hmm am I crazy?

[ciscoswitch]

Hi all,

I've worked with and made lots of pictures with Terragen.  When I first started my whole concept was making computer images that looked like real life photography.  I was quite amazing on what Terragen could do.  It was quite simple, but could be quite complex as well.  I could come up with an idea and generate a picture pretty quickly.  Once Terragen 2 came out, I immediately tried the beta, however I noticed that it was even more complex, and I noticed that it wasn't quite so simple to put out a picture, which was expected.  I bought the Deep version of TG2, and played with it off and on.  Some things I've been able to grasp, but others, seem a little more complicated.  So I started looking at tutorials, and again, some I understand and can duplicate, while others don't appear to be working as explained.  So I'm wondering "am I crazy" or are others running into the same sorta thing?  I know I really need to keep working and experimenting with it.  These days I find it harder for me to grasp concepts and such, where as when I was younger, everything just clicked.. oh well I'm getting older, and I guess that's to be expected.  I've always seemed to learn things easier by example.

I also am astonished at how realistic alot of the renders I've seen of Terragen 2, and I know they take alot of work, but one of the things I'm wondering is what kind of objects people are using, and you modifying them?  I've downloaded as many of the free objects I could, however when I put them in a scene, they do not look really good, of course some look better than others, but I'm not seeing anything that looks real, as I see in some of the TG2 render galleries.  So I was wondering what objects people are using?   I've been looking at the XFrog stuff and am interested in buying some packs, but I wanted to check here first.  I'm not sure if they are the best, top quality objects, or if I should be looking elsewhere.

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but I'll mention it.  It would be really nice to have a book on TG2, something with some tutorials and explanations of why and how things work.  I just bought a book on Blender, and looks like it will be neat to go through and learn.  Also another idea I had is to maybe create a CD/DVD of all the free objects, tutorials, documents, etc for TG2.  I made one of my own, but am sure that there is alot more stuff out there to add to it.

I'm a network engineer, and have been involved in computers since I was like 5 years old.  I loved playing video games, and so when I was 5, my brother started teaching me how to program my own games.  I worked with alot of different computers, OS's, programming languages, etc..  One of my fondest memories though, was creating scenes in "Imagine", a ray tracing program on the Commodore Amiga.  I also did alot of stuff with Deluxe Paint, and then later worked on some video stuff.  When I was introduced to Terragen, I was visually stunned, it was and still is amazing, one of the things I like the most is landscape scenes, I take alot of digital pictures as well.  I'm from Tucson, AZ and had been really big into Rock Climbing, and that was one of the things I liked to photograph was rock formations.  I'd like to be able to recreate some of those in TG2 as well.  There's some other things I'd be into creating with TG2 as well, but just trying to take it one step at a time.

Thanks for reading,

Wayne

[Henry Blewer]

You are not crazy, fellow Amiga user.

Terragen 2 is very open ended. It is up to the user to do the work to make things look realistic. I have been using this program for a couple of years. I am still learning. I get something to look really good, then learn more, and the older 'good' images no longer seem to be as good.

There is a huge amount of information in this forum. Decide on an area you want to improve your skill with, and look for threads which deal with this subject. Surface layers for instance. They start out quite similar to the Surface Layer in Terragen 0.9x. It's a good subject to investigate.

[nvseal]

...Decide on an area you want to improve your skill with, and look for threads which deal with this subject...

I definitely agree with that. Pick one thing and work on it. Get a picture you like and try to recreate a single effect (e.g. a surface or perhaps a composition) and keep working on it until you think the result is near that which you modeled it after. You can learn a lot just playing with one power fractal or surface layer using this approach. Not only will you increase your understanding of a shader, but you will probably happen upon effects you like but did not intend.

[Dune]

And download some of the thousands of .tgd's around in this forum, load them and see what they are made of, change a little bit, see what happens, etc. Years of happy (and sometimes less happy) learning experience is ahead of you.
A book would be a never ending, open ended book, I'm afraid. It's really expanding knowledge that you're talking about in TG. People find out things all the time. That's what makes it so exciting.

--Dune

[acolyte]

Your not crazy at all man. I hopped on board quickly when I heard a second version of Terragen was coming out, and since buying the deep edition with animation, I've been (to say the least) a little disappointed. Now I'm willing to throw in the hours, i'm a 3d modeler by trade; however, it seems like Planetside almost took a step backwards in terms of providing an intuitive interface with the release of its second version of the software. Don't get me wrong, i'm very pleased with all the added features, but to put it plain and simple, Terragen 2, at this stage, is just way too convoluted and hard to get into and use quickly to create and experiment.

If you want to end up with a good image, you have to have a good idea of where you want to go, get into the software and spend countless hours just messing around until you find the settings you like. I'm also a coder, and I can appreciate the added complexity of our new nodes interface, but the bottom line is that Terragen will always trail other 3d apps, if it continues to move towards implementing complicated features in a complicated way. Programs are meant to make things easier on the users so they can get things done faster.

So what I would like to see in the future is a continued full exposure (like we have now) to all of the complicated nodes and connections between values; however, there needs to be a better interface so that if you don't want to directly interact with the base node structure of a heightfield or an atmosphere setup, you are able to make artistic tweaks based on an uncomplicated user interface. And as much as this might bother others, I feel presets for each section of the software would greatly enhance the ability of new as well as experienced users to jump into a project and to get fine tuned results quickly. I know this is already somewhat implemented with the clip file architecture, but again, you have to know how to intricately play with the nodes in order to use multiple clip files together.

So hope this all made sense, love the program, hope it continues to improve.

