used by Instances Plus+, It moves the Null and then makes and instance of the Asset at the Null.out
I mainly use this for the Random instancing of Props. So I put about 45 asset in a scene and tried the Arrange.
I selected all the the Assets I wanted to arrange and chose Arrange and Random. out of the 45 items it moved 15. no matter how many times chose in the middle column it only moved 15.
I also Experience the Crash Barbult talks about, but mine didn't crash DAZ Studio until I exited.
Right, that is what happened to me as far as crashing goes. It crashed when I exited Daz Studio. "Then later when I close Daz Studio, it crashes with a fatal error."
Have you managed to get it to work at all? I haven't done anything yet that has made it crash and I've mostly just been playing around clicking buttons figuring it out. So far, it has worked fine for me with the usual user errors that occur when I try to do something, but don't know what I'm doing. I'm also using the same version of DS, but I'm still using DIM to install everything. I haven't done anything with Connect yet.
To give you an idea:
Here is a Base load of Millennium Environment with the Magic Falls Texture. (this is a 4 minute render with iray in Photoreal with a GeFore 650ti). It is nice, and I use it, but there is a lot of blank space. It looks more like a well groomed lawn then a forest glen. Normally I take the time so drop a bunch of bushes and stuff in, to make if more life like. The plants so help hide characters floating above the ground or the ones up to their ankles in the mud.
With Instances Plus+ two minutes later, using only the assets that came with ME, I now have a wild forest glen filled with life. (This was a 5 minute render on the 650ti in Photoreal mode.)
Now if there was only an iray version of AoA's Grass Shader for DAZ Studio, the procedural grass would hide the edges of the plants where they meet the floor.
That's why I like this tool.
Wanted to add one more shot:
Haslor
One thing I noticed is that if your bounding box exceeds the "drop down" object (I was trying to see if I could use object bounds as a way to get non-rectangular areas . . . . no dice
), it has a tendency to scatter your instances far and wide.
Also, be aware that the 250 instances limit is "per play", so you can run the tool over and over with different objects or even the same one, if you need the density. And "Instance preview -> Off" is your friend! I only wish it preserved settings between sessions - it's quite often necessary to drop out to the viewport and back in again. Writing everything down on pencil and paper in order to type it back in is so last century!
Oh, and it also moves the original object. I wish it wouldn't.
Haven't experienced the crash yet.
I wonder if it can align object normals (really handy if you're dropping things on slopes) . . . ?
It only crashes for me if I go back and use the "Arrange Selected" tab to rearrange some instances the tool put down earlier.
Hmm, I'll have to try that. I don't think I've used that yet.
Yes, noticed you have to be above the drop opject surface it appears.
The bigger issue is the space limit, though I have not tried to do a -10000x-10000 to 10000x10000 to see if that would work.
It moves the origal objecct into the Boundary area, before it starts, or I always find it there.
That is the idea, about the align, you can drop a bunch of object in align them or spread them around ramdomly. I was thinking of small road segments, droping them in succession to make a smoth road that follows the surface of the selected object.
To help those looking at Instance Plus+, I've did a little homework and brought out more pointers to whose wanting to use it. During my testing, I discovered a few more things, which might save people headaches:
I was able to get the Arrange to work consistently, as long as the surface is completely in the bounding box. So if you have a Hill and a Lake, The Bound Box has to be taller than the Hills and Lower than the lake. Like the left, not the right.
That said, I still have not been able to arrange more than 15 items, no matter how many I have selected. I think that is a bug in the tool.
The random placement of instanced Props work really well, but there are a few annoying but livable limitations. Working with the terrain above, I placed about a hundred instances of props, with a few "Interesting" results, which added to my tips list, below.
One of the more interesting.... some of the Asset in this scene are rather wide and flat; and the terrain is hilly. In the valley floor these were not an issue; but on the hills, several of them were sticking out of the side of the hill. Notice the over hanging ground cover in the upper right corner and the two Grass props, sticking out of the hills on the left side. So you have to be careful to match the bounding box and props to the surface you are going to cover.
Also the bounding box is a Cube, aligned on the straight, but let say you don’t have a Straight area, then you have to pick up the Rotate your ground plane to a best fit, then bring it back. after about ten minutes I had populated the area with ten instances of each of about 25 to 30 shrubs and plants. (Note: while createing the images for this, I forgot to save the before render, so the one above is several hours younger than the one below. Also most of those shrubs are taller than the characters and while it looked like a good idea at the time, the shrubs precluded you from seeing the actors in the scene. This is why I say check you Props before you start, you might find you have 330 props which won't work and you have to delete.)
So a Few added Tips from what I suggested above:
Things to do before you run the tool:
Setting up the tool for the task you want to do:
Post Instancing:
Issues and how to avoid them:
Again I am happy with the tool, though I would like to know why there is a fifteen item limitation on arrange. No matter how many things I pick, it only arranged 15 itmes at a time.
Suggestions for DragonStorm for Version 2:
I hope this will help lessens people's frustration
Haslor
Note: There is a fair amount of good inexpensive prop content from the old RDNA's Deep Freeze products, which Daz acquired in the RDNA deal. Among them are the Rocks and small buildings, Microcosm has a rather extensive library of trees, bushes, flowers and grass props. Daz had placed some of these in their PC+ Club and is offering them at a good price. Personally I hope Daz also acquired and will make available, the older MicroCosm products, which are still usable for making vignettes to large scenes. All of the Terrain, Props, plants and other goodies, I've used for my images, are from that collection.