DA Big Ocean needs instructions.

2

Comments

  • alexhcowleyalexhcowley Posts: 2,308

    Thanks Alex,

    I had a look and there is a small visible seam on one of the normal maps. You can download a file update at the below link while I see what I can do about an official update which may take a little while due to the holidays. Thanks for locating this and hope your happy with the Ocean set other than this small issue.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/icpod0tsosqbfpj/DAWaterNorm7.tif?dl=0

    Just replace the original file with this amended version in the texture folder > DAOceansTextures

    All the best for the holidays

     

    DA,

    I've downloaded the new normal map and I'll give it a test run when I get a spare minute. 

    Thanks for the fast support.

    Cheers,

    Alex.

  • tkdroberttkdrobert Posts: 3,532

    I played with this some last night.  I was unable to get a calm water effect.  I loaded the default and tried to apply different shaders, but nothing changed.  I also had problems loading the decals.  I didn't have a lot of time to figure things out last night.  Reading this thread, I'm still not sure what I did wrong.  The scene I wanted to do required white caps and heavy rain, so I abandoned the clam water and just did what I needed.  I left the image rendering last night, so I can't show it yet. 

    In the near furture, I want to do a render with an aircraft carrier, so I need to figure out how to apply the wake decals.  The decals are why I baught this product. 

    The tip about not turing off the ground was helpful.

  • tkdroberttkdrobert Posts: 3,532

    This is what I managed to do.  Water effects in the lower right-hand corner were done in Photoshop.

    Pacific Rim: Saber Athena by tkdrobert

  • AlmightyQUESTAlmightyQUEST Posts: 1,940

    Since they are shader presets, make sure you have both the ocean plane prop selected AND the surface selected. If you aren't seeing any difference in the renders that may be the issue, if you don't have the surface selected.

    Not sure on the decals without more detail, other than if you aren't in iray preview mode, decals won't show until render I believe.

  • tkdroberttkdrobert Posts: 3,532
    edited March 2019

    Since they are shader presets, make sure you have both the ocean plane prop selected AND the surface selected. If you aren't seeing any difference in the renders that may be the issue, if you don't have the surface selected.

    Not sure on the decals without more detail, other than if you aren't in iray preview mode, decals won't show until render I believe.

    DOH!! That was probably it.  Rookie mistake.  I should know better.

    Post edited by tkdrobert on
  • AlmightyQUESTAlmightyQUEST Posts: 1,940

    Definitely threw me off before too :) . Hope you get it working how you wanted, I like what you did with the render above! Looks good.

  • Hi tkdrobert, I really like the render!

    The decals are like a projector and must be partnered to another piece of geometry to display and like AlmightQUEST mentioned unforntunately they only show in Iray preview mode and not the standard textured preview in the Viewport, the same as the base ocean shader.

    The easiest way to load them is to select the DA Big Ocean Sea Plane in the Scene tab and go to the folder "Add Decals -  Foam and Wake" and ALT drag the icon of the wake you want onto the desired location in the Viewport with Iray Preview mode as the display type.

    Let me know if this helps or there is anything else I can help to answer.

  • BendinggrassBendinggrass Posts: 1,367

    It seams I just discovered this product and this discussion.

    What a wonderful product, and so much great help here.

    This is something I want to get. Thanks, Design Anvil.

  • escrandallescrandall Posts: 487

    I'm glad I found this thread.  I picked up Deep Ocean on the March Madness sale and must say it looks impressive.  I also have Palm Island, which goes well with it.   Now many be we had some coral reefs and other types of islands?...

     

    Dream work Design Anvil!

  • TomDowdTomDowd Posts: 197
    edited April 2019

    See the attached in-progress render - using Big Ocean, and I see pixelation in the wake decal. 

    Does anyone have any thoughts? (It's a 23-minute render, to completion.)

    Thanks!

    Seaview_Above_1a.jpg
    3000 x 1688 - 2M
    Post edited by TomDowd on
  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    TomDowd said:

    See the attached in-progress render - using Big Ocean, and I see pixelation in the wake decal. 

    Does anyone have any thoughts? (It's a 23-minute render, to completion.)

