Thank you so much for your message, Dune.
Like you, I have great memories of the time when the Terragen community was very active, and new versions of the software were released regularly. It truly was a special period — a kind of "golden age" that I sometimes miss.
I believe Planetside decided to focus on large studios and the film industry, at the expense of hobbyists and casual users. Was that the right choice? Hard to say — only they know for sure. But one thing is clear: that shift gradually extinguished the spark that once kept the community alive. I don't know if we'll ever see a Terragen 5 — I certainly hope so — but Planetside has never been particularly strong when it comes to communication... so we'll just have to wait and see.
These days, I use Unreal Engine almost every day. I naturally gravitated toward it, both for game programming and for environment creation. Pairing it with World Machine or Gaea for terrain sculpting works extremely well. Once you get the hang of the material editor and the PCG (Procedural Content Generator) plugin, the possibilities are truly impressive. It's ideal for games, short films, and tech demos.
But all of that comes at a cost: Unreal Engine is a very heavy piece of software, sometimes difficult to handle, and it crashes fairly often. Projects can also become massive — often well over 10 GB. Without a high-end graphics card (like an RTX 3080), you quickly hit performance limits. It's a very different approach compared to Terragen, which to me remains a tool of rare elegance. Its atmospheric rendering is still hard to beat, and its strong procedural foundation makes it far lighter while still being remarkably powerful.
I'm glad to know that my small scenes and presets are still useful, especially for newcomers. And once again, thank you for your support — it really encourages me to keep the site going, even in a modest way. And if I ever have to shut it down, I'll make sure to find a way to host my images elsewhere — even if it's just on a free gallery, just so the younger ones can see what us old folks used to play with...
Warm regards,
Luc
I think I would, if I didn't have so much invested in Terragen in terms of workflow and assets, that ' tool of rare elegance', as you so aptly described it. It's in my genes by now. 