Plan for 2018

Started by Matt, January 18, 2018, 03:47:37 PM

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sboerner

Great news, Matt. Something to look forward to this year, and so nice to hear that Planetside is thriving!

KlausK

I know it`s getting old and boring, but... get the WIKI up to date also.
First and foremost the Node Reference. Please.
CHeers, Klaus
/ ASUS WS Mainboard / Dual XEON E5-2640v3 / 64GB RAM / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 TI / Win7 Ultimate . . . still (||-:-||)

bobbystahr

Quote from: OldFlak on January 24, 2018, 04:01:39 AM

There are only two things that have stopped me using Terragen
1) Can't get a decent render for skyboxes for use in game engines - the six renders are slightly different shades so they don't match correctly
2) Waiting for the subscription model.
[
OldFlak....



Hhave you tried this? A lot of users without the 360 camera used this to good effect in the recent VR challenge to get their spherical renders together.

https://youtu.be/JQt_FD_Ps28
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

archonforest

Quote from: KlausK on February 02, 2018, 09:54:31 AM
I know it`s getting old and boring, but... get the WIKI up to date also.
First and foremost the Node Reference. Please.
CHeers, Klaus

It is old but not boring. The lack of docs almost turned me away from TG to Vue or something. And I am sure it does turns away people. Thus they loose income...
Guess PS got enough money otherwise they would be more interested in this subject.
Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
Amiga 1200 8Mb ram, 8Gb ssd

Hubert_Holin

Bonjour et bonne année (sorry if I am a bit late...)

The mythical SDK?  ;)

Thanks for the information, and good luck for 2018!

OldFlak

Quote from: bobbystahr on February 02, 2018, 10:44:06 AM
Quote from: OldFlak on January 24, 2018, 04:01:39 AM

There are only two things that have stopped me using Terragen
1) Can't get a decent render for skyboxes for use in game engines - the six renders are slightly different shades so they don't match correctly
2) Waiting for the subscription model.
[
OldFlak....



Hhave you tried this? A lot of users without the 360 camera used this to good effect in the recent VR challenge to get their spherical renders together.

https://youtu.be/JQt_FD_Ps28

Sorry for long delay in answering - holidays are sweet!

Yeah, I used that for my projects. The six sides all line up perfectly with that method, but the renders are slightly different shades, so you can see where they join. Which is a little disappointing - I really want something better than Bryce - lol!

OldFlak....
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4160 @ 3,60GHz. 8GB Ram. NVidia GeForce GTX 750. Acer 24" Monitors x 2 @ 1920 x 1080. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

Oshyan

The SDK remains available on an individual basis and at our discretion to those who inquire directly with us. It is PC-only at this time.

Mismatches between skybox renders are almost all due to GI differences. You can solve this with appropriate use of the GI cache, which is only available in licensed versions of course.

- Oshyan


DutchDimension

I agree with those mentioning the documentation. It's by far the worst docs I've ever read for a commercially available 3D DCC software. (I've read many over the years).

2-6+ year old pages are the norm it seems. As well as entirely missing chapters. Many new features have no explanation at all, leaving users to guess at their functionality. A chronic lack of screenshots (especially in the guides sections) to help, you know, guide the novice. And where there are screenshots they are old and outdated. Formatting is inconsistent and the labeling/naming has discrepancies between the App and the Wiki (and I'm not just talking about Colour vs. Color). Node reference tabs split up across multiple pages (why?!). And overall, it feels like it is written by programmers, rather than by (tech)-artists for artists. Too dry and in many cases needlessly repetitive. I could go on....

If you want to grow your user base, you absolutely have to start taking this seriously. It's been bad for as long as I can remember and it is partly to blame for TG's reputation out there in the VFX & games industry (awesome quality, but too much of a hassle/difficult to invest time to learn it). Terragen is a tough cookie to crack in and of itself but the Wiki is the bouncer that chases off many brave souls.

As many new/improved things as I would like to see in TG, instead I'd say hire one less programmer and pay for a good tech writer. Don't just rely on "donations" from your user base. That's something that needs to be in addition to a solid documentation, and not serve as the band-aid.

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but I've spent the last few days reading through the Wiki and it gives me the same painful flashbacks from when I last read it........ back in 2011!

bobbystahr

#24
Quote from: DutchDimension on March 03, 2018, 09:49:00 AM


Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but I've spent the last few days reading through the Wiki and it gives me the same painful flashbacks from when I last read it........ back in 2011!

Time maybe better spent inside TG tweaking and trying stuff. I spent the longest time at the start avoiding the WIKI and discovered delightfully many things and stuff I couldn't grok I asked about here...generally promptly answered, often in an entertaining(to me at least)manner.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

DutchDimension

Quote from: bobbystahr on March 03, 2018, 09:51:33 AM
Quote from: DutchDimension on March 03, 2018, 09:49:00 AM


Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but I've spent the last few days reading through the Wiki and it gives me the same painful flashbacks from when I last read it........ back in 2011!

Time maybe better spent inside TG tweaking and trying stuff. I spent the longest time at the start avoiding the WIKI and discovered delightfully many things and stuff I couldn't grok I asked about here...generally promptly answered, often in an entertaining(to me at least)manner.

Perhaps I should've worded that better. As in: "I've spent the last few days reading through the Wiki as I experimented and stumbled around inside TG". I actually did end up creating a few test cases and proof of concepts for shots we are currently working on.

Upon Infinity

As far as the wiki is concerned, perhaps users could submit videos on how to accomplish certain tasks, and have Oshyan do a voice over explaining it.  Just throwing it out there.

ajcgi

As it's a wiki, could it not be more open source so it can be edited and updated by anyone? Sometimes I come across a check box or slider I don't know the function of, it's missing in the wiki and then I find the answer via the forum. Well that answer could easily be placed into the wiki by anybody. What I Know Is...

Quote from: Upon Infinity on March 04, 2018, 03:03:21 AM
As far as the wiki is concerned, perhaps users could submit videos on how to accomplish certain tasks, and have Oshyan do a voice over explaining it.  Just throwing it out there.

Oshyan

It was open edit access for years and there was unfortunately minimal contribution. Of course it is not up to our users to ensure complete and accurate documentation. Matt will be posting an update here soon which will outline how we plan to address this long-standing and understandably very frustrating issue.

- Oshyan

D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)

Quote from: OldFlak on January 24, 2018, 04:01:39 AM

1) Can't get a decent render for skyboxes for use in game engines - the six renders are slightly different shades so they don't match correctly

OldFlak....

OldFlak,

Did you ever figure out your SkyBox issues?  I have been getting perfect results using a 360 Camera, and then creating the cube faces after the fact in some other tool.  Some engines will just import the Equirectangular Pano and automatically convert to the 6 cube faces (Unity for example).