What is FlowScape?
FlowScape is an easy to use nature scene creator aimed at casual users who would like to chill after a busy day and create something nice from a large library of models, textures and sound fx. You can take photos of your creation or record a video with your favorite capture app.
The design philosophy behind FlowScape will always be to keep it as intuitive as possible.
What cant it do?
FlowScape is not a design program like 3D Studio Max or Maya, there is no import or export. If you want to make more complex scenes, there are dozens of technical programs you can use that give you far more flexibility than you can with FlowScape, but the tradeoff will be a high learning curve.
What are your plans for the future?
Much more content is planned so that you have a larger variety of fauna to create more unique scenes, as well as exposing more camera settings to allow you to take better pictures. VR support is coming soon, Mac and Linux is done. I will look into import (easy) and maybe export (not so easy), but no promises as this might be beyond the time i have available.
Troubleshooting guide:
The best way to install and run FlowScape is to use the itch.io app
There are a few advantages of using this, it lets you manage multiple installs, resumes downloads if you lose connection, sets permissions on MacOs, and has an option to check for updates and only install what is new, usually a few megabytes.
If you are still having trouble, you can Re-install
There are a few other things you can try.
If you are stuck at the loading screen, give it a bit of time, its loading a lot of textures.
Clicking on the screen while loading, could cause it to crash.
A program called Citrix has been known to cause trouble with Unity based apps. Check that you don't have it installed, and disable it if you do.
On some Macs you can try windowed mode instead of fullscreen
Hopefully this will fix any issues you are having
Below are a few tips and tricks to get you started.
You can right click on any icon and it will delete any object of that type
Pointing at something and pressing delete will delete that object
Holding Delete for more than 1 second will turn to continuous delete mode
You can Delete everything with CTRL Delete
Moving Rotating and Scaling can be activated with 1,2 and 3 rather than pressing on the toolbar
Backspace will undo the last paint, up to 8 times (working on redo for the next release)
Rotate the sun in the camera settings or press 8 4 6 2 on your keypad to fine tune it
Use the layers (top right) to determine if you paint on water, rocks or land
If you set the flow slider all the way to the left, it lets you place single items, useful for animals
Clicking on the FPS button top left, will toggle VSync
You can turn water on or off and also make it endless instead of box in the texture settings
You can change the height of your terrain in the texture settings to make more or less water
You can zoom right out and set the FOV of the camera all the way to the left for an isometric look
Clicking on the hint bar that pops up every 5 minutes displays the next hint
Create a rock and scale it really big for a bigger terrain, just be careful with delete as you might delete the rock
Painting tiny trees will make your landscape look bigger
The textures menu also has an slider to make the tiling smaller
If FlowScape is not saving your screenshots, it may be due to permissions. Some things to try is to right click on your icon and choose Run as Administrator. Or move the game to a non system drive such as D:
Is is possible to copy savefiles (if that is a thing) from one installation to another?
I would like to know the same thing. seems no one has answered your question which I think is a good question. I do not want to loose my maps on an upgrade.
Yes and no
the save will break if it finds an unexpected parameter like a new save feature. but its usually on only new things. So chances are your objects will load, but maybe not your camera or sky settings, depending on how far back your save is from
Could you, please, add Minimum Requirements?
Doing so would help assess whether one's hardware is enough to run the game.
Thank you.
Quoting this comment:
| PixelForestGames • 12h |
Cheers! runs on my crappy laptop, but slowly. The faster your graphics card the more you can throw at it before the framerate goes south. Im running a GTX 970 and rarely drop below 30
https://www.reddit.com/r/FlowScape/comments/apfjzl/comment/eg8ep1n
Good question! I Like to know the minimal requirements. Please, let us know.
I really enjoy the new version 1.1 but I have a question about changing the houses / buildings. I understand from fellow users that you can change the item by using the mouse-scoll wheel. But if you do not have a scroll wheel, is there a hot key for this function?
edit:
Unfortunately, the connected Logitech Gamepad has not offered a solution, not even with the help of the buttons configurations.
i will add some keyboard buttons next release
Thank you, I really appreciated your response.
Cheers!
Regardless of graphics quality, can I create the scenario and export to another graphics engine like UDK4?
