Terragen 3 Help

[Colince411]

HI, I was just wondering where I could find some how-to videos on advanced Terragen 3 tricks and tools. I've been teaching myself Terragen 3 and I've gotten pretty good at it, but I still notice a pretty huge difference between other renders and my own. If anyone could point me to a place where I could learn some very cool and helpful tricks, it would be very much welcome.

[Upon Infinity]

Have you tried the Geek At Play tutorials yet?  If you bought the program, they are available free to purchasers of Terragen 3 (downloadable on the Planetside site).  If not, they can be had from Geek At Play itself (I think they're $20).  That might help you out.  Also, you might try being more specific as to what you want to do.  Terragen is a big, complicated program, so learning how to do everything isn't easy.  People here are usually very helpful to do specific things or at least point you in the right direction.

[Colince411]

oh ok, thank you, I will check out those videos asap! also one of the things im  trying to specificly do is rendering, I want to be rendering as detailed as possible, ive been rendering at 1920x1080, with detail at 8, antiailising at 8, raytrace on, depthof field on, and everything else at the default setting. I think that's one of my main reasons why my creation don't look the same. Is there a way I can change those setting or add some setting to make it even more detailed?

[Upon Infinity]

Perhaps you could post some of your images and also post some images of the "look" you are attempting to achieve.  Your settings sound almost too high.  Detail is probably good around .7-.8.  AA is probably pretty high around 8.  5 would likely be sufficient, unless you're getting a lot of noise in your images.  Depth of Field shouldn't even be on unless your scene is setup to make use of that effect.  I'd try more resolution, rather than higher detail settings, but it really depends on the final use of your images.

[Colince411]

Heres one of my best, I know its bad, but ive only been doing this for two weeks. im really just trying to achieve that mount everst feeling, as if its un in habitable, but very alive in a natural form.

[Upon Infinity]

Your detail settings are fine.  What you want to work on is the amount of detail in your textures.  It looks like you only have 1 colour for each the earth and the snow.  Try mixing in some darker greys and other earth tones into your earth.  And maybe some grey in with the snow.  You can also comb the File Sharing section of the forums to see if anyone has left any shaders for download.  Additionally, Terragen 3 came with some presets you can try out.  You just lack experience.  Play with the settings and sliders and try snapping some nodes together to see what you can get.  When you get something good, you can save the clip file for use in other scenes.

[Colince411]

ok, will do! Thank you for actually responding and giving me feedback, I very much appreciate it.

[TheBadger]

The tuts are free. Its just, you will have to wait for some of them to be released, or pay and support the cause. 

[Oshyan]

Definitely check out the Geekatplay tutorials, as well as the ones on CGScenery (by Martin Huisman) here: http://www.cgscenery.com/basic/

Detail settings do not get you a "realistic looking" render. You can actually have a pretty realistic render with very low detail settings (think of a very fuzzy or grainy photo - it still looks like a real place, but the "quality"/detail is bad). As others have said, adding *complexity* to your scene (more surface layers, populations, colors, etc.) is generally the best route to realism. The real world is pretty complex. But keep in mind that it should ideally be subtle and well blended variation, not just lots of additional layers for randomness. Try slight variations of colors between two different surface layers, for example.

- Oshyan