Terragen Animation Forum

[rkphelps]

Can anyone point me to an area in the forum where I can read the latest news on the
animation portion of Terragen 2.

If there isn't a dedicated area for Animation discussion I'd like to suggest a special forum or sticky area in this forum for discussions for all things to do with Terragen 2 Animation subject matters.

This will allow those of us that stepped up and purchased the animation portion of Terragen 2 that are interested in this area's future development issues to not have to search through all the messages in this forum to find animation info.

[Henry Blewer]

That might be a good area to add. Computers are getting fast enough to use Terragen 2 for animation efficiently. I would like to do animation using Terragen 2. Right now my computer is just too slow to do much more than Terragen 0.9x could.

[cyphyr]

Convergence
The point when the requirements of terragen and the needed power of modern computers finally meet is here
I've seen posts by users with i7 systems running at 4Ghz+ where at last we can see images and possibly soon animations that really show what Terragen is capable off!
Bring it on I say
I'd definitely be interested in an animation section of the forum.
Hopefult very soon I'll be able to contribute to and benefit from such a section

Richard

[Kadri]

This is a good idea .

If TG2 could use GPU power there would be a sudden jump in animations. Maybe Matt is holding this for TG3 .
I wouldn't blame him for this 

Kadri

[Tangled-Universe]

I like this idea too.
A bit of compartimentalization this way is not bad and makes it indeed easier to find animation specific related stuff.
But are we going to post finished anims there, support, or discussion or all of them?

[Oshyan]

We have resisted compartmentalizing a great deal here on the forums and thus far I think we have struck a pretty good balance. If animation discussion starts to create enough independent threads and traffic to justify its own area, we would certainly consider it. But I don't think that's true at present.

It seems like the original poster is more interested in news about the development process on the animation version. This kind of information is really only available in change logs and news posts when we make new releases. We don't currently provide details about internal development processes, generally speaking, although we certainly want to communicate fairly with our customers regarding status of products they have purchased.

For the moment I can tell you that, following the 2.1 release where our development focus shifted largely to the new object rendering method, we are now focusing on 64 bit support and animation functionality. We don't have a specific release date for a final animation module, but we will announce one as soon as we can be certain of that.

- Oshyan

[Tangled-Universe]

I think adding just one board to the forum named like "Terragen 2 Animation" for example would be sufficicient.
So there would not be so much compartimentalization as you may fear.

Also, the starter asked 2 different questions, one if there's a central area = thread about animation news. The answer is, no.
Planetside spreads news via changelogs or announcements. Clear enough.

But, he drops the idea of making a separate board for animation topics, mainly because it's much easier to find animation specific topics. I really agree about this, because like many here I often have to search for some specific stuff too and it is not convenient always since the search-engine is not flawless. It's good though, for sure.
So Oshyan I do not really agree with your conclusion that it was suggested just for news.

I understand your reasoning about the threads and traffic, but I find it a bit of an example of the polder-model approach, so the dutch way:
Just wait until it really becomes messy and unclear enough (lots of animation-topics scattered everywhere on the forums) and then see if we can do something about it. Which is in fact too late then.

Richard states perfectly that the latest pc's are well capable of handling animations and thus he expects an increase in interest, threads and traffic.

So perhaps it's useful to already start a separate board out of precaution. Won't hurt, seems to me
I hope you don't mind me thinking along

Cheers,
Martin

[Seth]

I second that, it would be very nice to have all the animation stuff packed in one place, like TG0.9 and TG2 are not in the same area of the forum.
It would make searching info easier.

[rkphelps]

let me be clear that what I would like to see is an area to discuss and review with others Animation issues with Terragen 2, this includes all things involving animation including examples and tutorials of motion in Terragen 2.

Planetside offers 2 versions of Terragen 2 when purchasing, the basic version or the basic + animation version. Adding a forum to discuss animation just makes sense as there are a lot of people like me who may have purchased Terragen 2 strictly for the future capability of using it in video/film.

I purchased Terragen to hopefully use with my 3d software (Lightwave/Core & Modo) to replace my Vue 6 & 7 environment software in the future as Vue is becoming to expensive for me to continue with.

I agree there hasn't been a lot of threads on the animation area of Terragen 2 to date, but you have to agree this is due to the Animation add-on being so new and frankly still lacking/young in it's current iteration. This will correct itself as the Animation becomes more robust with your next release as well with the 64bit release.

This isn't about just adding a new thread area it's about an area to discuss the one and only major plug-in add-on for Terragen 2 and that's Animation. This will also benefit Planetside as well, as they will gain info from current users providing comments on likes, dislikes, and wants for future releases. Trust me we are out there so "if you build it they will come".