I am only guessing but it possibly depends on the assets PixelForest is using, Unity often forbids using assets in Unreal and vise versa, if it's something licensed for redistribution maybe or if for use by the purchaser for renders only but even then most things need to be baked into a game. I honestly think import is going to be the simpler option but it could be limited by size a Makehuman or Bastioni figure maybe but a DAZ character is unlikely to fit
As stated above, this is not a content creator tool but instead a relaxing game. It's probably better to spend your time in Blender than using this if you want to use it for game dev
I bought this game/program last night. Really awesome. But I'm wondering ... is there a Undo function? I know you can delete the last placed items but .... what if you accidentally delete a wall which is placed many moves before?
Yes you can point at something and press the delete key.
Can it make renders eg export a spherical render to use in 3D software as a background - preferably HDRI?
And are there any restrictions of use of the render for commercial purposes eg a screen cap as a background in a commercial comic for example.
Love
Esther
No restrictions, but you cant do a spherical render at the moment, i have it on my list for the future though.
Edit, latest update has Ansel support so you can do 360 now
oh okay. Thanks. You know you could charge more for this software than you do don't you?
do we get the future iterations of this as you update or will we have to buy them
you get them for free!
Maybe this info exists somewhere and I just missed it, but does FlowScape have a first-person movement mode or is it a free camera only?
(If not, is it something you'd consider adding? Basically just a mode where the camera is constrained to the terrain height with slow-ish horizontal movement.)
you can press F to enter first person mode in the latest build
Cool, thanks :)
If I make scenes in FlowScape and photograph them, do I have exclusive intellectual rights to that image? Could I, for example, make a scene in FlowScape, photograph it, and use that image in a commercial project such as a videogame which I would then sell?
Yes, absolutely you can
Just wondering, would the same go for films too? I am a microbudget filmmaker and would love to generate some shots of forests for an upcoming project (which has a chance of ending up being sold). Is there any licensing documentation available?
sorry, dont have any licensing docs, but i have no problems with you using the images or animations in whatever you want to put them in
Amazing, thank you.
That statement may've just sold me on the software. I'm a writer who's always in need of cover art that I can legally use in a commercial project, and I do a little amateur game development here that legal background images would be useful for, too. May I suggest spelling that permission out on your program's main page for anyone thinking along the same lines?
First off, awesome program! Easy to use and runs (somewhat jittery) on my terrible computer!
One question though. Would I be able to use this program for commissions? Say someone wants a background made for some reason but doesn't have the time or patience to make it themselves. Would I be allowed to charge them for the scenes I create on here?
Yes absolutely you can
Hi all, I purchased this program today, having been on the fence for a while. Downloaded and when I start it, the screen goes black and then nothing happens. I guess you know what question I have. (I noticed it runs x32 and I run x64, could that be the problem?)
Edit: I had placed the program on an external drive, when moving it to the hard drive I got one (tiiiny) step further. Now I see a blurred floating island occupied by an oak or some such. And there it stays, hanging.
Edit 2: All right, I obviously had to direct my dedicated graphics card to FlowScape. Now at least I get to the "front page", but clicking a button takes a very long time or crashes. I'll try on lowest setting, though I expected a GeForce GTX 960M to be enough--
--nope. Perhaps I'm just delusioned and thinking my graphics card is good enough, lol. I suppose this program needs a "Recommended System Requirements" notification somewhere.
Down to 800x600 and it kind of runs...
(Hopefully final edit, sorry!)
Okay, I've got it running at 800x600 and while it is slow when I hit menu buttons ("New", for example), painting/creating is going fast enough. Unfortunately it is not quite what I'm looking for, as Reddit would have me believe. I need larger landmasses (I want to do more "panoramic" scenes - my dream is to make a visual of "my" medieval fantasy city, but I need city walls, bell towers, domed temples, spires, piers, stairs, more different buildings for variety, etc. Basically less "battle map" and more "concept art", so I guess it's my bad for not realizing what FlowScape actually does) - or even smaller units. But hopefully this will explode and there will be lots more assets :) Thanks for the good work.
happy you finally got it running. Cudos on your perseverence.
When you choose a building, you can use the scroll wheel to cycle through all the models. Also the - and = to make them smaller. In your terrain textures panel, there is also a terrain size slider.
