I am vey disappointed, from this TechPreview:
At all it seems, as long as you are working in the direction, the developers thought, this software is a hammer. Incredible features.
But, the first time, you try to go a way, which is standard in all 3D applications, and I mean in all: Bryce, Vue, Carrara, Maya, 3DS max ......., you are getting into heavy trouble.
So far, TG2 is the first 3D package I know, where a mask can not be used as a alpha channel for shader distribution. (May be there is a hidden way, but is it sensful to hide such elemetary functionality?)
There is a preview, but where is the camera to set, with which the preview is rendered. Again, this is absolutly brand new for a 3D application: No Top,Side, Front, Back view. I have tried to build one myself:
First add a new camera, here orthographic. Then found, that you have assign a renderer for each camera, ok, assigned the renderer. But where the hell is the menu, or button, or whatever, to simply set the camera, with which the preview is rendered. I do not know, how I get the preview to render with the orthographic top view camera, but it did. But in this view, I was not able to move the rock population. But, you need this view, to set the position of the rock population. After that, I was not able to get back to the first camera for the preview......
The whole concept is not convincing:
A shader is a shader or isn't it? Here not. I really do not know, what here the name shader stands for. The water shader, is it for generation or for shading? The crater shader, shader or what???
I would understand some of them, if they would be called functions, but some are functions some not. Some shaders have colours, others not..... Some have a displacement channel, some are displacements, some are fractal breakups???
If a renderer has only two inputs, one for camera one for cropping, and so you can assign to a renderer exact one camera, why the hell two elements: It would make more sense, to put them together, so that every camera holds it own rendersettings. A bit node confusing here.
I am totally missing a clear concept: Planets or not. If TG2 is build up on planets, oh wow, not one world, but a world system. Think big, why not. Well, but not big enough to simply load a heightfield for the planets surface. So, use the intern generation or .......
This felt more like a pre-alpha, if you look at the usability , concept and naming. Basic functionality is missing all around.