UltraScenery by published artistHowieFarkes is a powerful tool to build highly detailed natural scenes in DAZ Studio. It has the capability of creating thousands of instances of trees, shrubs, stones, etc. providing a rich environment without needing millions of polygons.
The system allows plenty of add-on ecosystems that can be found from around the world. There are also several toolbox products (scripts) created by Code66 (Totte) to make working with UltraScenery easier and to improve the realism of scenes even further.
This tutorial set shows the usage of UltraScenery, including power tips and best practices from Totte (Code66) who demonstratesUltraScenery as well as his script toolkits. Key members from the Digital Art Live community added their knowledge and experiences to this tutorial set by sharing their own renders and recommendations.
Tutorial Content
Total running time: 3 hours and 12 minutes
MP4 video files and searchable / captioned versions of the tutorials included.
Rgcincy's PDF slide set on using height maps in UltraScenery
1. UltraScenery whats in the box and basic use
- Whats included with UltraScenery?
- Demonstrate best practices of the four-step use:
a. Create a heightmap for the terrain
b. Choose a landscape feature (road, stream, pond, etc)
c. Choose an Ecology (the plants and other elements)
d. Build the Scene.
- About randomizing the terrain and the ecology
- Using vegetation layers
- Adjusting the water settings
2. Whats essential to add on to UltraScenery and why
- The Accelerator performance differences with and without
3. Tottes Favourite Ecosystems
4. Tottes Toolkit 1 Demonstrated
- Hide/show ecology elements in the scene
- Height map generator
- Mask builder
5. Tottes Toolkit 2 Demonstrated
- Mixing ecologies the advantages
- Editing ecologies
- Ecology layers
- UST Instance Group locator
6. Tottes other natural scenery scripts
- Oso Alien Scenery
- Alienator Pro
- Hedgemaker
7. Community artwork, tips, and demonstrations
Searchable Sample
About the Presenter Totte (Code66)
Totte lives in Sweden and has been programming since the late 70s. He started to dabble in 3D back in the early 1990s with StrataVision 3D and later Bryce.
His interest in the world of DAZ Studio started around 2010, to create maps and handouts for the many tabletop role-playing game adventures he was writing and playing.
Totte then started to create some 3D content for DAZ Studio in 2015 and then gradually moved over to create more and more script-based products instead of pure 3D prop content.
His favorite tools for making 3D products and textures are Modo, UVLayout, the Substance suite, and FilterForge.
Totte has been an independent IT consultant for over 20 years, and also has been using DAZ Studio renders in dialogs in many bespoke development projects for various clients to brighten up otherwise boring programs!
He spends a lot of time walking the dogs and tries to play role-playing games as much as time provides.
What's Included and Features
- UltraScenery tutorial
- Video 1 :31 minutes (.MP4)
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:01 Unboxing UltraScenery - what's included?
- 00:03 Extra ecologies
- 00:06 About roads and rivers
- 00:07 Noise settings
- 00:09 Artistic control using Randomise
- 00:13 Water settings
- 00:16 Rebuilding previous scenes
- 00:18 About accelerator - up to 10 times faster
- 00:20 Instance groups limitation
- 00:23 How to break UltraScenery terrain!
- 00:27 A terrain with a river and road intersection
- 00:30 Can you use Carrara with UltraScenery?
- Video 1 :1 hour 41 minutes (.MP4)
- 00:00 Creating custom actions
- 00:03 Case study: start with a plain ecology
- 00:05 US toolbox height map generator
- 00:06 About height map sizes
- 00:08 Valley height map type
- 00:14 Ecology with trees
- 00:17 The advantages and uses of mask builder
- 00:21 Using several masks at once
- 00:22 The goddess of UltraScenery
- 00:26 Adding a tower into the scene
- 00:29 Instant group locater: removing trees / vegetation from the camera view
- 00:33 What is a proxy /instance group?
- 00:37 Ecology editor - one of Code66s favorite tools
- 00:40 Ecology engineer - distancing and falloff
- 00:44 Martin Frosts plants
- 00:49 Layers building in UltraScenery : the internals
- 00:51 The raw script of an ecosystem.
- 00:54 Using Alienator Pro : replace instance parents or props with other props
- 00:57 Hedgemaker : creating your own borders
- 01:00 Community Section : Richard Schafermeyer (rgcincy)
- 01:01 About height map options
- 01:04 Depth maps
- 01:05 Problems with hillocks
- 01:06 Depth camera settings
- 01:08 Layer masks in US.
- 01:11 About the planting of ecology items on steep slopes
- 01:14 Paula Prathers UltraScenery artwork
- 01:18 Removing/moving ecology items
- 01:20 Slaters artwork and experiments with US
- 01:23 Drop to terrain script
- 01:26 Canarys cameras product help to pick up landscape features you might miss
- 01:30 Digital Art Live logo embedded into a terrain
- 01:33 Using different water planes
- 01:36 Can use the drop to terrain script for water?
- 01:40 Close
- Documentation: (.PDF)
- UltraScenery Presentation "Using height maps in UltraScenery" by rgcincy 23 pages
- UltraSceneryTutorialsSearchable.pdf : Link for the searchable/caption versions of the tutorials recordings
Required Products:
UltraScenery - Realistic Landscape System
Install Types:
DazCentral, DIM, Manual Install
