QuoteIt's not rendered, but it allows us a quick look at the overall shot
Matt can correct me if this isn't right, but I assume Terragen has to render via a micro-polygon render to get the terrain displacement in the preview - looks like a progressive version of the main renderer capped at a certain level of detail, it's obviously not an Open GL preview that you can scrub or render quickly to a playblast.
Maybe an idea would be to add a "terrain only" mode to the render node, so the render would behave like the preview does when the Terrain tab is selected - i.e. no atmos, gi, terrain shading etc. That would be quicker to render for a test. Would also be great when using the render node to save out a Micro exporter as that's all you need to save an obj or fbx.
Have you tried my script for Maya? -
https://www.highend3d.com/maya/script/terraman-for-mayaI use it all the time to render out animation playblasts, and using tiling for the terrain can get very detailed geo into Maya for a playblast, plus you can use Maya to add useful screen ornaments like frame numbers and camera names burnt in.
QuoteI've run into situations where I've rendered a TG scene with a tracked 3D camera I've gotten from PF Track (or another tracking package) only to find out that the track is off.
I've scripted custom camera rigs to ensure cameras get exported to Terragen quickly and accurately and use .chan data for the export.I haven't had to deal with a tracked camera from something like PF track, but that's something I definitely want to add soon - just need to write a conversion tool to make sure the FOV, film backs etc translate correctly to Terragen.