    Does that last bit mean you're using the default settings for Max Samples (5000 iterations) and Rendering Converged Ratio (95%)? If so, try increasing these values (in the Render Settings pane, Progressive Rendering sub-tab). Iray renders never "complete", they just hit one of the three stop conditions (the third is render time, default 2 hours).

    Try values of 10000 or 20000, and 99% (the Converged value can approach but must never be set at 100%) to begin with, then higher values if you still see the pixelisation. Note that this will cause longer renders, maybe up to the time limit.

  • TomDowdTomDowd Posts: 197

    I'll try that, but its odd that the sea surface is another decal and its not pixilating. Thanks!

  • tkdroberttkdrobert Posts: 3,532
    edited April 2019
    TomDowd said:

    I'll try that, but its odd that the sea surface is another decal and its not pixilating. Thanks!

    I agree with SpottedKitty.  My IRAY renders are 4 hours long because I upped all those values.

    P.S. I'm using a decal in my render above (4 Hours).

    Post edited by tkdrobert on
  • TomDowdTomDowd Posts: 197

    Turned out the problem was in the setting of the Bump Map, which I had turned up beyond 1. Once I took it back down again the pixelation in that decal vanish.

    Thanks again!

    Tom

  • tkdroberttkdrobert Posts: 3,532
    TomDowd said:

    Turned out the problem was in the setting of the Bump Map, which I had turned up beyond 1. Once I took it back down again the pixelation in that decal vanish.

    Thanks again!

    Tom

    Yeah I learned that lesson recently (bump map setting. too, but didn't thnk of it as it was with a different model.

  • sapatsapat Posts: 1,735

    I had bought this when it first came out and was so overwhelmed I never even got a scene put together. I've bookmarked the page and thanks to DA, I may at least get a start.  But agree there needs to be readme pdf or txt file that details of 'do this, then do this, etc.  How to get ppl like me to be able to even get started.

  • tkdroberttkdrobert Posts: 3,532

    I'm getting the hang of this:

    Robotech: Carrier Ops by tkdrobert

  •  

    Hi DA,

     

    like the Big Ocean a lot, could you go into how having the 2 normals on the main surface works. I played with some of the strength settings on these but got a lot more change than I was expecting.

  •  Hi Macro,

    A few things with the 2 Normal Channels, they are additive and I tended to use them as the 1st channel for large water details such as a wave form. And the second channel would add ripples to the water surface. For example being additive if you place the same map in each channel with the same scaling and rotation and set each to a strength of 0.5 you will see the similar results as if you had the first channel dialed to 1 and the other to 0 (It's similar and not exact because of the way the strength settings influences the map, if you think of overlaying two images at 50% transparency, even being additive they will still not add up to 100% transparency when combined). Generally when both strength settings are at 1 you will see an additive combination of the two maps both at full strength.

    You also need to consider the strength that is baked into the Normal Maps used, a map with high Normal movement baked into the map will see a lot more change when varying the strength settings whereas a Normal map with low Normal movement will see more subtle impact when the strength is changed.

    It's always best to have slightly different scaling in each normal channel to help avoid the predictable looking tile effect over large water surfaces.

    It may help to to create a plane and apply one of the shader presets with the Ocean Shader and strip all the maps out, adjust the tile setting to 1,1, set water diffuse to a dark grey and change the refraction weight to 0. You can then find a basic Normal Map and experiment with the two channels without other factors influencing the changes you see.

    Hope this helps, please let me know if this covers your question or not?

    Thanks :)

  • Thanks DA,

     

    that does help - I think the normals are having a lot more effect than I expected on the plane - guess its why you have to use iray preview to set the height of the sea accurately

  • No problem, though the normals won't change the actual position of the surface geometry. Normals are similar to a bump map and only give the illusion of height or depth. Any changes to the geometry position would be coming through the displacement channel, which does actually move the geometry within the scene. 

  • Doc AcmeDoc Acme Posts: 1,153

    I'm glad someone pointed me to this thread.  I was set to return the product this morning in fact.  So yes, the Readme needs some serious TLC.  But, got the basic setup working now (you HAVE to apply an Iray Render-Setting first), so off to get some things out of drydock.

     

  • GranvilleGranville Posts: 679

    I have to say that this product allows you to acheive what I thought was impossible in Daz - a realistic ocean scene with a infinite horizon.I still don't fully understand how to use it but I will keep going. I love what I have so far.

