Right, i've got the gear, now what?

Started by Dr Death, May 05, 2010, 07:15:21 AM

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Dr Death

Hi there, i'm a new member and a new initiate into the wonders of terragen. The problem i have is one faced by many many people it seems from this forum, which is that despite Terragen's plainly awesome capabilities, it's virtually impossible to know where to start and how to harness them. I have absolutely no experience in digital modelling myself so this is all very new (oh don't i sound like just the perfect rookie :P (actually, i have used google sketch-up but that doesn't really count)), though i have read the documentation available on the website, and so quite aside from anything particularly technical, i have a few basic questions about just the pure 'physics' as it were of the modelled environment.

First off, how big is the planet that terragen creates as standard? Is it calibrated to be as big as our earth? Can you change it? Also, i find the measuring system to be very dodgy with it being almost impossible to determine distances from 'ground level'- wherever i click, the point from which it measures always seems to be suspended in mid-air rather than the surface of the planet. Is there a way to change that? Is it possible to change the measurements as well to miles? Another big issue i have is how can i find, mark and preferably 'fix' the northernmost point as a benchmark from which to make said measurements?

Dr Death

Henry Blewer

#1
Welcome! Most of us have come from using other 3D software. So that gives us an advantage. But here is a link to Neuspadrin's YouTube channel. He did some good tutorials which may help you get started.

http://www.youtube.com/user/neuspadrin88#p/u

Here's a link to Schmeerlap's excellent tutorial.

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=7733.0
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T

TheBlackHole

@Dr Death
1. Yes, it is the same size as Earth.
2. Yes, you can change it.
3. Right click wherever you want the measurement from, then select Copy Altitude. It should work.
4. No, you're stuck with metric. Convert your measurements in miles to kilometers.
5. 0, 0, 0, IS the northernmost point. To get offworld without seeing nothing but the north pole, use the compass-thing and set speed to maximum and go backwards. Eventually you'll find yourself in space. I've attached a couple screenshots to show you what I mean. They're in GIF format to reduce the risk of having to jpg-compress them to the point of incoherence.
They just issued a tornado warning and said to stay away from windows. Does that mean I can't use my computer?

Zylot

My advice, choose a single tab from the top (good to start with terrain) and start fiddling.  If an option already exists, change around some settings.  Hit the + (new) button and add new features native to that tab (if in terrain, Fractal Terrain is a good option) and then change around settings.  See what effect it has on the preview.  Best to familiarize yourself with the software.

PabloMack

#4
Quote from: TheBlackHole on May 05, 2010, 09:57:45 AM
4. No, you're stuck with metric. Convert your measurements in miles to kilometers.

1.609344 km = 1 mile (exact)
0.621371 mile = 1 km (approximate)

Come to think of it, they still used the old English system on Star Trek TOS in the
23rd century.  How did they ever achieve interstellar space travel?  (I can poke fun
of Americans because I am one.  A lot of things we do don't make no sense to me.
I think we lost a space shuttle and its crew because someone forgot to do a conversion
between these two systems  :'().

Quote from: TheBlackHole on May 05, 2010, 09:57:45 AM
5. 0, 0, 0, IS the northernmost point. To get offworld without seeing nothing but the north pole, use the compass-thing and set speed to maximum and go backwards. Eventually you'll find yourself in space. I've attached a couple screenshots to show you what I mean. They're in GIF format to reduce the risk of having to jpg-compress them to the point of incoherence.

I just played around with TG2 and it appears that we are indeed using a Cartesian coordinate system relative to the planet.  But instead of placing the origin at the center of the planet (which is the most logical place to put it), it is placed at the North Pole.  This places the South Pole at 0,-diameter,0.  It also means that, if you are planning to measure things relative to the coordinate system, it won't make a very good reference for orienting yourself locally.  The Y coordinate won't give much indication as to what your altitude is.  In fact, a combination of X and Z will be doing that when you are at the equator.  You will have to remember that the origin is offset by the radius of the planet before making use of the pythagorean theorem to figure out where you are in a polar coordinate system.  Since almost no one lives at the poles, I would recommend forgetting about relying on Y to estimate your altitude. 

Tangled-Universe

The origin of the planet is at the centre. Just open the planet-shader and check the translation settings. It says -6.378e+006 metres.
6.378e+006 is the radius of the planet.

The 0,0,0 coordinates happens to be on the north-pole (maybe?....if you have a sphere in space there's no reference to tell which side you are on ;)) but could easily be anything else.
It's just a choice if you ask me.

PabloMack

#6
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on May 05, 2010, 05:41:12 PM
The origin of the planet is at the centre. Just open the planet-shader and check the translation settings. It says -6.378e+006 metres.
6.378e+006 is the radius of the planet.

