I like all of that detail, and it is certainly worthy of being further textured with TG's tools (perhaps with some additional TG displacements?) Gaea is a really deep program and is very addictive, the seemingly endless terrain possibilities has kept me up many evenings. The number of online tutorials, especially when Dax Pandhi demos features, are inspiring. But to your point TU: yes it can be very 'buggy' in my experience. I've read how Gaea functions better with win 10, I'm a recent (and reluctant) win 10 adoptee (but only on one of may machines) and haven't had a chance to see much difference. When multiple functions are tied together the complexity is pretty dense and it takes some time (lots of time) to calculate thru the network, and very often it just 'locks' up. Gaea's erosion is definitely superior to the other terrain builders however (ironic in that it is from Danil just like TG's).
I purchased World Creator last Black Friday and have begun to put it thru it's paces. Many of the WC folks use heightfields from Gaea in their WC terrains because of it's better look (mainly the erosion's). I see that World Machine has also made some significant improvements, especially in how it previews graphic details, lots of competition here. Gaea's not that expensive (I know it's all relative to what you have to spend) and may not be the ideal stand-alone to bring into TG but it's power and sheer excellence in terrain creation make it part of my toolkit. I think a combination of Gaea for certain effects brought into WC for composing and shaping (the interface is an artists dream with the fast interface (almost real-time) and intuitive in-viewport tools), then into TG for final texturing, atmospheres, populations, and that gorgeous render engine. The truth be told, TG probably can do most of not all of what the apps can do, plus no one else has a handle on vertical displacements. It's the ease of creation and the freedom to work in a more visual graphics environment that necessitates these additional purchases for me, well, it's also a lot of fun.
Not to 'steal' the thread, I really like seeing what folks are doing with these Terrain apps brought into TG. This is a good example aknight0 and I hope you continue with the experimentation. Looking forward to your next ones!
