UltraScenery - new territory [Commercial]

dawnblade

barbult said:

I got the DIM Update to Tangy Apple Orchard now, but no update to UltraScenery - Tangy Apple Orchard.

Same here. Maybe it's still in testing. 

savagestug

Where are you supposed to get support for Ultrascenery? I purchased and downloaded the Austraila package (via DIM) and the add isn't available when running the Ultrascenery script. I created a ticket with Daz two weeks ago without any response...

Doc Acme

barbult said:

dawnblade said:

barbult said:

Here is my latest Alienator Pro experiment. I started with Crossing 1 and Woodland 3. I substituted a variety of trees from different sets, some grass, stones, and leaves, I used one of the clover props from this week's PC+ freebie.

Alienator Pro:

This looks great, barbult!

Thanks. I used to make some of my own ecologies, but I haven't needed to do that since I got Alienator Pro. 

Might you have some examples of your workflow?  There's not much available on Alienator Pro particularly either. For example, could you use imported models such as from X-Frog?

 

dawnblade

wurger said:

Where are you supposed to get support for Ultrascenery? I purchased and downloaded the Austraila package (via DIM) and the add isn't available when running the Ultrascenery script. I created a ticket with Daz two weeks ago without any response...

Scroll to the top of the list, because Ultrascenery doesn't start there with the add-ons.  

barbult

wurger said:

Where are you supposed to get support for Ultrascenery? I purchased and downloaded the Austraila package (via DIM) and the add isn't available when running the Ultrascenery script. I created a ticket with Daz two weeks ago without any response...

Daz support is incredibly slow these days.  While you are waiting for Daz support, let us users try to help you here in the forum.

Which Australia package(s) did you purchase? You may have overlooked some prerequisites. Do you own and have you installed all of the following?

• UltraScenery - Australia (requires Australia Botanica - Trees and Shrubs, Australia Botanica - Understorey)

The ecologies are listed alphabetically inside UltraScenery. UltraScenery opens by default to Grasslands 1. You have to scroll up to find the Australian ecologies. That fools people. They logically expect it to open at the beginning if the list. Instead it opens at the first ecology that comes with the basic UltraScenery - Realistic Landscape System product.

Did you install any of your UltraScenery products from within Daz Studio (Daz Connect)? That can cause problems. It is much better to install with Daz Install Manager (DIM). If you installed from inside Daz Studio with Daz Connect, first uninstall with Daz Connect and then install with DIM.

Come back after investigating these things, and if you are still having problems, we can go from there.

 

barbult

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:

dawnblade said:

barbult said:

Here is my latest Alienator Pro experiment. I started with Crossing 1 and Woodland 3. I substituted a variety of trees from different sets, some grass, stones, and leaves, I used one of the clover props from this week's PC+ freebie.

Alienator Pro:

This looks great, barbult!

Thanks. I used to make some of my own ecologies, but I haven't needed to do that since I got Alienator Pro. 

Might you have some examples of your workflow?  There's not much available on Alienator Pro particularly either. For example, could you use imported models such as from X-Frog?

 

You can use any props that you can use inside Daz Studio. So if you can import X-Frog models to Daz Studio and load and render them, you can use them with Alienator Pro. Alienator Pro comes with a nice 8 page PDF manual. The Alienator Pro product consists of two main scripts: the Set Builder and the Alienator Pro.

You first run the Set Builder to make sets of props that you will later use to swap in, in place of props currently in a scene. (The Alienator Pro script does the actual swapping). For example, this week's PC+ freebie contains some weeds and clover. You can make a set out of that, so you can later swap in weeds or clover for existing grass in a scene. You only have to build a given set of props once, and then you can use that set over and over on different scenes with Alienator Pro. I have defined a couple dozen sets so far.

After creating some sets of props that you have in your library, you run the Alienator Pro script. It has a Conversion Set Builder tab that lets you pick props in the scene and specify which previously defined Set Builder set to use to get the substitute prop, and which prop within that set to use. If you like, you can use a different prop from a different set as a substitute for each existing prop. You are not limited to swapping from just one set. For example, swap grass with weeds from one set and swap Aspen trees with Palm Trees from another set. Once you have defined this conversion set, you can save it for later use and/or apply it to do the swap. You can choose to either just swap props, or swap props and all their instances, like for UltraScatter or UltraScenery scenes. 

I hope that helps a little. It is kind of hard to explain and understand, until you get your hands on it and try it out. I love it. You definitely want the Pro version, because it has very helpful prop size information so you can choose appropriately sized replacement props.

richardandtracy

barbult said:

....

I hope that helps a little. ...

Nope. Doesn't help a little. As usual, it helps lots. Thank you. My wallet won't be thanking you as it now has more things to assault it that I initially didn't think would be useful, but that's by-the-by. 

