This detailed walkthrough of the scene's progression highlights artistic considerations, as well as instructional steps to efficient scene construction in Gaea
https://medium.com/quadspinner/the-making-of-gaeas-hero-image-d4ff6231faad (https://medium.com/quadspinner/the-making-of-gaeas-hero-image-d4ff6231faad)
Fantastic walk-through, thanks for posting this. Working in Max when designing a terrain can be more intuitive than in TG, I wish it was a bit easier sometimes, especially throwing in other terrain elements, placing trees and moving around the scene with high quality 3d preview.
Still, TG is the king of atmosphere creation for me, this is still unmatched and that won't change I guess.