[airflamesred]

Agree with all of the above. I love the render but I'm now thinking years rather than months before things become clear.

[Tangled-Universe]

I agree to some extend that TG2 has a somewhat steep lurning curve.

However, like said before it is key to learn things step by step.
Choose an eare of intererst like surfacing and focus on that until you get nice result and satisfactory understanding of how and what.
Then move on to something else., etc. etc.

An often made mistake I see being made here is that people´s `first` renders contain displaced terrain, water, multiple models and clouds, which 99% for certain will become a crappy result because it is too much to chew on for the first time.

[acolyte]

My point being that if you shell out $400 for a piece of software, things like displaced terrain and water should not be considered things too complicated to approach from the beginning. This really needs to be addressed, but until it is, these are very good pieces of advice for beginners. Take it slow, try not to get frustrated, and if you must, purchase addons through NWDA.

[Tangled-Universe]

My point being that if you shell out $400 for a piece of software, things like displaced terrain and water should not be considered things too complicated to approach from the beginning

Yes and no in my opinion.

Yes, because one would expect a more solid piece of documentation which will guide you through the basic principles and to get started with the software.
No, because like with many other pro 3D apps, which do have good documentation, one is not able to model, texture, light and render from the beginning.

What TG shares with lots of other packages is a basic complexity, which needs a bit of time to understand.

[tempaccount]

I guess a lot of this has to do with how you approach the software. As an artist, I want to say I want a cloud there and there, a hill there and make some sort of an striking composition. But this isn't really possible in the world of procedural generation - you get clouds *somewhere* and then you need to render the scene, tweak the parameters and see if it looks good.

There's two approaches to it; basically try to find something that looks good, don't even try to composition - when you stumble on something that looks good, you can always improve it. Define your world by some fuzzy parameters, like "I want to make a sunset scene".

The other approach is pure composition, build your own heightfields etc. and try to define your scene by strict values. But be warned that you might spend a lot of time tweaking a single element in your scene to get it match.

Actually what I suggest is that you don't even try to composite first, just build something simple. Just put some water on a rough heightfield and try to make it look good. Point the camera directly at it, don't even try to get other elements in the scene to work. Working one element at a time is far less stressful than trying to get everything match in your first scene.

[dandelO]

I think TG's complexity and pliability is one of it's strongest points. When nearly everything runs in a sequence, either from '0' to '1', one metre scaling, XYZ centred coord's, it makes it so much more precise when compositing scenes, rather than a simple grab handle for moving items etc, you have a coordinates system that's right there, not hidden away in another tab, that you can easily base around real world scaling.
The default settings in a TG project are pretty general-distant-landscape, I think. A lot of people have created their own startup .tgd, with more sensible(to them, of course) values and settings to base their own scenes on.

I've done many photo/painting recreations in TG2. I've tried many more in other applications. Terragen always does it best, easiest and most precise. This is because of the absolute flexibility of nearly every parameter on-screen. It's true that it might take a while longer to learn all of these aspects but I assure you, once you have the handle on just how logical TG is, working from a centrally fixed point outwards in XYZ space is actually simpler than it is in most applications. You can 'place' a mountain 'there', float a cloud 'here', anything, really. It's easy to really over-complicate things in TG, try basing your default scene around a looking point very close to 0,0,0. Just notice how much easier it is now to place a sphere 7 metres away from that tree, a bird 30.0525 metres in the air.

All that said, I do understand people want presets and default content/projects/docs etc. It's not as easy to begin with, there are so many editable parameters.
I think it really is just a program that, to use well, you're going to want to put in a bit extra time learning than you would need with another point-and-click 3D application.

[Tangled-Universe]

"point-and-click 3D application." + awesome results = Something which won't go along very well I'm afraid

[tempaccount]

Well, to be fair on the "point-and-click 3D applications", there's always a fine line between ease of use and total control over every little knob in software.

If you have total control, of course the learning curve is steeper but then you can make exactly what you want (if you just know how). With presets and the like you usually reach what you want faster, but might not get exactly what you want :p

Of course it's a very personal thing, but when I start working on a piece, I usually "see" it with my mind's eye and try to recreate it somehow.

[Dune]

I definitely prefer the total control. Harder, but at least you know what you're doing and you're not enslaved by the programmers' tricks in easy click-and-render presets, so to speak. If planetside should choose for the latter for commercial sake, I certainly hope it'll be another version altogether.

---Dune

[acolyte]

I agree with most of the above. When I said I wanted an easier interface with some presets, I didn't mean a point and click application. If anything I would like to see far more controls for specific effects in terragen on all fronts; however, I must admit I am approching this from an artistic standpoint.

There's absolutely no reason we have to either have really complicated interfaces and paramaters for our scenes, or Terragen just has to be a point and click 3d app. I do understand the added complexity involved when dealing with procedurals. There's far less control over specifics, but this doesn't mean that the interface can't be honed so that a user can be trying to concretely describe how a scene is supposed to look.

I'm all for more control and even for being able to access the complex variables which go into a node-based interface; however, a further level of removal with a better designed GUI would allow the software to develop and expand adding some nice features such as (just to name a few): a terrain editor, better integration with other 3d software, artistically driven interfaces which allow the user to control amounts of things like erosion on a heightfield with a slider instead of being forced to only deal with a node map.

I would keep things the way they are now, but add these features so that it's possible to encapsulate the complexities into more bitesize and manageable interfaces which are even understandable to those who are new. This would allow people who wanted to work quickly to work quickly, and for those who wanted to get down and dirty with the nodes, or for those who feel ready to dig deeper into why things are happening the way they're happening to slowly transition into the deeper side of Terragen.