Regards,

Richard.

 

MelanieL

@barbult - am I correct in thinking the replacement props for Alienator Pro need to be in .duf format? If so then Doc Acme's imported X-Frog trees would need to be saved into DS format as props before you could use them (ETA: maybe the good Doc has already done this, of course).

Doc Acme

barbult said:

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:

dawnblade said:

barbult said:

Here is my latest Alienator Pro experiment. I started with Crossing 1 and Woodland 3. I substituted a variety of trees from different sets, some grass, stones, and leaves, I used one of the clover props from this week's PC+ freebie.

Alienator Pro:

This looks great, barbult!

Thanks. I used to make some of my own ecologies, but I haven't needed to do that since I got Alienator Pro. 

Might you have some examples of your workflow?  There's not much available on Alienator Pro particularly either. For example, could you use imported models such as from X-Frog?

 

You can use any props that you can use inside Daz Studio. So if you can import X-Frog models to Daz Studio and load and render them, you can use them with Alienator Pro. Alienator Pro comes with a nice 8 page PDF manual. The Alienator Pro product consists of two main scripts: the Set Builder and the Alienator Pro.

You first run the Set Builder to make sets of props that you will later use to swap in, in place of props currently in a scene. (The Alienator Pro script does the actual swapping). For example, this week's PC+ freebie contains some weeds and clover. You can make a set out of that, so you can later swap in weeds or clover for existing grass in a scene. You only have to build a given set of props once, and then you can use that set over and over on different scenes with Alienator Pro. I have defined a couple dozen sets so far.

After creating some sets of props that you have in your library, you run the Alienator Pro script. It has a Conversion Set Builder tab that lets you pick props in the scene and specify which previously defined Set Builder set to use to get the substitute prop, and which prop within that set to use. If you like, you can use a different prop from a different set as a substitute for each existing prop. You are not limited to swapping from just one set. For example, swap grass with weeds from one set and swap Aspen trees with Palm Trees from another set. Once you have defined this conversion set, you can save it for later use and/or apply it to do the swap. You can choose to either just swap props, or swap props and all their instances, like for UltraScatter or UltraScenery scenes. 

I hope that helps a little. It is kind of hard to explain and understand, until you get your hands on it and try it out. I love it. You definitely want the Pro version, because it has very helpful prop size information so you can choose appropriately sized replacement props.

Excellent. Thanks. Sounds much more friendly that editing JSON files.  I'm sure I'll be picking that up soon.  Unfortunately, all of my X-Frog libraries are on other system back home.

 

barbult

MelanieL said:

@barbult - am I correct in thinking the replacement props for Alienator Pro need to be in .duf format? If so then Doc Acme's imported X-Frog trees would need to be saved into DS format as props before you could use them (ETA: maybe the good Doc has already done this, of course).

@MelanieL Thanks for bringing this up for clarification.

It doesn't need to be in duf format. Old Poser format files like pp2 and cr2 are also accepted. I think even old daz format files can be used, but I haven't tried old daz format props. You are correct that it can't be just an obj file. The obj needs to be imported into Daz Studio and saved as a prop first (File>Save As>Support Asset/Figure/Prop Asset...).

Another way you can run into problems is if the origin of the prop is in a strange place or the rotation order is different. For example, if the tree in your scene has the origin at the base and the item you are substitution has the origin in the center, like lots of old Poser props. But, I haven't run into this problem at all with recent products that I've tried.

barbult

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:

dawnblade said:

barbult said:

Here is my latest Alienator Pro experiment. I started with Crossing 1 and Woodland 3. I substituted a variety of trees from different sets, some grass, stones, and leaves, I used one of the clover props from this week's PC+ freebie.

Alienator Pro:

This looks great, barbult!

Thanks. I used to make some of my own ecologies, but I haven't needed to do that since I got Alienator Pro. 

Might you have some examples of your workflow?  There's not much available on Alienator Pro particularly either. For example, could you use imported models such as from X-Frog?

 

You can use any props that you can use inside Daz Studio. So if you can import X-Frog models to Daz Studio and load and render them, you can use them with Alienator Pro. Alienator Pro comes with a nice 8 page PDF manual. The Alienator Pro product consists of two main scripts: the Set Builder and the Alienator Pro.

You first run the Set Builder to make sets of props that you will later use to swap in, in place of props currently in a scene. (The Alienator Pro script does the actual swapping). For example, this week's PC+ freebie contains some weeds and clover. You can make a set out of that, so you can later swap in weeds or clover for existing grass in a scene. You only have to build a given set of props once, and then you can use that set over and over on different scenes with Alienator Pro. I have defined a couple dozen sets so far.