Hope that helps
Thanks for the reply, is there a document somewhere with information like this? I tried looking for a manual. The help menu is somewhat limited I suppose (or my perseverance wasn't that impressive at all)? Thanks for the tips!! Will check it out when I am back behind my master the almighty computer
Edit: Don't know how I missed seeing the download for the x64 version. Downloading.
Also, wow. Now that I'm getting to grips with it, wow. Those tips turned everything in the right direction. Happily building (still missing a dome to plop onto other structures though :p ) Thanks!!
in the gothic buildings is a few domes and spires i think
I know I'm rude to ask, but would it be possible to split some of these assets? There is a dome but it is attached to a huge structure. Your models are amazing though, especially the cathedral!
Quick questions for whenever you have the time..hope that is ok.
1. When I raise terrain to make hills, is there a way to get rounded hilltops? I'm getting these Mesa-like plateaus.
2. (Asked before but trying again) Is there a a manual? I totally understand if you haven't made one, lol. Perhaps we (fans of your product) should start a wiki or something.
3. I have this landscape in mind, but can't figure out how to create a body of water / lower part of terrain to reveal water (like a lake or a tributary or fjord)...kind of the opposite of sculpting hills I guess. Is there a way?
Thanks! Falling more and more for FlowScape.
When you sculpt, if you hold left shift and drag with the right mouse button, you can lower the terrain.
No manual yet, just that help up top left. Got any questions, just ask away i guess.
Our reddit is pretty friendly place to ask also https://www.reddit.com/r/FlowScape/
also our discord if you prefer that https://discord.gg/HwRN2k8
Just purchased this tool, hoping to make some great new maps. I have followed all your instructions to run it through the app and others and it still won't work. No matter what resolution, it hangs every time when the screen asks me if I would like to stay or try a new seed. Half of the time I can't even see my mouse.
My graphics card runs AAA games at medium to high with no difficulty, so I'm not sure what's happening. Any suggestions?
go to manage, check for updates. Hopefully the newest patch will fix this for you
The update works much better now. Thank you!
I cannot get the mouse pointer to focus within the Flowscape window. I can get it to appear around the edges, but it will not appear/take focus inside the window. Even when I use Alt+Tab to focus the window, it only focuses the window frame, not inside the application itself. I don't have any programs running in the background. Citrix is not installed. Any advice is appreciated. (Windows 10 64-bit; Intel i5-6600K CPU @3.50GHz; 16GB RAM; no graphics card)
a new patch is out that should fix this. Go to manage, check for updates.
Thanks for your patience
That worked. Great program. I'm having fun with it now.
hello I hope I'm right with my question. I bought the game for two days. I play on an imac. apparently MacOS does not like the game very much, because it has several problems. because it mac in full screen mode brought to the fall, I play in the windowed mode. As I've already read, I did not install Citrix. but still I can not create photos of my landscapes. they are completely black. Furthermore, there are sometimes difficulties in saving the landscape. Can you help me?
Sure, an easy way is to add me on discord and we can have a chat
my username is Pixel Forest#4545
Hello! great software thank you so much. How can we please return the controls from the factory? also, the arkenforge key is used for what. thank you <3
Not 100% sure what you mean.
If you changed your camera settings, you can always restart. If you lost your camera view, you can go to settings and press reset camera.
is that what you mean?
Arkenforge is a D&D software, so pressing that exports a map for it
I know about the camera reset and page up and down but! I can not control the camera when trying to record. I've tried the start and end function with very little good results. I've tried to just stay where I'm at and let it record but it keeps going back and even off the map a lot of times. can someone please Help me out on camera settings and recording control? Thank you all very much and may the good lord take a liking to you. also I want to say I really like this software a lot it has taken me away from the hard work in cinema 4d to just enjoying it.
Ahh so the record is a very early feature with not much functionality. It will improve with time though.
The idea is that you set the start, move the camera, then the end and it does a pan , track, dolly whatever you want to call it (no rotation) on that path
if you click anywhere it cancels.
If you set your screenshot resolution to high, it means you can record a very high resolution image sequence that you can then use in an editing package to get 60 fps, which other wise would be impossible due to the frame rate.
