Terragen 2 Release Announcement Discussion

Started by Oshyan, December 12, 2007, 07:10:04 PM

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Marcos Silveira

Other day, I, trying to buy more memory to my lazy 700mb of RAM machine, was scared by so many questions about mother board trademark, year of production, and so, that I gave up and started thinking about buying a new PC...
:o :o :o

otakar

I would like to thank Planetside for the good communication policy (much better since the release of TGTP). I am also thankful for the extension of the preview pricing. Frankly, so far I have not felt the need to purchase the Deep Edition, purely from the functionality perspective. Many of my renders take a long time already with the max. settings, the only thing I could have used in a couple of scenes may be more populations. But I am still planning on acquiring TG, both for future needs and to support planetside, so that the product can continue being advanced and improved.

Also, I'd like to add a voice to those lacking the latest computer hardware. Purchasing my components in May 2005, putting together a then upper-mid-range system - not inexpensive- in terms of performance (Athlon 64 3200+, 1GB RAM in dual channel, SATA MOBO), I am done for a while with upgrades of core components, unless something breaks. I'd like Terragen to remain usable on such a system for at least the next year or so for hobbyists like me. If I were to do commercial projects I probably would be quick to spend the cash and buy a multiprocessor MOBO, one of the newer CPUs and load up on RAM, but as it is, the system has plenty of power for all my other needs. And as has been mentioned, there are people with much less powerful hardware trying to run Terragen. I am sure everybody will be happy as long as you give people an explanation which settings generally affect render time the most and how the use of the different shaders plays into that. I realize there's no quick answer here, this could grow into a nice book-size guide alone ;) Just my opinion.

Merry Christmas!

rcallicotte

@Otakar - Are you aware that the price to buy TG2 will go up after the final comes out?
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Sethren

Quote from: Harvey Birdman on December 14, 2007, 06:40:19 AM
Quote from: Sethren on December 14, 2007, 04:10:47 AM

Ditto!     ::)

2.8 Ghz P4

... with 512M of RAM.   :-\

We should have a contest to see who is running TG2 on the lamest box. I think I've seen mention of P3's a few times. Then there's that Commodore 64...   :)


I have a Gig of DDR but real soon hear i need to throw another stick in.

By the time a render would be finished on a Commodore 64 we would have colonized Tau Ceti.

rcallicotte

Quote from: Sethren on December 14, 2007, 02:12:01 PM
By the time a render would be finished on a Commodore 64 we would have colonized Tau Ceti.

Well, according to Wikipedia, "At just under 12 light years' distance from the Solar System, it is a relatively close star."  So...
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Will

So, logically if we want to reach Tau Ceti we must render with a Commodore 64.
The world is round... so you have to use spherical projection.

Sethren

Quote from: Will on December 14, 2007, 02:57:43 PM
So, logically if we want to reach Tau Ceti we must render with a Commodore 64.


Precisely!

BTW:
I wonder if a Sub-Surface Scattering Shader will be in the Beta even though it was not mentioned in the announcement.    ???

Oshyan

We will of course be conducting internal testing prior to releasing the beta. We would like the beta to be reasonably stable but the changes to the renderer are significant and multithreading in particular can be problematic. We only have a limited pool of multi-core alpha test systems available and there is quite a wide range of possible multi-core configurations when you take into account hyperthreaded P4's, the various generations of true multi-core CPU's, different operating systems, etc. The important thing is that the beta process will give us a much broader range of test subjects and allow us to ensure that the final release will be as stable as possible.

Subsurface scattering probably won't make it into the February final release but it should be possible in a future update.

- Oshyan

Will

Quote from: Oshyan on December 14, 2007, 04:02:43 PM
We will of course be conducting internal testing...

Little did we know Planetside was in league with NASA to get us to Tau Ceti... Ladys, Gentalmen we launch in February!
The world is round... so you have to use spherical projection.

Sethren

Quote from: Oshyan on December 14, 2007, 04:02:43 PM

Subsurface scattering probably won't make it into the February final release but it should be possible in a future update.

- Oshyan

Sound's Good. Febuary is right around the corner anyways.

otakar

Quote from: calico on December 14, 2007, 12:31:33 PM
@Otakar - Are you aware that the price to buy TG2 will go up after the final comes out?

Yes, and I stated that I am thankful for the extension granted.

Cyber-Angel

I have a question about the renderer, currently if you use heavy, complex displacement (Say for the kinds of terrain found in Utah) during rendering you get tearing along some edges or small parts are not rendered (Denoted by black areas on the render) has this problem been fixed for both the beta and the first release?

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel   

sonshine777

I just want to know if the warning dialog will be able to tell you what image can't be loaded when it pops up?
Right now it is more of a taunt than a help.
It takes forever to track the offending file down if you have a project with many models or image maps.

Kevin F

Quote from: Oshyan on December 14, 2007, 04:02:43 PM
We only have a limited pool of multi-core alpha test systems available and .....
- Oshyan

I have a dual processor system ready and waiting! ;D