After creating some sets of props that you have in your library, you run the Alienator Pro script. It has a Conversion Set Builder tab that lets you pick props in the scene and specify which previously defined Set Builder set to use to get the substitute prop, and which prop within that set to use. If you like, you can use a different prop from a different set as a substitute for each existing prop. You are not limited to swapping from just one set. For example, swap grass with weeds from one set and swap Aspen trees with Palm Trees from another set. Once you have defined this conversion set, you can save it for later use and/or apply it to do the swap. You can choose to either just swap props, or swap props and all their instances, like for UltraScatter or UltraScenery scenes. 

I hope that helps a little. It is kind of hard to explain and understand, until you get your hands on it and try it out. I love it. You definitely want the Pro version, because it has very helpful prop size information so you can choose appropriately sized replacement props.

Excellent. Thanks. Sounds much more friendly that editing JSON files.  I'm sure I'll be picking that up soon.  Unfortunately, all of my X-Frog libraries are on other system back home.

I hope I didn't lead you astray. (See the message above where MelanieL brought up the issue of file format and my comments on object origin and joint rotation.) I don't have X-Frog files, so I can't test those specifically. If they are just OBJ files, you will need to import them to Daz Studio save them as prop assets before Alienator Pro can use them.

Remember that if you get Alienator Pro and it doesn't handle the files correctly for you, you can return it for a refund.

Doc Acme

barbult said:.

 

I hope I didn't lead you astray. (See the message above where MelanieL brought up the issue of file format and my comments on object origin and joint rotation.) I don't have X-Frog files, so I can't test those specifically. If they are just OBJ files, you will need to import them to Daz Studio save them as prop assets before Alienator Pro can use them.

Remember that if you get Alienator Pro and it doesn't handle the files correctly for you, you can return it for a refund.

No, not at all.  Pretty much expected that to be the case. Their products come in several formats, obj's being one. I'll have to brush up on resurfacing as the mtl files don't always behave.

 

MelanieL

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:.

 

I hope I didn't lead you astray. (See the message above where MelanieL brought up the issue of file format and my comments on object origin and joint rotation.) I don't have X-Frog files, so I can't test those specifically. If they are just OBJ files, you will need to import them to Daz Studio save them as prop assets before Alienator Pro can use them.

Remember that if you get Alienator Pro and it doesn't handle the files correctly for you, you can return it for a refund.

No, not at all.  Pretty much expected that to be the case. Their products come in several formats, obj's being one. I'll have to brush up on resurfacing as the mtl files don't always behave.

 

I haven't ued X-Frog plants for quite some time, but I seem to recall the opacity maps were the wrong way round for Daz Studio (i.e. leaves came out as a rectangle with a leaf-shaped hole in the middle). I must dig mine out (somewhere on a backup drive I expect) and try them.

Doc Acme

MelanieL said:

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:.

 

I hope I didn't lead you astray. (See the message above where MelanieL brought up the issue of file format and my comments on object origin and joint rotation.) I don't have X-Frog files, so I can't test those specifically. If they are just OBJ files, you will need to import them to Daz Studio save them as prop assets before Alienator Pro can use them.

Remember that if you get Alienator Pro and it doesn't handle the files correctly for you, you can return it for a refund.

No, not at all.  Pretty much expected that to be the case. Their products come in several formats, obj's being one. I'll have to brush up on resurfacing as the mtl files don't always behave.

 

I haven't ued X-Frog plants for quite some time, but I seem to recall the opacity maps were the wrong way round for Daz Studio (i.e. leaves came out as a rectangle with a leaf-shaped hole in the middle). I must dig mine out (somewhere on a backup drive I expect) and try them.

Actually, I had t do the same thing for use in Lightwave.  I'm often needing to do that with other exports out of Daz as well so used to looking for that sort of thing. 

Jason Galterio

Inspired by barbult to give Alienator Pro a honest go. With a bit more planning and a bit less experimentation.

"Grove Guardian"

I used UltraScenery and Tangy Apple. I replaced the apple trees with Predatron's Cherry Trees.

Full size version can be seen here.

dawnblade

Jason Galterio said:

Inspired by barbult to give Alienator Pro a honest go. With a bit more planning and a bit less experimentation.

"Grove Guardian"

I used UltraScenery and Tangy Apple. I replaced the apple trees with Predatron's Cherry Trees.

Full size version can be seen here.

This is a beautiful scene. I don't have Alienator Pro, but I can see how useful it is. No need to mess with USC files!

barbult

dawnblade said:

Jason Galterio said:

Inspired by barbult to give Alienator Pro a honest go. With a bit more planning and a bit less experimentation.

"Grove Guardian"

I used UltraScenery and Tangy Apple. I replaced the apple trees with Predatron's Cherry Trees.

Full size version can be seen here.

