Vue user considering T2 - thoughts?

Started by Shackleton, May 03, 2009, 01:26:23 PM

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Seth

Quote from: latego on May 04, 2009, 05:20:21 AM

The main difference is that with Vue you can build an image (or better a doodle ;)) in 20 minutes; you cannot do that with TG2 (as you cannot do that also with Carrara e.g.).





mmmmh...
with some practice and using some tgc, you can ;)

Tangled-Universe

I certainly understand your feelings Vulthoorn.

From time to time I'm thinking about writing a massive tutorial for TG2, but I just don't have enough time for that and therefore it would take months. Also, however I do have a decent knowledge of TG2 there are some things which I can't clearly explain in words and there are also some technical aspects and concepts I don't fully understand/well enough. It would then only cost me and the staff time to correct these mistakes.

However, a couple of basic video-tutorials might be interesting to do. Showing workflow etc.
I'll think about it and discuss it with others.

Martin

bertrand

#17
My two cents on this as a TG2 and Vue user. Please feel free to correct anyone if I'm saying nonsense.

TG2 cons:
- Animation controls virtually non existent and the app gets very crashy when you play too much with camera keyframes. If you're thinking of TG2 for animation, better wait a few months (or years) and see how it develops.
- Doesn't "talk" well with other apps. The importing of scenes, objects, mats, camera paths, etc. varies between bare-bones and non-existent. Prepare for a lot of trial-and-error. In this respect, Vue is much, much better integrated with other mainstream 3D apps.
- Object handling is poor due to the fact that no wireframe can be seen in the viewport, only a bounding box. This makes working with very large number of objects impossible in practice. In addition, trying to import and render entire 3D scenes (I'm talking a couple of million polys) has always crashed Tg2 for me before, though I must admit I haven't tried again with the latest version.
- Tg2 is very bare-bone. No presets for anything. All your skies, atmos, clouds, materials have to be created from scratch. There's no quick way of putting a scene together.
- No breeze or wind function for populations.
- Can be pretty crashy too (tho not worse than Vue) and the latest version has seen the return of the annoying "black poly" bug I thought was gone for good a long time ago. This one can be a nightmare when rendering animations.

TG2 pros:
- Yes, render times can be huge, but so can be Vue's (sometimes stupidly so). I actually never rendered an animation to the end in Vue because of this, whereas I've rendered some anims in Tg2 (mind you, never with water or a camera standing too close to the ground).
- Every Tg2 scene is a whole planet, not just a little patch of land as in Vue. This allows you to work on truly epic scenes and (if Tg2 plays ball) truly epic animations. This for me is a big plus, especially considering that Vue generally chokes on its own infinite procedural landscapes (which are not really infinite). A nice by-product of this is that you can create any number of extra planets in Tg2, and these are real planets, not sprites as in Vue's planets (which are completely pathetic in my view).
- But for me the slam-dunk argument really is Tg2's incomparably superior displacement and atmospheric quality. If you want to obtain really high quality landscapes in Vue, you need to apply lots of colour and bump maps on pretty rough-looking landscapes. No need for this in Tg2, which easily gives you centimetre-level procedural displacement. A huge difference between the two apps is the fact that Tg2 displaces its landscapes not just on the y axis (upwards, downwards) as Vue does, but also laterally. This is a pretty massive advantage as far as I'm concerned and it gives you the possibility to create truly stunning overhangs and reliefs procedurally and across an entire planet while you would have to fake it in Vue by importing third-party 3D objects. This also means that in Vue, any near-vertical landscape tends to become flat. The closer you get to vertical, the flatter the shape. That's what happens when you cannot create lateral displacement (or displace along normals). This means you can't actually create realistic out-of-the-box landscapes in Vue without faking things with textures.
- The same point (realism and just sheer beauty) applies to Tg2's atmospheres and clouds, which I think are miles better.
- Tg2 is cheap!

One big difference between the two (but not necessary a downside either way) is that you have less control over the shape of your scene in TG2. By this I mean you often position your camera in Vue first then compose your scene around it, only modelling the bits of landscapes you need. In Tg2 the workflow is different. You first model your world then walk around looking for the best perspective angle. At least that's how I do it (and I haven't used the painting tool much yet, which should give a lot more control).

dandelO

QuoteI personally find Terragen very logical and hence easy to comprehend. I hope with our help you will have a similar experience.

I have to agree with Frank here. TG is by far the most logical terrain/rendering application out there, in my eyes. In Vue, you are basically working to 'fit the scene to the eye', not the real world. This is not to say that you can't do the same with TG(or vice-versa with Vue), just, it's completely... logical is the only word that fits. :)

You tell TG to make a specific thing, to a specific scale and it just does it, in Vue, you are dragging and dropping mountains, stretching terrain resolutions, etc. to fit into your frame. TG, for me at least, is far easier to manipulate correctly. I don't even think that TG's render times are that bad, once you learn how to optimize your settings you can get some fantastic results, and cheaply in terms of computer power.

Plus, everything I've done in TG over the last year has been with a little dual-core pentium and 1gb RAM. I've never had(or let ;)) a render longer than, say, 12 hours, max. I had a single core before with 512mb RAM up until about a year ago, even then I could always find a way to optimize things and keep times down. Just don't crank it is the best advice. There are tons of ways to cheat TG into making wonders.

Stick with us! ;)

dandelO

QuoteTg2 is very bare-bone. No presets for anything. All your skies, atmos, clouds, materials have to be created from scratch. There's no quick way of putting a scene together.

This is exactly why I like TG2 better. You do it your way, not to a preset layout ;)

That isn't to say that I don't think a preset library wouldn't be functional/beneficial for a lot of users, I've made a start on my own free library already...

