Terragen contest...

[bobbystahr]

For example I really can't imagine TGers like Ulco, Luc Bianco, Frank B, being anything but awesome even with just a free version.

Yes, but that's an advantage of skill, rather than 3rd party software knowledge or access.  Personally, I was thinking we should have a thread, not necessarily a contest, but a thread to see what everyone can do with the TG3 default scene.

I'd participate should you start one; maybe in Image Sharing?

[TheBadger]

I obviously have opinions on this topic . But I actually -do not- agree with the OP.
What the OP describes is basically what we do here every single day. A contest IMO should be special. Besides that, I feel like TG was not created to live in a vacuum, that it was meant to be used with other software, and that in general there is not enough of that in image sharing.

Anyway, I am trying different things too. But right now I feel like my best stuff for the contest so far is the stuff where I only used TG. I don't find after a few years now that having other soft necessarily makes me more successful. Just depends on what I'm trying to make I think.

But what do you mean you are not participating, OP? I saw your thread in the contest page, and I, as well as several others, said that they liked where it was going. Do you think we are pretending? Don't loose your nerve man! Work it until it is done, you clearly had a vision.

Besides all that, I doubt very much that Matt and the others are going to be distracted by flash. I think they all know what a good idea and composition look like. And there is not just 1 winner. There are three winners. And I doubt that 1st place will go to the best use of WM or GC2 or whatever. I really think its about how you use TG to realize an idea, regardless of if you used other soft or not.

Lastly, I find that you really have to know TG well to use it in a good way with other soft. So someone who knows TG that well is likely to win anyway (regardless of other soft), which is how it would be in any medium I would think. I would expect that the winners and in general the best images will show a good understanding of the software, just as we see in image sharing everyday.

No?

[PabloMack]

I feel like TG was not created to live in a vacuum, that it was meant to be used with other software...

In principle I think you are right. But you do have to put down ground rules. I think it is enough to require the work to be rendered in TG with no 2D compositing with other images. It should be okay to bring in external objects, weight and height maps etc. which will make it more interesting. The lighting and camera work will still be done with TG's rendering system. What do you think?

[Seth]

The winners won't be the one with the best WM2 terrain or the best tree ever made.

They will be the best three users for the contest. Composition, lighting, texturing, realism (or not), etc...

I, for example, don't use another program in my renders, except using vegetation from xfrog in some of them. And I think that Terragen can dominate any other landscaping softwares, even if you're not using any third party software to improve your renders.

That contest is about TG skills, and the judges won't forget that

But if you wanna do a contest on "only TG" stuff, limited to what the free version can do, that could be fun and you might have people interested in joining that contest.
That might even become a good showcase for people interested in trying Terragen for the first time.

[archonforest]

I would still separate the full version from the free. That should be two diff thing as if I have the full why should I hold myself back with 3 populations...etc.

This stuff reminds me something I just loved at the past. It is called DemoScene. On Commodore computers of crs
They had different stages like full demo, max 64Kbyte intro...etc...etc and see who is best.

This is similar to full version and free version with limitations.