Rising

[Hannes]

This started as an animation. And after some quite frustrating tests (previewing animated stuff is almost impossible in TG) I decided to make it a still.
There's a lot of cloud layers to represent the water stuff. The boat's bowwave is a mix of a population of white grass clumps and a small low quality cloud layer directly in front of the boat.

I know, there are not too many people who use TG's animation features, but I'd love to see some further development here. If you try to animate some things, and you have to render test animations each time to see what you'll get, is really annoying.

[Kadri]

Looks great Hannes.

Yeah animation is unfortunately more hard in Terragen.

[Dune]

Awesome. I love your ideas, as always. And using white grass is a great idea for a bowwave, I really like that out-of-the-box thinking. But why several cloudlayers, and not one with a mask (thru camera)? That might be faster...

I very much agree with your mentioning the animation capabilities (one of the things I could use very well, and now very much hesitate to use for commissions), and I think Matt should update his plans here. Is he still working on TG, is it a GPU renderer, or has he mostly abandoned work on TG and is busy with something completely different? The forum is getting quieter every day, it appears like users are leaving, though I have no clue what happens on FB. Is there a (GPU) future ahead, or should we (as last Mohicans) also leave?

Sorry if I hijacked your thread, Hannes.

[Hannes]

Thanks guys!
No problem, Ulco. This is exactly what I think. Sometimes I feel a little lonely here. I'd love to hear something about TG's future (if there is any!). I love this program so much, even if there are things that bother me. Can we expect some bigger steps forward in the nearer future? I know, the team is quite small, and thus the evolution is of course slow, but nevertheless sometimes it feels a bit like a sinking ship. I desperately hope, that I'm wrong!!!

[Hannes]

But why several cloudlayers, and not one with a mask (thru camera)? That might be faster...

I used three cloudlayers for the falling water masses, all with separate and different settings and warpings. One cloudlayer for the bowwave, two cloud layers for actual clouds, one for general mist, and a last one for the mist directly on top of the water, where the water hits the surface. I don't know, if I could have done that with less layers. And as I wrote it was initially planned as an animation. I already simplified the setup for the still image, but I guess camera projection wouldn't have been an option. And who knows, maybe I'll dare to animate it again...

[Dune]

Do tell me if you go!   I'll shut the door then.

Clouds; I see, thanks.

[zaxxon]

Once again: Amazing!!!  That you ever planned to animate this in TG is absolutely 'Herculean'! (and a little nuts!) 

I can imagine how frustrating it must be for Matt and Planetside to try and develop and maintain TG when so much of the competition is free and under robust development.  GPU support is an absolute necessity these days and using applications that have that makes it's very difficult and time consuming to use the current versions of TG.  Developing a 3D renderer from the ground up has to be a monumental task and integrating it into the existing functionality even more difficult. The folks at World Creator have had a very slow go at it even though they have a moderate sized Dev team; I purchased a pre-release of World Creator 3 (now called World Creator 2022) in November of 2020 as an Alpha, the Beta came about six months later and to this date the full release with terrains larger then 1K has yet to happen.  And to add insult to injury my maintenance license is now expired if I want the 'full' version.  But due to Covid and the difficulty of creating such software I can understand and sympathize (somewhat) with the effort. Whatever the story is with Planetside and the TG development it would be good for Matt to share what the future looks like. I doubt if there are 'secrets' that need to kept from the 'competitors' at this point after all.    However, TG has been a great tool for me for many years and I hope that it continues in some form, and hopefully we'll get some news here before long.

[Mahnmut]

Great Render!
from the thumb I thought it was the millenium falcon.
cool approach to the falling water, I my try to copy that, have been thinking about waterfalls lately.
Sorry to hear about the problems (?) concerning planetside.
Obviously, I can not revive the forum by upscaling all my old pictures.
May TG rise like your starship!

[aknight0]

Agreed that the radio silence approach to development seems counterproductive.  

Cool ship Hannes!  Reminds me of that scene from Dune where the transports come out of the lake.

[mhaze]

Brilliant!

[raymoh]

Hannes, I can only too well understand your thoughts on the future of Terragen. I too am beginning to wonder if we will see Terragen 5. My subjective perception is that the further development of Terragen is lagging behind the development of the operating systems (no matter if Windows or Mac) more and more. I am well aware that only a (too?) small team is working on the development of Terragen, but time seems to be working against them.
As a Mac user, I wouldn't be surprised if sooner or later an information window would pop up with the terse remark : "This program will no longer be supported with a next version of macOS".

[pixelpusher636]

Hannes as always you've blown 💨 my mind! This is so fantastically done and I love the guys scrambling on the tugboat too.

[pixelpusher636]

Hannes, I can only too well understand your thoughts on the future of Terragen. I too am beginning to wonder if we will see Terragen 5. My subjective perception is that the further development of Terragen is lagging behind the development of the operating systems (no matter if Windows or Mac) more and more. I am well aware that only a (too?) small team is working on the development of Terragen, but time seems to be working against them.
As a Mac user, I wouldn't be surprised if sooner or later an information window would pop up with the terse remark : "This program will no longer be supported with a next version of macOS".

I have insulated myself indirectly from this window ever rearing it's ugly head on my system.
Not quite what I'd call "active measures" but one of my macs is so old El Capitan is the furthest I'm able to upgrade to without going through the Macpro 4,1 to 5,1 dance. 🤨 I guess I'm at greater risk of not being able to run TG at some point. Nice to see another Mac user on the forums, I thought it was just me!

[Hannes]

Thanks a lot, Pixelpusher!!

[pixelpusher636]

Thanks a lot, Pixelpusher!!

and thank you Hannes! Seriously the expert posts are not only inspiring but they can also show us new possibilities with TG. Between you and dune you have this area cornered. Well done!