15 preset scenes, so far, well labelled and laid out for ease of use/navigation.
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4922.0

FrankB

QuoteJust don't crank it is the best advice. There are tons of ways to cheat TG into making wonders.

dandelO: well said :)

latego

More than writing a tutorial, TG needs something like GeekAtPlay.com video tutorials.

E.g., I have learned a lot (and quickly) about Hexagon modeling using E-Z (on DAZ.com) and garymiller (on GeekAtPlay.com) tutorials; much much faster (and more effective) than reading a written tutorial.

Actually, there are quite a lot of people who are starting to think (and say) that the future of training are video tutorials, not written material or class attendance.

An ideal option would be high quality videos on YouTube.

Bye!!!

Shackleton

Wow, too much to reply to!  Seriously though, it's very helpful to read through these conversations.

Quote from: MooseThat said, Vue may amass all the new features is cares, but devoid of stability and poor support, quickly deem themselves useless, I guess. So on the one hand you've got an app with lots of marketing bucks previewing new features what seems every six months, but they probably won't work like you'd expect. And on the other, there's a solid app that may lack on features but still produces great results, is quite cheap, has great support bla bla...
You're right that Vue is on a rapid development pace, but that has actually been one of my complaints about it. Hands down I will take stability and quality over new or flashy features, everytime. I just wish instead of constantly redoing this, adding that, marketing up to gazoo... E-on would put the necessary attention on the existing version and refine it properly. <sigh>

Like I said earlier, I'm still using Vue and do expect to for a while. But it is possible, even likely, that I will not upgrade again. I am anticipating using T2 along side Vue to see how it does, then if it works out and I like it, it may replace Vue. We'll see. There are definitely some nice aspects to Vue.

Regarding tutorials and such: I have too noticed that video tutorials are gaining popularity. I for one don't really like them, and much prefer to read a printed manual if I need to (perhaps I'm old school!). There other thing is that for those with medium or low band net service, video media is a pain. And in my case, my computer lab/network is issolated and has no internet access. I guess what I'm saying is that there still is a place for a variety of teaching methods or materials. Not everyone does or can learn via the same way.

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
JRR Tolkien

richcz3

I have used Vue5 Inf through Vue7 Inf and the program offers far more ways to control an environment. From a technical standpoint, Vue should be superior to TG in every way. I personally have not had stability issues with Vue but I do have issues with making animations. AA settings have not been reliably worked out to date and each new scene is always a long work around to get it right - read: Allot of lost time. E-On needs to get the existing features solid for animation before bolting more features on - I am not upgrading to 7.5.

E-Ons forums are a complaint fest, offer few resources and of little help. The programs developers are probably holed away in some dark cave somewhere - unwilling or unable to respond to user queries. E-Ons business model is seriously mucked up. It appears there's more an interest in the quantity of sales than the quality of features. "Thanks for Buying...now good luck with it." For the price of the 7.5 upgrade - you can get a solid working version of Tg2.   

Tg2 isn't as in depth as Vue, but its easier to get into and the community here is positive and helpful.

Richard

Mohawk20

Quote from: richcz3 on May 04, 2009, 02:26:35 PM

Tg2 isn't as in depth as Vue, but its easier to get into and the community here is positive and helpful.


And that's a reputation we're proud of!!  8) ;D
Howgh!

reck

Quote from: richcz3 on May 04, 2009, 02:26:35 PM
E-Ons forums are a complaint fest, offer few resources and of little help.

Is it possible to view the E-on forum without having purchased vue?

FrankB

Quote from: latego on May 04, 2009, 12:27:13 PM
Actually, there are quite a lot of people who are starting to think (and say) that the future of training are video tutorials, not written material or class attendance.

An ideal option would be high quality videos on YouTube.

I think that the ideal is is combining both written and visual, in combination with an example scene to play around with.
Like I've done with the "Intersect underlying" tutorial here: http://nwda.webnode.com/news/intersect-underlying-explained-videos-/

It's likely that we produce for tutorials like that - some with more, some with less video, some with a screencam while I or someone else works in the UI, so people can see how certain things get done.

Regards,
Frank

Oshyan

The complete User Guide ("manual") is coming soon, so that should help. The Node Reference updates will follow shortly after (with some input from the development side on certain more complex or obscure settings).

As an addition to the User Guide, I also hope to write a more focused tutorial on using TG2 in production, which quite a few studios have done very successfully (see this video for example: http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tg2/MARS_terragenscenes_unexpected.mp4 - 720p 30MB and thanks to Unexpected for the footage!).

While I agree that basic trial and error will yield some frustration in trying to sync your TG2 scene with external elements, there are solid existing workflows that are possible with most major applications. Note however that this addition to the documentation is not even started yet, so it will take a bit before it's available. When it is, though, I expect it to be very useful.

- Oshyan

Shackleton

Quote from: reck on May 04, 2009, 03:13:14 PMIs it possible to view the E-on forum without having purchased vue?
Uh, I believe it is. Not positive, but I think all that is required is that you register an account (like many forums/communities), but no Vue serial is required to do that. It is a restricted area however, so you do have to login to see and/or post. This is my understanding anyway. I have always much preferred the Corn3D community and spend very little time at E-on's forums.
All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
JRR Tolkien

pixelthekid

Quote from: Oshyan on May 04, 2009, 11:38:06 PM
... there are solid existing workflows that are possible with most major applications. Note however that this addition to the documentation is not even started yet, so it will take a bit before it's available. When it is, though, I expect it to be very useful.

- Oshyan

I'd be very much interested in this.  I'm coming from Vue and so far I love TG2 but Vue seriously makes things easy with their pretty decent camera matching and g-buffer features.  I look forward to this documentation!