Terragen workshop?

[domdib]

I love TG2, and I think the levels of support and encouragement on these forums are excellent. I'm sure that, once the full documentation is out, my understanding will deepen. But I can't help thinking that maybe the best way to learn such a complex program would be in the company of some of the real experts.

I use another program called Tinderbox http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox, which is similarly complex, with a steep learning curve, and one of the things they do is have fairly regular weekends in the US and Europe where the chief programmer plus a number of advanced users get together with other users to basically learn together. Does that sound like a model that Planetside, plus this community of users, would find interesting?

[Mohawk20]

It is a good idea, though I don't think it would be doable (at least not yet)...

the problem is the global issue. The best users are literally scattered over the planet, and it wouldn't be very cost effective to get them together in one place I think, also because the best users are hobbyists on a tight budget from their wives... 

[Goms]

Its an interesting question.
I could image that one way for doing workshops would be to stream an image of one persons screen.
I found http://screenplay.huelix.com/, which seems to do this. For 50$....
At least, with a good Web cam and Screen, you could realize this with skype.
You could see the monitor, hear the voices and ask questions directly.

[Mr_Lamppost]

That is an interesting idea. 

The distributed nature of the user group would definitely present problems, even if the technical difficulties could be over come there is no way around the problem of us all being in different time zones.

[neuspadrin]

Or we could use a free screen capture program such as http://camstudio.org/, upload videos to youtube or file sharing sites, perhaps after awhile we could even make compilation dvd's and bittorrent them.

[old_blaggard]

Terragen.org/Ashundar could easily host this stuff if there is enough interest.

[Goms]

Nikita did a video-tutorial once for tgblog.
http://tgblog.de/vtutorials/planet.htm
But with hosted videos the chance to ask questions get lost....
But well, the timezones a really a problem....

[neuspadrin]

Well with the post its always possible to have a submit question area, where the person who posted it or someone who understood it could answer the question.

[domdib]

The timezones are only a problem if we expect everyone who participates here to participate in the workshop. Basically, the Eastgate people usually have an East Coast (of USA) workshop, a West Coast one, and a European one, about once a year (it seems mainly to depend on the itinerary of the chief programmer, who quite regularly attends conferences). Of course, I've no idea if the Planetside staff do much travelling, or are even interested in the idea. But I think that, while ideas of screen-sharing etc. have their place, it would be difficult to equal the opportunities for unexpected learning and just plain fun of a face-to-face meeting.

[rcallicotte]

Workshops can be stretched out over time.  No need to do it all in 2 hours, eh?  But, whatever...we could do it both ways.

[Mr_Lamppost]

Or we could use a free screen capture program such as http://camstudio.org/, upload videos to youtube or file sharing sites, perhaps after awhile we could even make compilation dvd's and bittorrent them.

That's an interesting idea, it has been done for other packages.

Terragen.org/Ashundar could easily host this stuff if there is enough interest.

This is something worth investigating.  Hosting on a more specialised and more tightly controlled forum would allow for peer review and directed improvement prior to general publication.  Having recently search You-Tube for tutorials for a different application I found that while there are undoubtedly some real gems there is about 95% garbage.  Not that I am saying that I will but if I were to make video tutorials I would certainly be willing to submit them to an approval process before publication.  I made several modifications to my Painted Clouds tutorial (www.ironworld.org/mr_lamppost/TG2/guides/paintsky.htm ), in response to questions and suggestions.  There is certainly value in applying some form of quality control prior to publication.

[arisdemos]

What is needed more than anything else to replace this forum for the greater Terragen audience to come is a TG2 bible that comes with a cd or dvd collection of files that covers each chapter/lesson. This manual would be organized so that one first learns as in the present forum supported documentation how to create simpler generaic examples of each major type of landscape such as mountains, plains, riverine canyons, deserts, plus the methods for modifyng into landform bases yielding oceansides and lakesfronts. Then the text could move on to the various existing methods for further refinement of specific terrains of all types, and fully explain procedural control of the chosen forms of landscape such as geologics rock structures, soil, sand, mud or snow and ice. All shader settings would be given in clip files for each lesson with an indexed set of keyed tips donated and additional filesthat are linked/referenced to this site and others that exist within the contemporary TG2 capabilities. once the first few chapters have covered the basics of lanscape, water, and sky. then the text could have a chapter on recreating existin geologic entities that combine the basic varieties of   landforms into more realistic and comlex structures like alluvial fans and talus slopes for example.

