Build 4.6.43 (Release)
Released June 5, 2023
Included in Maintenance up to January 1, 2022
v4.6 on Mac
This is the first Release build of Terragen 4.6 for MacOS. It also includes the bug fixes and improvements listed below.
Update to v4.6 on Windows and Linux
Fixed a bug in semi-transparent shadows that caused some other shadow contributions to be ignored.
Faster GI cache lookups, especially in atmospheres at high resolutions.
Build 4.6.31 (Release)
Released November 2, 2022
Included in Maintenance up to January 1, 2022
Georeferencing for Everyone
Georeferencing capabilities (which are in Heightfield Load, Geog Heightfield Load and Geog Image Map Shader) are now enabled in all editions, including the Free and Creative editions, not just the Professional edition.
RPC and Python APIs
Professional Edition only: RPC System version 0.9.0 (Beta). Terragen RPC is a remote procedure call system for Terragen. A running instance of Terragen on Windows or Mac can act as a server, allowing other programs to make remote procedure calls (RPCs) to query the open project and modify its state. Possible uses include productivity-enhancing tools, syncing of data with other applications in real-time, render-farm submission scripts, studio pipeline tools etc.
RPC documentation: https://planetside.co.uk/docs/terragen-rpc/
FBX
The FBX importer works with FBX files that use non-default coordinate systems, such as those exported from Unreal Engine.
VDB
OpenVDB export is available on Windows and Mac (previously it was only on Linux) with a license for the Professional edition or Creative edition. A VDB file can be exported from the command line (in the Professional edition) or from the context menu of a cloud node in the Node Network.
VDB documentation: https://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=VDB_Export
Objects and Populations
XML population caches: Population caches can be saved to (and loaded from) an XML-based format by choosing a filename with “.popxml” extension.
Prevented a crash that could occur in the Populator if it fails to read a population cache file.
Work-in-progress: “Replace with another object” is available in the Node Network’s context menu for object readers and object generators. Undo is not working yet.
Better, Faster Previews of Clouds and Atmosphere
Changed the 3D Preview’s level-of-detail calculations for voxel buffers in clouds. It uses a view-dependent minimum voxel size so that clouds nearer the camera are more likely to be rendered with the highest voxel resolution provided by the cloud, while clouds further away are more likely to be approximated. There are two modes to this. The first pass of the RTP, and all passes of non-RTP previews, use a low-detail mode which is designed to be fast (fewer voxels need to be cached before you see results). Subsequent RTP passes use a higher detail mode which is closer to final renders but may take longer to cache voxels before you see the results.
Increased the max ray depth for the GI approximation used in RTP for Planet Atmosphere.
Experimental: Attempting to approximate GI in RTP for Cloud Layer V2 in the same way that it’s done for Planet Atmosphere.
Other Changes to Clouds and Atmosphere
Made some slight changes to the appearance of multiple scattering in Easy Cloud and Cloud Layer V3.
Removed the “Acceleration cache” feature from cloud layers because it caused problems with consistency between image tiles.
Fixed a bug in planet atmosphere “Reset Tweaks” which set one of the colours to the wrong colour space. This only mattered if colour management was enabled, and only during the session (saved files were not affected).
Shaders and Functions
Fractal Warp Shader has a seed parameter.
Fixed a bug in “Build HSV Colour” function: If the input colour had a saturation other than 1, its hue would be calculated incorrectly. If this hue was passed through to the output (while modifying saturation or value), the output would have the wrong hue.
Rendering
Correct sRGB output: The Tonemap tab on Render Settings has 3 radio buttons to change the gamma correction mode: “sRGB”, “sRGB with custom gamma” and “Pure gamma”.
– “sRGB”: The sRGB standard OETF is applied. Compared to a pure gamma of 2.2, sRGB mode produces slightly darker values near black and slightly more contrast in the low-to-mid-range.
– “sRGB with custom gamma”: The behaviour is exactly the same as “sRGB” if the gamma correction parameter is 2.2, otherwise deviations from 2.2 are applied as a gamma correction before the sRGB standard OETF is applied.
– “Pure gamma”: Gamma correction is applied exactly as it was in previous versions.
Faster average render times. This is due to multiple incremental changes to the code over the past year:
– Low level optimisations in the renderer.
– Optimisations in some noise functions.
– Optimisations in Power Fractal Shader (which also helps many cloud setups).
– A small optimisation in the multiple scattering engine used by Cloud Layer V3 and Easy Cloud.
– Windows only: Additional optimisations to lots of core functions used by shaders, providing a small speedup.
Miscellaneous
Windows only: Removed some potentially very slow network queries when the Library contains missing file references with UNC paths.
Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when loading heightfields, especially when loading multiple heightfields at the same time.
Fixed a hang that could occur on the Mac when loading heightfields (and possibly other situations).
Mac only: Performance should be greatly improved when dealing with any views containing a lot of controls, for example parameter views whether in standalone windows or the main window. It’s much quicker to change between layout views or different nodes in the main window.
Some changes to how the Progress Dialog works to allow multi-threaded progress reports.
RTP threads on Windows have their priority set to below normal.
Made a change to low-level memory management of scenes and renderers to fix a possible instability.
Fixed a bug in in the Free Non-Commercial Edition that showed a warning about missing some data when a render is finishing.
Fixed some bugs in the reporting of license info in “Show License Info” and in the standard output.
Updated the About Box link to the Planetside forums.
