Adjusting colors in .tgo objects

[billg60]

I am incorporating some of the fine NWDA trees and shrubs in my scene in .tgo format and I am trying to understand how I can adjust the colors and shading. I have gone into the internal network and played with the shading density or colors, even deleting the reference to the high res tif on the shaders but I cannot get the colors to change.

Thanks

[dandelO]

As far as I know, there's still no way for users to lock objects or, their settings, from further editing by anyone who uses them.
Is there any particular input fields you're having trouble with or, is it just in general, nothing is changing, whatsoever? This is very strange. render a plant at default settings, save the result, change every colour in each tab of the shader to something really obscure, like pink leaves, blue trunks, etc. and check the results against each other.
It'd be useful to post some screen-shots here of the fields you're editing and the resulting renders between, I don't understand why nothing is changing for you.

[billg60]

OK- so it would help if I am modifying the color of the correct components in the object. (rule of terragen: as a question and you will THEN figure it out) I can now change colors. So my questions moves on to how .tgo stand-alone files relate to the .tgd file. When I go in an modify the shader settings in the internal network of a .tgo, is that being stored in the original .tgo or the .tgd?

Secondy, what is a good strategy if I need to make a plant look completely different i.e. put maple leafs on a sage brush. Should I substitute the leaf file content with the other or map the shader to the other files? Does this even make sense? I just need some small maple sapling shrubs to fill in my forrest edge.

Thanks

[dandelO]

...how .tgo stand-alone files relate to the .tgd file...

...what is a good strategy if I need to make a plant look completely different...

Q1. That really depends on how you save the files. If you save any given .tgo inside of any given .tgd then, the settings for that .tgd's version of the model are remembered in the .tgd.
If you want to keep a different version of the object with those settings to use in future, you can resave the .tgo by right context-clicking the highlighted .tgo object node and picking 'save object file...' It's a good idea to name the saved object differently from the original .tgo so, 'pine tree.tgo' gets re-saved as 'pine tree 2.tgo' Or a similar name that's easily discernible to you.

An even better idea, and a far less hard-drive-filling method than that, especially if the model is of a large filesize is, to visit the internal network of the object's 'parts shader' and simply marquee-select, or shift-click-select, all of the shader(red)/function(blue) nodes you'd like to keep(not the 'object part'(grey) node, though), so that all the object shaders are highlighted and then, context-click any one of those highlighted nodes and choosing 'save nodes as clipfile'. Save this clipfile as 'pine_tree_shaders_alt.tgc'(or whatever they signify to you about the particular object).
Now you have the option to import those saved shaders, with their settings kept in the way you saved, as one item through the file menu in the main program window; file>>insert clipfile/insert recent clipfile. Tip: Delete the object's original shader nodes first, before inserting the replacement clipfile nodes. This helps because you will most likely end up with multiple, similarly named, nodes that you might find it quite a task to negotiate through when removing/replacing shaders inside the model. I actually usually just import the clipfile, hit the shortcut 'ctrl+X' to cut them from where they land in the main network view straight away upon insertion, then I go inside the object, delete the old shaders then, just hit 'ctrl+V. Your new shaders will pop into the centre of whatever network view you're currently inside.

Q2. Speak nicely to a good modeller!
You cannot edit .tgo geometry for now. These are fixed and uneditable structures(except for translate/rotation/scale values, of course) and it is almost certain to stay that way for the time being. You will either have to create multiple versions of the model edited in whatever modeling package you use before importing .obj models into TG2 for export as .tgo's.

Some .obj's don't agree with TG(missing shaders/materials/etc) but the excellent, and free model editor, Poseray, usually fixes any .obj-to-Terragen 2 issues that you might come across. Import models into Poseray first, assign any shaders/colours/etc, then re-export from Poseray as a new .obj.
Terragen 2 likes Poseray objects. Use the search function of the forum for lots of Poseray-to-TG2 discussion and how-to/instructions.

*There is one application which I know of that can import, and claims to be able to edit .tgo geometry but, when I tried it, all of the faces of the edited .tgo's were either corrupted or completely missing upon export. It's called 3D Object Converter and it's available here: http://web.axelero.hu/karpo/
It can import and edit over 500 3D model filetypes, including .tgo. You might have more luck with it than I did.
Regardless of whether the .tgo edit function is working correctly, it's a great free tool to import/export many different types of file.