After all the geologic structures have been covered then the second half of the manual could then move on to deal with objecs and associate instance population creation and nuances of the TG2 software that controls the visual and geometric placement and textural treatment of these 3d models. In this second half of the manual could be covered the sky creation and cloud structures that have been developed and made available both for free and retailed by the current vendors. Subject like lighting and atmosphere would also be covered in the section with the following chapter moving on to wate and the TG2 settings that will give both the realism and special effects that have been worked out in the forum. more complex lighting effect such as under water"caustics"  and simulation of oceanic shorline wave simulation could be delved into.

Like many CG manuals that have come befor a large ending chapter would be needed to explain and connect additional software and associated methods to further enable Terragen 2 in building believable physical environments and scenarios. The growing  number of third party programs that are presently developed to fulfill the ultimate promise of TG2 cannot be excluded from the TG2 manual without leaving the Terragen2 graphic artist's toolkit partially empty.

[old_blaggard]

Interesting post. I think that a lot of what you said here is a really good idea. I think that having this kind of unified, orderly reference and guide would be fantastic. Unfortunately, someone actually has to *make* it . While complete documentation for all of the nodes will be released with the final version of TG2, I suspect that it won't cover these methodologies and detailed constructions as well as many might hope.

I actually considered putting something like this together a year or so ago: simply dedicate a summer to researching an documenting as much as I could about creating certain effects or understand certain systems within Terragen, and then releasing the result as a final textbook. Unfortunately, with decreasing time available to me for tinkering with Terragen, and because I no longer feel that I'm as high up the technical ladder with the program as I used to be, I don't think that I'll ever be able to do that myself.

However, this could take a more collaborative approach. In explaining why they don't write tutorials, many people complain that the process of writing up a coherent document with useful images and figures takes too much time. In a collaborative environment, someone could outline one of their techniques and post an associated file, and someone else could refine the presentation and structure to make it more in line with the established format of the collection. The same could also be applied to video tutorials: if a person has a technique he or she would like to share, but doesn't feel comfortable explaining it, someone else could create the video tutorial based off of that first person's work. I'm envisioning a wiki-like environment, but possibly with more structure and oversight than your standard wiki implementation.

If there's enough interest in doing video tutorials or in setting up a collaborative environment in which to create an organized, searchable database of tutorials and techniques, I could begin setting one up at Terragen.org. I would have to discuss this with Oshyan first (he's also an administrator at that site), but it's definitely something that we could accommodate.

Let me know what you people think.

[rcallicotte]

Here's something that could be used - http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5374.0  I have since added more to my personal file that I haven't updated here, though.

[Oshyan]

Some kind of regular "meeting" is an interesting and cool idea. If Matt had time to participate for a couple hours I think it could be very useful. I'll see if this is possible in the future, though it wouldn't be realized for a while.

As for the documentation, it indeed will not be nearly to the level described and requested here. While we realize it would be extremely helpful to know exactly how to create certain natural phenomena, there are many issues with documenting that information. The first is a simple practical one of time. Even for the major natural phenomena it would take a long time to write up how to produce each in TG2. An overview of how to work with terrains in a general sense is quite possible and will be available with the documentation, but details about replicating more specific terrain types is a bigger challenge. This is also true because there are often many ways of achieving a particular effect, and there is seldom a "best" approach, or the best approach may depend on other things you're trying to accomplish, which can't be known or covered in a tutorial.

In the end an application like TG2 can never be fully documented. It is part of its nature that it has "infinite" possibilities, and there is often no one "right" way to do something. I think the best that can be hoped for is that a TG2 expert takes it upon themselves to write an authoritative book as has been created for many other well-known applications like Photoshop. That would be a tremendous undertaking and they would need to charge appropriately to be compensated, but I certainly hope someone is up to the job and inspired to do so. Unfortunately Planetside will not be able to provide that level of information directly. It is better that we focus our time on moving the actual application forward and giving people a solid basis for further experimentation and independent learning. We have found the community's ability to document specific techniques to be much greater than our own in any case.

By the way there was a Terragen 2 class that ran for a while. I'm not sure if it still runs as I haven't seen it advertised here for a while, but you can read more here: http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=217 Perhaps in the future an advanced class will also be offered.

- Oshyan