  • Glad you like it Granville, don't hesitate to ask any questions that come up here.

  • edparkedpark Posts: 8

    I'm using Daz Studio 4.12 and not able to get any of the Shaders to affect the Sea Plane or Full Sea Iray Decal. The steps I took:

    1. Double clicked Environments > DA Big Ocean
    2. Clicked on NVIDIA Iray preview
    3. Clicked on 'DA Big Ocean - Full Sea Iray Decal' in the Scene Explorer
    4. Double clicked Shaders > DA Big Ocean 06 Giant (or any other Shader)
    5. I expected to see something about the ocean change but nothing happened (the preview didn't even update; as if I hadn't done anything)

    For #3, I also tried selecting both the Sea Plane and Iray Decal and then double clicking on a Shader - no effect.

    Can someone let me know what I could be doing wrong?

  • MoreTNMoreTN Posts: 219
    edpark said:

    I'm using Daz Studio 4.12 and not able to get any of the Shaders to affect the Sea Plane or Full Sea Iray Decal. The steps I took:

    1. Double clicked Environments > DA Big Ocean
    2. Clicked on NVIDIA Iray preview
    3. Clicked on 'DA Big Ocean - Full Sea Iray Decal' in the Scene Explorer
    4. Double clicked Shaders > DA Big Ocean 06 Giant (or any other Shader)
    5. I expected to see something about the ocean change but nothing happened (the preview didn't even update; as if I hadn't done anything)

    FFor #3, I also tried selecting both the Sea Plane and Iray Decal and then double clicking on a Shader - no effect.

    Can someone let me know what I could be doing wrong?

    Did you apply Iray render setting first? Apparently that's a must do first action.

  • Design Anvil - Razor42Design Anvil - Razor42 Posts: 1,223
    edited October 2020
    edpark said:

    I'm using Daz Studio 4.12 and not able to get any of the Shaders to affect the Sea Plane or Full Sea Iray Decal. The steps I took:

    1. Double clicked Environments > DA Big Ocean
    2. Clicked on NVIDIA Iray preview
    3. Clicked on 'DA Big Ocean - Full Sea Iray Decal' in the Scene Explorer
    4. Double clicked Shaders > DA Big Ocean 06 Giant (or any other Shader)
    5. I expected to see something about the ocean change but nothing happened (the preview didn't even update; as if I hadn't done anything)

    For #3, I also tried selecting both the Sea Plane and Iray Decal and then double clicking on a Shader - no effect.

    Can someone let me know what I could be doing wrong?

    Hi edpark,

    To apply a Shader Preset you also need to select the relevant surface in the Surfaces tab. See the attached picture

    The shader presets are divided into the base ocean shaders in the folder: Big Ocean Plane - Shader Presets, and the Full Sea Decal (A semi transparent top layer of the ocean generally used to add white water effects across the entire ocean) in the folder labeled Decal Full Sea  - Shader Presets

    To change the base Ocean shader select the DA Big Ocean - Sea Plane in the scene tab then select the DA Big Ocean - Ocean surface in the Surfaces tab. Then you can apply a shader from the folder Big Ocean Plane - Shader Presets.

    To change the full ocean decal select the DA Big Ocean - Full Sea Iray Decal in the surfaces tab and apply shaders from the Decal Full Sea  - Shader Presets folder.

    Hope this helps.

    DABO.jpg
    1009 x 812 - 80K
    Post edited by Design Anvil - Razor42 on
  • edparkedpark Posts: 8

    Hi Razor42, I see where I went wrong now; I was so used to other products where you select the object you want to affect in the Scene Explorer and then double clicking on a Shader makes the change.

    Sorry you have to keep repeating yourself!

  • SevrinSevrin Posts: 6,300
    edpark said:

    Hi Razor42, I see where I went wrong now; I was so used to other products where you select the object you want to affect in the Scene Explorer and then double clicking on a Shader makes the change.

    Sorry you have to keep repeating yourself!

    In DS you have to differentiate between Materials which you can apply to objects in the Scene Tab and Shaders which need to be applied to individual surfaces.

  • edparkedpark Posts: 8

    @Sevrin - yup, I got it now!

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