questions regarding Terragen Clouds and 3D pipeline workflow

[zzu]

I love terragen, I can see how easy it is to set up realistic rendering with this powerful software; However, after some practice, I start to wonder how to actually integrate Terragen into a 3D workflow, for example: I have a rocket launch scene which was created in Maya, and I want to move that rocket launch scene into Terragen? How to do this? Or do I need to export a terragen animation and 3D track it with Nuke or After Effects, and then move the 3D object into the scene?

My second question is about the clouds, first, how to create a storm clouds? Second, is it possible to make clouds interact with objects? Thanks!

[Oshyan]

You can import and export basic scene data in FBX format, including lighting and camera info. That's the best way to sync movement and general scene info between apps at the moment. You can also use the Nuke CHAN format, though that's less commonly supported. For shadow catching, you can use the Micro Exporter to get terrain geometry out of Terragen, or one of the Vector Displacement export methods discussed elsewhere on the forums. And finally, once your scene setup is synced, you can render elements/layers out of Terragen and use those in your compositor to integrate with elements from other apps.

Storm clouds come in a variety of types and there are various ways to achieve these effects, using different noise functions and settings, different cloud densities, etc. I suggest looking at what NWDA and Luc Bianco have come up with as good starting points:
http://www.store.nwdastore.com/atmospheres-clouds
http://www.lucbianco.fr/store/

Clouds can interact with terrain/displacement using the Altitude Offset input. You can see some more info and a tutorial here:
http://planetside.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35:22cloudfunctiontutorial&catid=14:help
There are some differences from that technique in the latest Terragen, but you should still be able to tweak the effect to your liking.

- Oshyan

[bobbystahr]

Also if you have a paid version there is a killer storm cloud setup in the presets to use or study.