I hope you consider my request Planetside, Thanks

Rob

[senji]

let me be clear that what I would like to see is an area to discuss and review with others Animation issues with Terragen 2, this includes all things involving animation including examples and tutorials of motion in Terragen 2.

Planetside offers 2 versions of Terragen 2 when purchasing, the basic version or the basic + animation version. Adding a forum to discuss animation just makes sense as there are a lot of people like me who may have purchased Terragen 2 strictly for the future capability of using it in video/film.

I purchased Terragen to hopefully use with my 3d software (Lightwave/Core & Modo) to replace my Vue 6 & 7 environment software in the future as Vue is becoming to expensive for me to continue with.

I agree there hasn't been a lot of threads on the animation area of Terragen 2 to date, but you have to agree this is due to the Animation add-on being so new and frankly still lacking/young in it's current iteration. This will correct itself as the Animation becomes more robust with your next release as well with the 64bit release.

This isn't about just adding a new thread area it's about an area to discuss the one and only major plug-in add-on for Terragen 2 and that's Animation. This will also benefit Planetside as well, as they will gain info from current users providing comments on likes, dislikes, and wants for future releases. Trust me we are out there so "if you build it they will come".

I hope you consider my request Planetside, Thanks

Rob

Trust me we are out there so "if you build it they will come".
I'm one of them!!!  I've had to go out of my way to find programs to create simple videos, like an AVI creator.  Somebody posted a lunar video on Youtube and I was hooked.  Fast enough computers?  Yes indeed.  Try these same animations in Mojoworld, IF you have the patience.  Terragen 2 is a LOT faster in creating the source for animations.  That is why I switched and committed now.  And seacrhes will be faster too.  I had to ask if Favorites were available in the forum to keep track of topics.  I have to resort to adding Favorites in my browser.  But that's ok.  I am VERY impressed with the pictures that people have posted and are on the Planetside webpage.  I wanna see some animations too.  I just find it intriguing and very satisfying that Planetside has such an active and engaging and mature forum.  This really goes a long way in promoting an excellent product and inspiring new users.

Yes, I'd like to see an animations section.  I can only wonder what TG3 might become???  Keep up the excellent work Planetside.

[Oshyan]

We'll keep it in mind, but let's just say that it will be more compelling to do this once the animation module is finalized.

- Oshyan

[himalofa]

I use TG2 almost entirely for animations and that is where I have had my problems. I find it perplexing that everyone is getting on so well but I am floundering at every turn, but it seems not many of us are animating. If all animation posts were in the same area it would give developers a more realistic view of how this software is performing and where attention is needed. The black triangle issue is a good example. For stills it hardly mattered as it could be easily fixed in Photoshop and this masked the problem, but for animations it was a killer and was promptly fixed. This also applies to the problem I am havving with the flickering foliage, it does not show up in a still and my search of the forum only turned up solutions that did not work, the issue then seemed to get forgotten until now when it is getting some attention. If all these issues were in one area it would be easier to identify what needs to be done in the final animation module. Suggestions like ease in and out, graph editors, previews etc could be aired there and would be easily accessible to Planetside staff.

[TheBlackHole]

I wish you could do low-res animation (at least) in TG2 Free Edition.

[Oshyan]

Himalofa, while I definitely recognize your concerns, I don't think the proposed solution would really do anything to address the underlying issues (i.e. software problems). At least one staff member reads every single post on the forums - often times multiple staff members read a given post. You'll frequently see replies from 1, 2, or even 3 of us in a single thread. So I don't think the separate forum would really help much in that regard. We do keep track of issues that happen over time and will escalate an issue if it seems to be occurring more frequently. And while I do think there may be some valuable suggestions from users to implement in the upcoming Animation Module updates, basic things like a graph editor, etc. are certainly already planned. Getting full baseline functionality in and working is our focus at this point, after which ideas for further refinement and additional features would probably be more impactful.

I believe Matt is working with you privately on your foliage noise issues. Hopefully those can be resolved, though I suspect there will be render time cost (isn't there always  ). Perhaps you'll take some comfort in knowing Vue seems to be consistently plagued with this as well.

- Oshyan

[himalofa]

Thanks Oshyan, I am impressed with the attention my problems are recieving and appreciate your points. I do however feel that the animation functions are of secondary importance while so many users are producing such good stills. It is a long, hard, slow process to render good animations. Using an AA of 12 seems an excessive requirement for a long animation. Previously I used WCS6 (does not work under Win7 64 bit) and that was able to merge distant vegitation into a colour thus preventing this distant flickering.