Terragen 3ds Max Workflow

[dorianvan]

Vue xStream has full interaction with 3ds Max, Maya, etc. Is it theoretically possible to do this with Terragen? Here's a link to show what I mean: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_2014_xstream/

[dorianvan]

I think this would be a powerful tool and open up many more doors for to Maya and 3dMax users, especially for those in film.

[zaxxon]

A Vue xStream type of application for Terragen  would be very nice, hopefully not as expensive or so prone to bugs (at least thru Vue xStream 9.5 when I tossed in the towel  ). At $1695 US, over 3x's the cost of TG, the price of xStream 2014 is way outside of my budget (upgrade from xStream 10 is $849 US - don't know what options are for 9.5 users). My hope is for Planetside to implement FBX and Alembic standards to facilitate more inter-operability with Autodesk, The Foundry, Lightwave, et al.

[dorianvan]

Over a year ago when I bought TG2, I thought Vue was slightly better in looks than Terragen, but the reasons I went with Terragen over Vue was stability and cost. With the release of TG3 and some new renders users are creating, I think TG is just as good, maybe slightly better; AND it's more stable/cheaper. But still one big draw to Vue to the pros in my opinion, is the workflow within other programs. This would be a cool addition if it even is possible; which is why I was wondering.

[Oshyan]

We have no plans to create any direct integrations with other applications. There are a lot of problems with this approach, including the need for constant maintenance (new versions of these other applications are often released yearly) - taking away development time from other features - as well as only being able to support a limited number of applications, and just general limitations on what the integration can even do. We do support FBX import/export already with a basic but good set of supported data (lights, camera, and animation data for both), as well as FBX format export of terrain data. We also plan to support Alembic in the future.

- Oshyan

[dorianvan]

Yeah, I was wondering about that. This may seem like a stupid question, but can a third party write a plugin for TG, like for use with 3dMax for instance? Or would they have to have access to your coding which you wouldn't give out? Also, this might be better on a separate topic but is there a way to export a population? Thanks for getting back Oshyan.

[Oshyan]

We don't currently have a publicly accessible SDK, but we do hope to at some point. Then, yes, someone could potentially write a plugin like that.

Population data is not exportable at exportable, but it's something we do want to add. Now that we have population caching it should be easier, although we need to figure out what format is most compatible.

- Oshyan