Easy, quick question from T3 newbie...

[polymono]

Hi,

I'm a newbie to Terragen 3, and I'm using the free non-commerical version with limitations.

I have a quick, easy question...

When I click on a Terrain node / item (in the Terrain list / tab) I notice that a tiny little viewport becomes available to the left of the main preview viewport. It's really tiny, but I can "open [it] in a new window" to see more of it. That's fine.

The viewport seems to show a square of terrain, the size of which I can choose. So far, so good.

My problem is that I don't know how to change the square of terrain being shown. It centers on the same area, probably 0,0,0 or something. The rendering camera is shown in the viewport, and I can move that with the three coloured arrows.

But how do I move the square of terrain that's being shown?

Like, the planet being generated is massive... so how to I focus the square onto the reverse side of the planet, for example?

The controls in the top-right corner do other things, it seems.

The reason I like this viewport (when expanded) is because you can orbit and move around, and find a landscape feature you like, and it doesn't need to re-render like the normal 3D viewport. My PC is slow, so being able to avoid re-rendering in the preview when I orbit around is really useful for me.

I hope this has made sense, and I hope one of you would be so kind as to help me.

I'm saving for a new PC (which I'd buy when Windows 10 comes out) and will want to buy Terragen 3 to make use of it.

Thanks,
polymono

[bobbystahr]

If you right click in that little window you can Open in new window and this is resizeable...does that help?

[archonforest]

I think he mean this window and how to change that square part of land. I would like to know also

[bobbystahr]

Hmmm well this is pretty much the same and you can actually reposition, rotate etc. the camera in it

[bobbystahr]

Or are we flogging the same horse with different labels, heh heh heh?

[Matt]

Hi polymono,

I'm sorry to say currently this isn't possible. You can change the size of the patch being generated with the + and - buttons, but not the position.

Bobby, you can move and rotate the view, yes, but the OP is asking for a way to change which part of the terrain is being generated in the preview.

I'll make it a priority to add this feature soon. There are some complications though. It should be easy enough to add buttons to allow you to scroll the patch horizontally, and perhaps enter precise coordinates. But if we want to view a terrain on the other side of the planet, the preview would need knowledge about the surface of the planet it's applied to (because most of these shaders are 3D textures, so they produce different results depending on the surface they're applied to). The shader/heightfield preview isn't designed to do this at the moment, so there might be some issues to work out, but I'll see what I can do.

Matt

[bobbystahr]

Hi polymono,

I'm sorry to say currently this isn't possible. You can change the size of the patch being generated with the + and - buttons, but not the position.

Bobby, you can move and rotate the view, yes, but the OP is asking for a way to change which part of the terrain is being generated in the preview.

I'll make it a priority to add this feature soon. There are some complications though. It should be easy enough to add buttons to allow you to scroll the patch horizontally, and perhaps enter precise coordinates. But if we want to view a terrain on the other side of the planet, the preview would need knowledge about the surface of the planet it's applied to (because most of these shaders are 3D textures, so they produce different results depending on the surface they're applied to). The shader/heightfield preview isn't designed to do this at the moment, so there might be some issues to work out, but I'll see what I can do.

Matt

Thanks Matt, my comprehension goes down on migraine days due to the meds...good to know this and that it's a future consideration. I've often wished for that.

[j meyer]

For now you can help yourself - for power fractal terrain - moving the region
in question to point 0/0/0 via a transform shader and open the transform
shader preview in a new window.You don't need to destroy/unconnect your
existing node-network,just pull out another connection line to the input of
the transform shader.

[bobbystahr]

For now you can help yourself - for power fractal terrain - moving the region
in question to point 0/0/0 via a transform shader and open the transform
shader preview in a new window.You don't need to destroy/unconnect your
existing node-network,just pull out another connection line to the input of
the transform shader.

Pretty neat Jochen, dunno why I never tried that. Opens worlds of new terrain at the click of a switch, especially if you favour a certain flavour of noise. Me, I like the rigded voroni for terrains.