Coming soon: Nature Tools DS for DAZ Studio

Comments

• garrett_3d Posts: 941

  September 19 edited September 19

  Oooh, this could be a fun product to work with....

   

  Question. Would it be possible to create river valleys, waterfalls and the like?

  Post edited by garrett_3d on September 19
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 19 edited September 19

  garrett_3d said:

  Oooh, this could be a fun product to work with....

   

  Question. Would it be possible to create river valleys, waterfalls and the like?

  River valleys are definitely possible, especially when starting from a heightmap that already contains the river/valley structure. NatureGen can use that terrain data as the base and then handle the surrounding terrain, materials, scattering, rocks, vegetation, water, etc.

  For more complex river networks, I’d currently recommend generating or converting the terrain/river layout to a heightmap first, then bringing that into NatureGen. That gives you much more control over the actual river course than trying to force it procedurally afterward.

  You can use an online tool like: https://cotamap.com/

  Waterfalls are a little different. NatureGen doesn’t currently generate flowing waterfall geometry/effects on its own, so for now those would need to be added with an existing waterfall asset/effect after the terrain is created.

  I do have plans to keep improving the water system, though, so rivers and more advanced water features are definitely areas I’m interested in expanding. :D

   

  Post edited by umblefugly on September 19
• jmucchiello Posts: 2,218

  September 19

  What's the comparison to the various Ultrascenery products?
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 19 edited September 19

  jmucchiello said:

  What's the comparison to the various Ultrascenery products?

  I don't own any of those so I have no baseline to compare. What would you like to know?

  Post edited by umblefugly on September 19
• garrett_3d Posts: 941

  September 19

  umblefugly said:

  For more complex river networks, I’d currently recommend generating or converting the terrain/river layout to a heightmap first, then bringing that into NatureGen. That gives you much more control over the actual river course than trying to force it procedurally afterward.

  You can use an online tool like: https://cotamap.com/

  I'll be honest, this just went straight over my head. Any tutorials for technological dumbass dinosaurs you could point me to?
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 19 edited September 19

  garrett_3d said:

  umblefugly said:

  For more complex river networks, I’d currently recommend generating or converting the terrain/river layout to a heightmap first, then bringing that into NatureGen. That gives you much more control over the actual river course than trying to force it procedurally afterward.

  You can use an online tool like: https://cotamap.com/

  I'll be honest, this just went straight over my head. Any tutorials for technological dumbass dinosaurs you could point me to?

  Sure, I can provide a simple pdf. 

  pdf

  pdf

  NatureToolsDS_CotaMap_Real_Terrain_Quick_Start.pdf

  8M

  Post edited by umblefugly on September 19
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 19

  Small video demonstrating a little paint/erase
  
• garrett_3d Posts: 941

  September 19

  Just to clarify, this will be DS4 compatible?
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 19

  garrett_3d said:

  Just to clarify, this will be DS4 compatible?

  Currently it is in dev for DS 2026, I can do it for DS 4.24 but that waits until this version is mature enough to do so. 
• Cybersox Posts: 9,946

  September 20

  umblefugly said:

  garrett_3d said:

  Just to clarify, this will be DS4 compatible?

  Currently it is in dev for DS 2026, I can do it for DS 4.24 but that waits until this version is mature enough to do so. 

   

  And there goes the "instant buy" option for me.  I'm way too invested in DS4 infrastructure right now to buy something that's DS6 only.  Still, I wish you luck and I'll probably pick this up once DS6 looks more viable.   
• daveso Posts: 8,272

  September 20

  sounded good for a moment. sorry, i dont have DS6/2026. My buying over has ended and i have way toio many plugins and scripts that wont workwith it
• garrett_3d Posts: 941

  September 20

  umblefugly said:

  garrett_3d said:

  Just to clarify, this will be DS4 compatible?

  Currently it is in dev for DS 2026, I can do it for DS 4.24 but that waits until this version is mature enough to do so. 

  Awww poop  
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 20

  It just makes sense to finish (A), before starting (B). This is a few months from being released, but around 70% complete which means there is plenty of time for a conversion to DS 4.24. Don't lose hope lol
• garrett_3d Posts: 941

  September 20

  Yay! 

  Why Daz found it necessary to change the architecture under the hood so nothing worked any more is beyond me. Then again, I don't see any advantages to DS6 apart from Nvidia 50xx support.
• jmucchiello Posts: 2,218

  September 20

  garrett_3d said:

  Yay! 

  Why Daz found it necessary to change the architecture under the hood so nothing worked any more is beyond me. Then again, I don't see any advantages to DS6 apart from Nvidia 50xx support.

