Is there anyone else that is really disappointed :'( at the lack of a sculpting tool set ala .9?
The terrains I need are to fit a specific scene, or story line. Until the facility is added it has been suggested that I use .9 to develop the terrain and then tweak it in 2. Any other suggestions as to workarounds? These will go to C4D.
Knotian
I miss the sculpting tool as well.
One way of course is to create the terrain in v9 and to then load .ter file in TG2.
It would be great at some point in the development of TG2 to be able to move around/edit
separate terrain objects so in order to have finer control on scene set ups and compositions.
And talking of C4D, it would also be beneficial to be able to export out scenes with camera, light and object info.
I use v9 along with terra 4D (plugin) in order to create scenes in C4D.
Have you tried World Machine? Very powerful node based system with sculpting tools.
you can use world machine as njen said...
anyway, the tg v9 sculping tools weren't thaaat good. actually they were pretty bad. ;D
i rather use a third party por the terrain,,or fractals
I'm sure there will be terrain sculpting in the final release version. ;)
You can use a combination of shaders anddisplacement shaders to sculpt out the terrain. Takes some tinkering though.
Quote from: njen on December 27, 2006, 02:45:35 PM
Have you tried World Machine? Very powerful node based system with sculpting tools.
The node system in world machine is the same thing as the nodes on tg2, you can get the same results right out of tg2.
The only stand out terrain editor its Geocontrol
I've actually been surprised at how many people miss the TG 0.9 sculpting tools. I think it's pretty widely acknowledged that they were quite rudimentary and the results produced were seldom very useful to me, at least. If you performed some detail generation over the sculpting results it could be acceptable at times, but ultimately it was always much better to work in a separate terrain editor. There are lots of good examples these days: Wilbur (http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~jslayton/wilbur.html) (free), Geocontrol (http://www.cajomi.de/GeoControl/geocontrol.htm) ($+trial), World Machine (http://www.world-machine.com/) ($+free/limited), Leveller (http://www.daylongraphics.com/) ($+trial/limited), etc.
We will be improving the built-in terrain manipulation tools in TG2 for the final release. But I think you will still be better served by a dedicated terrain modeler for quite some time.
- Oshyan
I always used to think the mountains produced by the sculpting tools looked horribly artificial - I could never get them to look right hence spending hours and hours downloading DEMS ;D
Let me clarify my need of sculpting tools. I HAVE NO PROBLEM OR COMPLAINT WITH WHAT TG2 ACCOMPLISHES. A basic generation of a well eroded island, with volcanic remnants is accomplished extremely well by the software. This will end up being a self contained 'world'.
Specifically I am needing a way to level off an irregular surface to provide space for a lumber mill and boat yard. I really need to have a stream in a particular relationship to a bay and to provide gradual sloping to accommodate a lake, dam, deep water dock and various building sites. Outside of this area the capability to create some cropland and other town sites will come later.
The basic sculpting tools give (gave) me that facility. If I can export a file, use another package or the earlier version, and then bring it back in for finalization I will be able to accomplish my needs.
I appreciate all the replies and if anyone accomplishes this process I would like to see the results.
Thanx, Knotian
you could always create the terrain in 0.9, save it then open in TG2 I guess - bit of a cludge but it might work
Exporting the heightfield as a RAW file and editing it with photoshop is the easiest way to level out terrain/perform simple tasks that the terrain modification tools in tg0.9 could do.
Quote from: Mistercharles on December 30, 2006, 01:59:28 PM
Exporting the heightfield as a RAW file and editing it with photoshop is the easiest way to level out terrain/perform simple tasks that the terrain modification tools in tg0.9 could do.
I also used this method for a while, but it gave me very bad luck for weeks and almost ruined my marriage. I finally upgraded to World Machine, and imported 8 bit square images I created in Photoshop as the base "shape", then let World Machine work its magic on it (additionally bringing it back to 16 bit goodness). Also, World Machine is node based, and is fun and very versatile to use in my opinion.
You can export .ter files from TG2 by right-clicking a heightfield node (green) and choosing Save File As, then give it a file name and add the .ter extension (I don't think it adds the extension automatically). You can then work on this .ter file in any one of the many terrain editing applications that support it (all the ones linked to above do), re-save as .ter and then use a Heightfield Load in TG2 to bring it back in.
I do think that tools like a "flatten" and whatnot for object placement purposes are very useful to have as native functions.
- Oshyan