The 0,0,0 coordinates happens to be on the north-pole (maybe?....if you have a sphere in space there's no reference to tell which side you are on ;)) but could easily be anything else.
It's just a choice if you ask me.

Now we are getting somewhere!  It all makes sense now.  The origin of the coordinate system is at [0,0,0] floating out in space, even when you have nothing in your scene, not even the default planet.  The default scene just places a planet right under your feet.  And when you have eight planets in your scene, each has "Centre" X,Y, and Z fields to let you place each of them in space where you want them.  So now we REALLY don't want to use Y as a measure of altitude.  When you touch a planet's surface with the cursor, the software will tell you what the altitude is relative to the planet whose surface you have touched.  

Hurray for Martin!  This time it took all of us haggling and going back and forth looking through the software to finally figure it out.  That is a good thing ;D

This exercise has done far more for my learning curve than a blind walk through another one of those "do as I do" tutorials.  I love it!

Tangled-Universe

Open a distribution-shader and look at the altitude settings. There's a box "Y for altitude" with a couple of options. That's how TG2 handles Y as a measure of altitude and shows you why it works.

Quote from: PabloMack on May 05, 2010, 06:00:30 PM
Hurray for Martin!  See?  It doesn't hurt to try to understand.  This time it took all of us haggling and going back and forth looking through the software to finally figure it out.  That is a good thing ;D
This exercise has done far more for my learning curve than a blind walk through another one of those "do as I do" tutorials.  I love it!

Damn, could it be more belittleing  :-[ If I would like to be cheered for I'll ask for it myself ;)




Tangled-Universe

Quote from: PabloMack on May 05, 2010, 06:00:30 PM
This exercise has done far more for my learning curve than a blind walk through another one of those "do as I do" tutorials.  I love it!

I think your mentality does not fit these forums dude  >:(

Seth

maybe you should try one of those tutorials... they allows you to understand a lot of things, you know... and not only the technical stuff like planets' place in space but actually that could help you to understand the most basic stuff that you need to understand the way TG2 works...

PabloMack

#10
Quote from: Seth on May 05, 2010, 06:14:27 PM
maybe you should try one of those tutorials... they allows you to understand a lot of things, you know... and not only the technical stuff like planets' place in space but actually that could help you to understand the most basic stuff that you need to understand the way TG2 works...

I'm about on my fourth tutorial.  The "do this then do that" tutorials haven't explained very much to me so far.  I feel like I just made a major breakthrough in the past hour with these threads but I seem to have offended TangleUniverse.  I didn't mean to hurt his feelings.  I really think he is one of the best guys on this forum.  

Seth


PabloMack

#12
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on May 05, 2010, 06:12:17 PM
I think your mentality does not fit these forums dude  >:(

This makes me sad.  You have me convinced that doing well with TG2 requires active forum participation.  Sounds like you are just telling me to go away and don't come back.  

I think where we might be mis-understanding eachother is that 1) You think I haven't been doing the tutorials and I have been and 2) I think you are telling me that I shouldn't
try to understand the software and that is not what you are saying to me.  Is this right? 

Tangled-Universe

Quote from: PabloMack on May 05, 2010, 06:20:58 PM
I'm about on my fourth tutorial.  The "do this then do that" tutorials haven't explained very much to me so far.  I feel like I just made a major breakthrough in the past hour with these threads but I seem to have offended TangleUniverse.  I didn't mean to hurt his feelings.  I really think he is one of the best guys on this forum.  

Yes, you did, and you know very well where and how.

Quote from: PabloMack on May 05, 2010, 06:29:54 PM
This makes me sad.  You have me convinced that doing well with TG2 requires active forum participation.  Sounds like you are just telling me to go away and don't come back.  

Don't be hypocritic/the funny guy please. I'm the last to say whether somebody should go away and I'm also the last who wants one to leave.
You're belittleing me (hurray, blabla) and more importantly many others by the way you talk about the tutorials here. Don't be depreciative/looking down on the people and their efforts here. Everybody has a lot of fun here with experimenting and exchanging everything. Respect that please.

dandelO

I think there is just a clash of personalities happening here. I don't believe that PabloMack has deliberately tried to bellittle you, Martin. The way I see it, he's just had a *!BINGO!* moment, a sudden clarity on possibly quite a confusing issue on the basic coordinate system of TG.

I rarely ever read/perform the tutorials from other users, not because I think they are uninformative/unhelpful, more that I'd rather get stuck in and do something myself. Once you have the basic workflow/layout/etc. aligned in your own mind, Terragen becomes the most logical piece of software(for me at least) I'm likely to come across.

Take a deep breath, everyone, count to 10 and then begin again! ;) :D