  Because the underlying framework DS4 was build on was no longer supported by QT. That alone was reason to change the architecture. The problem is they were working toward changing this as far back as 2020. Then NDIVIA forced their hand with the 50xx series of GPUs and their interface not being compatible with the compilers used by DS4 and QT4. It was upgrade of not support the latest graphics hardware at all. That wouldn't be a good business plan at all.
• garrett_3d Posts: 941

  September 20

  I just had to ask Google what QT4 is 

  I see your point - being fairly technologically illiterate where computer software is concerned, I have to ask the question. I am always hopeful that the answer is in plain English for me to understand though...

  I think I've only succeeded so far in VS code because in my first 15 years of work I was heavily involved with PLC programming for industry, so I understand logic ladders and such. VS code is just a different set of conditions and variables.
• jmucchiello Posts: 2,218

  September 20

  If I had tried to explain all the steps in between it would have taken me a lot more words. The tech for DS4 is 15 years old. That is a long time in tech terms. They always knew there'd be pain when they updated the tech, and that's why they put it off so long. But eventually the piper must be paid. They just didn't know NVIDIA played the pipes.
• AnEye4Art Posts: 870

  September 20

  Can an imported mesh from, say, world-creator or gaea be used seamlessly with this so that it can be edited further and populated with vegetation?
• Totte Posts: 15,147

  September 20

  garrett_3d said:

  I just had to ask Google what QT4 is 

  I see your point - being fairly technologically illiterate where computer software is concerned, I have to ask the question. I am always hopeful that the answer is in plain English for me to understand though...

  I think I've only succeeded so far in VS code because in my first 15 years of work I was heavily involved with PLC programming for industry, so I understand logic ladders and such. VS code is just a different set of conditions and variables.

  Qt from TrollTech (  original company name before they got bought up, sold, bought up again ) is a cross plattform toolkit that DS ( and many other programs are built on ),
  DS 4 is built upon Qt 4 ( 4.8 ), but with backwards compatibility  layers all the way back to Qt 2.  Qt 4 is as other says, old, very old, even stone age old in the tech world.
  
  DS  is built on Qt 6 which is a much more modern toolkit, with support for many things and also is "future safe" which means tuff that has been depracated from operating systems for a while has been removed.
  
  I have the save hard decitions to make with my stuff, support DS 4 and stay forever behind in technology, or move forward to DS 6.
• richardandtracy Posts: 8,108

  September 20

  Umblefugly, this sounds fantastic. As fantastic as Totte's landscape painter. It's probably going to be not one, not the other, but both. My biggest problem is going to be getting DS6 onto my offline machine without MS updates and DIM killing it before that happens (MS updates have prevented machine restart twice so far and I thought it had been bricked on one of them). I was eventually forced to move it to a new location, with no wi-fi, and suddenly it sped up and became reliable.I'm deeply reluctant to risk it again. Regards, Richard
• umblefugly Posts: 193

  September 20 edited September 20

  AnEye4Art said:

  Can an imported mesh from, say, world-creator or gaea be used seamlessly with this so that it can be edited further and populated with vegetation?

  Yes. The easiest workflow would be to export your terrain from Gaea, World Creator, or a similar application as a 16-bit heightmap.

  In Nature Tools DS, you would then choose Heightmap Image as the terrain source and load that heightmap. Nature Tools recreates the terrain from the elevation data, so you can then continue working with it using Nature Tools — materials, rocks, vegetation/scatter, water, shoreline effects, and other terrain controls.

  So, for example:

  Gaea / World Creator → export heightmap → load into Nature Tools DS → continue building the environment.

  You aren't limited to terrains generated inside Nature Tools itself.

  Importing an already-meshed OBJ/FBX terrain and converting that into a fully editable Nature Tools terrain is a somewhat different problem. That's something I may look at later, but for terrain-authoring applications, the heightmap route is currently the cleaner and more reliable workflow.
  
   

  In theory, it could work by letting you create the terrain in Gaea, World Creator, or another terrain app, export it as a mesh, and import that mesh into DAZ Studio.

  Nature Tools DS could then have an Adopt External Terrain option. You’d select the imported terrain, Nature Tools would analyze it, register it as a terrain source, and then use that mesh as the base for things like materials, scatter, rocks, vegetation, water, and shoreline effects.

  The important part is that Nature Tools would treat the imported mesh itself as the authoritative terrain shape, rather than regenerating it.

  So the workflow could be:

  Create terrain externally → export mesh → import into DAZ → Adopt in Nature Tools → continue building the environment.

  It’s only a theory at this stage, but technically it looks very plausible.

  Post edited by umblefugly on September 20
• AnEye4Art Posts: 870

  September 20

  You have my attention.