This is a beautiful scene. I don't have Alienator Pro, but I can see how useful it is. No need to mess with USC files!

Yes, it is a nice use of several tools. I liked and commented in the gallery.

TangoAlpha

dawnblade said:

barbult said:

I got the DIM Update to Tangy Apple Orchard now, but no update to UltraScenery - Tangy Apple Orchard.

Same here. Maybe it's still in testing. 

They came out of testing within a day of each other, so they should have gone live more or less at the same time.

barbult

TangoAlpha said:

dawnblade said:

barbult said:

I got the DIM Update to Tangy Apple Orchard now, but no update to UltraScenery - Tangy Apple Orchard.

Same here. Maybe it's still in testing. 

They came out of testing within a day of each other, so they should have gone live more or less at the same time.

Still no update for UltraScenery - Tangy Apple Orchard in DIM.

I think Daz screwed up and released UltraScenery - Realistic Landscape System again as another new product instead of releasing an update for UltraScenery - Tangy Apple Orchard. UltraScenery - Realistic Landscape System now shows up twice in DIM. Well... maybe in 4 to 6 weeks, they'll respond to my help request about the problem. 

barbult

This came out interestingly. I substituted rocks for trees. It made sort of a canyon. I started with TAO 11 and Track 1 with Hedgerow.

Before:

After Alienator Pro:

barbult

Here is another interesting set. Both use feature Walking Trail 2, but one is Australian Bush 2 and the other is Pines 2. No Alienator Pro was used here. It just shows how a change of ecology can make a huge difference in the final scene.

c.loth1975@googlemail.com

Hello,

what @barbult wrote just above I can confirm: today DIM offered to install UltraScenery - Realstic Landscape System again. I now have this product installed twice
but with additional package sizes (87.7 MB vs 95.1 MB). Does anyone know what is the difference between both packages? Both have the same product id (67835)
but different packatge ids (1 vs 2). Is this an update not handled as an update but as an additional product package?

I'm confused :-)

Best regards

 

dawnblade

cloth1975 said:

Hello,

what @barbult wrote just above I can confirm: today DIM offered to install UltraScenery - Realstic Landscape System again. I now have this product installed twice
but with additional package sizes (87.7 MB vs 95.1 MB). Does anyone know what is the difference between both packages? Both have the same product id (67835)
but different packatge ids (1 vs 2). Is this an update not handled as an update but as an additional product package?

I'm confused :-)

Best regards

 

Mine is 86.8 MB waiting to be installed vs 95.1 MB installed. I'll wait on installing until I hear something official.

barbult

cloth1975 said:

Hello,

what @barbult wrote just above I can confirm: today DIM offered to install UltraScenery - Realstic Landscape System again. I now have this product installed twice
but with additional package sizes (87.7 MB vs 95.1 MB). Does anyone know what is the difference between both packages? Both have the same product id (67835)
but different packatge ids (1 vs 2). Is this an update not handled as an update but as an additional product package?

I'm confused :-)

Best regards

 

I posted the differences a few days ago. 

HowieFarkes

I don't know why there is a new/duplicate download of UltraScenery in DIM - I have not uploaded any new updates since December (which I think went live in January)... so it would be a glitch of some sort in the store I guess.

Doc Acme

Are folks seeing a 32-bit version vs. the 64-bit?  I've the 64-bit installed and have left the other to be downloaded.

barbult

Doc Acme said:

Are folks seeing a 32-bit version vs. the 64-bit?  I've the 64-bit installed and have left the other to be downloaded.

No, where do you see 64 bit vs. 32 bit for UltraScenery?

Doc Acme

In DIM:

barbult

Doc Acme said:

In DIM:

You are looking at two different products. One is the Accelerator plugin and the other is the UltraScenery script. I don't see any place that says the UltraScenry script is 32 bit.

WendyLuvsCatz

MelanieL said:

Doc Acme said:

barbult said:.

 

I hope I didn't lead you astray. (See the message above where MelanieL brought up the issue of file format and my comments on object origin and joint rotation.) I don't have X-Frog files, so I can't test those specifically. If they are just OBJ files, you will need to import them to Daz Studio save them as prop assets before Alienator Pro can use them.

Remember that if you get Alienator Pro and it doesn't handle the files correctly for you, you can return it for a refund.

No, not at all.  Pretty much expected that to be the case. Their products come in several formats, obj's being one. I'll have to brush up on resurfacing as the mtl files don't always behave.

 

I haven't ued X-Frog plants for quite some time, but I seem to recall the opacity maps were the wrong way round for Daz Studio (i.e. leaves came out as a rectangle with a leaf-shaped hole in the middle). I must dig mine out (somewhere on a backup drive I expect) and try them.

 open the opacity map in layered image editor in DAZ and invert it