A non-commercial solution for creating chan files for Terragen.

[gregsandor]

Thanks!

[gregsandor]

I can only see the 9.5 download...

[Moose]

Are you logged in? I believe you need to be logged in first.

[gregsandor]

That was it.  I have version 9.1.244 now.

[gregsandor]

I'm at the point of displaying the terrain files after converting them; so far everything is going well, except the terrain tiles don't display.   
Does my initial terrain file have to be started at lower left?  My 513 x 513 .ter (40470m square) is centered at 0,0,0. 


When I run the conversion, this is the result:  I see in the video that there is some caching going on that isn't reported in my file:edit:  solved

[gregsandor]

After success with converting the default generated heightfield I tried again the .ter, once more it only exports 9 files and some of them are narrow strips.  I'll try a different terrain file.

[Moose]

It's been a while since I've used it... but I think I had it set up so that it converts the terrain geometry based on the dimensions of the default hf in TG (basically it's a bit of a cop-out hack and makes some assumptions - anything more and it would have been beyond my skills).

I've found though, that you can still get enough detail from using an oexr image of the hf displaced as geometry in Houdini rather than converting the actual lwo geo from TG if that's giving problems.

[gregsandor]

Maybe its the size of my terrain -- 40470 m.  Ill try again with a 1000 m terrain and see how that goes.  By the way thanks for the video tut -- its the clearest explanation of any tutorial ever.

[gregsandor]

I made a new terrain 1000px x 1000px, 10,000 m square and that worked.  Then I found the setting for proxy terrrain size -- I think that would allow changes to the size -- I modified the default size and the terrain size changed.  Would there be any trouble animating on a different size terrain? I don't know, I'll test when I have time.  Meanwhile I also wonder whether it is necessary to even use the .lwo export method:  can we jsut use an .exr on the proxy terrain?

So far I am able to get my camera to follow a path through the canyon.  When I exported a .chan, there was only one line of data in it.  Every time a bit more progress.

[Moose]

Originally, when I first created the tool I was unable to use the exr image as a 'final' mesh as either 1/ TG2 didn't have a "Flatten surface first" option (meaning a real mesh and a hf of that mesh would never match-up), or 2/ It did, and I just didn't see it . So I was using the exr image as a 'rough' approximation for quick navigation (in Houdini) and as a guide for dicing up the lwo geo into manageable chunks.

But yes, you're right - I don't see much need to use the lwo geometry now. Also, depending on what you're doing, the LWO micro exporter route could be desirable (but like I said in the video, you'd need to use another piece of s/w to convert it into a format such as .obj that Houdini can read... Blender does a good job).

Not sure what the prob is with the chan export - if you cant figure it and wish to post a test-file, I'll take a look.

[gregsandor]

For the terrain I already have a .ter file I wish to use.  The .exr or .lwo is only to guide the path creation.  I thought maybe there was some way that Houdini used the terrain in calculating the output, but I don't think so. 

One UI question:  after the part of your video wher you first show how to select the handles on the camera ( I got that part) you somehow are able to click the button to move in the world and your camera controls are still visible -- when I click it they disappear.  How?

As for the .chan export I will make another run at it this morning and post the result. 

Thanks again for this tool and the tutorial -- its excellent.

[rodpacker1]

Hey Moose,

GREAT TOOL!!! I have been using it for a project that would have been very hard to get done otherwise.

Thanks a LOT!!!


Hey I have to - don't ask why - get the created channel file back into Houdini and animate a Houdini Cam through it.

I basically know how to do this through chops and tried to reverse-engineer the chop network, which kinda works, but unfortunately not exactly.   When I use the reversed channels to drive the camera the camera will be animated with some sort of offset and the lookAt isn't right either.  I did fix most of this problem by (additionally to driving it through the CHOPS system) setting the camera to the originally used path as well as the old lookAtobject.  After doing this it comes pretty close, however it isn't a hundred percent accurate (which I'll be able to fix in post) and at two points in the animation the camera tilts strangely for some reason.

I also tried to reconvert the chan files using excel and the functions specified but am running into issues there as well
(e.g. the script seems to calculate 1.5E-07 or something similar in the rotation values where they should be zero).

From what I could see the initial conversion does the following:

t x = -(x) + (TerrainSize set in e.g. proxyTerrain)
t y = x
t z = -(x)

r x = x
r y = 180 + x
r z = x

(I don't need to worry about the FOV for now)

is this right or did I miss something?

Have you had any experience with reversing the procedure as I am trying to do?

thanks a lot for your help
rodpacker

[Moose]

Hey I have to - don't ask why - get the created channel file back into Houdini and animate a Houdini Cam through it.

Hi rodpacker1

It's been a while since I've had anything to do with this so my memory is really quite hazy with it all (It doesn't help that it was all quite spaghetti-like under the hood too). To be honest, anything with orientations send my head spinning (pun very much intended!), as whatever I end up with is pretty much through trial and error.

Just thinking out loud though, could you not use the original Houdini camera (the one used to create the chan file from), parent that to a fresh camera and apply any secondary animation/offsets to that - or am I not understanding what you want?

[rodpacker1]

Hi Moose,

thanks for your quick reply.

Yeah that's the problem the camera info in the Houdini file used to render the animation in Terragen got lost so if I don't want to rerender everything in TG I need to reverse engineer the cam translation in CHOPS

I'm close though

thanks rodpacker

[goldfarb]

feel free to PM me if you need any Houdini help...