Terratile
Terrain authoring programs such as Gaea and World Machine can create terrains of great complexity and detail. However, creating a single heightfield requires a very high-resolution map to accurately reproduce the detail required.
Loading multi-tiled heightfield builds into Terragen can be a laborious process. It can be done manually by visually moving each tile into place, or the offset for each tile worked out mathematically. Either way, this can take a long time, especially for a large number of tiles.
Terratile is a simple Python script to assemble tiled heightfield and color output from Gaea and World machine. It enables what would usually be a laborious setup in Terragen to be achieved in a few mouse clicks. Tile position and setup is saved as a Terragen clip file which is then imported into Terragen, a multi-node setup is then stored in a group node.
Currently supports tiled output from World Machine and Gaea (though Gaea's tiled builds are currently still in Beta and subject to change) and has been tested with 32 bit .exr and .tif files (.exr is the recommended format).
Tested with Terragen Free and Professional.
Download free from Dropbox via Bitly:
https://bit.ly/3HPAUOeCurrently hosted here till I find a better home for it.
The app has tool-tips and a manual. A walk-through and short tutorial is on:
https://youtu.be/t9cVjmfWnZUIf you try and it works for you, please like this post - thanks.
Terratile is also part of the upcoming release of Terraman 4 for Maya - shameless plug follows
Terraman 4 for Maya• Re-written from the ground up in Python.
• Re-designed QT Interface.
• Click and drag installation.
• Supports Maya versions 2017 – 2022.
• Supports Python 2 and 3 for Maya.
• Supports output from Terragen, World Machine and Gaea.
• Supports Arnold and Vray.
• Create tiled terrain output from Terragen.
• Create tiled heightfields and textures in Terragen from World Machine and Gaea tiled builds.
• Converts terrain meshes to Arnold or Vray geometry caches.
• Cache, proxy or stand-in assets for terrains.
• Use scene or preset rig cameras.
• Export scene polygon objects.
• Exports object hard surface animation.
• Exports hierarchical animated objects.
• Exports deforming objects (such as skinned characters) via Motion Designer Deformer (MDD) files.
• Import Terragen camera animation via .chan files.
• Import Scalar and Vector displacement maps to create terrains.
• Exports camera and object data as Terragen clip files.
• Converts Maya shader to a Terragen default shader via a clip file.
• Supported shaders:
o Arnold – StandardSurface
o Vray – VrayMtl
o Maya – Lambert
o Maya - Blinn
• Multiple file processing options save time for terrain and image batch functions.
• OCIO aware for image file conversion to .tx format.
• Naming convention re-namer for Mari and Mudbox image tiles.
• Connect to Meshlab server to clean and decimate terrain meshes.
• Connect to maketx.exe to convert image files to mipmapped .tx.
• Tool-tips are available for all functions.
• Parameters are sticky and will remember user selections between sessions of Maya.
Terraman is due to release in the first quarter of 2022.
If you use Maya and Terragen and would like to test a pre-release copy, please PM me.
