TG3 basic

[ewong]

Hi,  this is my first post here and as such, I'm new to TG.  I'm having some difficulties
figuring TG3.  I understand that renderers/animation applications are complex beasts.
I have Rhino and relatively speaking, it's less complicated than TG3 (understandably).
Recently, I wanted to create a 3D world and decided to look for some World generating
applications.  I found a few and then came across TG3.  I think this is exactly what I need.
However, I do need a lot of help with this 'generate a 3D world' idea.

1) The documentation/wiki mentions TG2.  The "QuickStart" from http://www.planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Quick_Start is confusing me.  I'm stuck on #7. (Where is this Add Layer
above node list?)  Then I look at "Creating your first scene" on that same page, and it mentions
TG2.  Opening TG3, I get nothing like what is shown in the "Creating your first scene" pdf.
What I have in TG3 is a mountainous region.  Do I delete everything in that node view?

2) While i have a general 2D map done, it isn't complete.  It only has one land mass and a
few lakes.  I'd like to translate that into 3D.  What should I do first? (Aside for learn TG3
basics?)

3) I know this may sound like the '80s/90s', but is there a manual for TG3?

Thanks for your patience.

Edmund

[Oshyan]

In Terragen 3 we changed the default scene to have more of a useful example to start with, rather than a blank scene. If you want to follow Creating Your First Scene, you can just delete all the Terrain nodes (highlight and delete in the Terrain layout's Node List to avoid deleting the important Compute Terrain node as it's not listed there). Alternatively you can just skip the adding terrain portion of the guide and use the existing terrain in the new default scene.

In the Quick Start, if you go to the Shaders layout (the larger buttons at the top access different "Layouts", editing areas focused on a particular aspect of the scene such as terrain, lighting, etc.) you should see the Add Layer button on the left at the top of the Node List.


The Wiki is considered the official documentation for Terragen at this time. It is largely complete but some aspects are still being updated for Terragen 3 vs. Terragen 2, although they are largely similar.

- Oshyan

[ewong]

In Terragen 3 we changed the default scene to have more of a useful example to start with, rather than a blank scene. If you want to follow Creating Your First Scene, you can just delete all the Terrain nodes (highlight and delete in the Terrain layout's Node List to avoid deleting the important Compute Terrain node as it's not listed there). Alternatively you can just skip the adding terrain portion of the guide and use the existing terrain in the new default scene.

I decided to fiddle around with the default TG3 scenery load, and I did my first render and I'm floored by the beauty of it.
It's a simple 'kinda-like-a-Martian-landscape', but it's very nice!

Thanks

[bobbystahr]

Welcome to Terragen World