Let's go back to your very first few weeks / months of using Terragen...
What is your first render that you have considered a successful composition with no "buts"?
Any picture that you consider a special and defining item in your portfolio?
Come on, let's share some memories. :) Put a link to, or upload your flagship image here and tell us the story.
The TG work in this scene is very basic but this clip is composed of six renders and three sound clips. Each of these shots is a composite of a TG environment and animation of a Black Hawk helicopter in Lightwave. Then I added sound clips of a Black Hawk, one from the ground and one from the cockpit and another clip of a muffled pilot's voice. All it needs is more detailed work on the TG scene and maybe a live actor standing on the porch.
https://youtu.be/PguDpkie4MY
Wonderful job PabloMack!
I like how it looks like a takeout from a professional flight simulator. And I have seen some. Gentle rolls and turns enhance this experience. A flight instruments HUD would be an icing on the cake. :)
This is the second Terragen image I completely finished, due to a new computer.
Great coloration of the desert René. Some really handsome cloud lines you've got there too!
Guess it's mine turn now.
"This land for sale" is what I consider my first successful render ever. The quality and variety of assets could have been (like in your case René) achieved only after I changed the operating system (Bootcamped 2GB Windows XP vs. 4GB Mac OS). Though this picture would have been even better today, I consider it one of my favorites "as is" and even printed it out as a "move-in" gift to my friends. ;)
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Lots of complex object distribution there. Division of plots nicely done too! I can feel the lag trying to do this scene, haha. Well Done!
It's your turn now luvsmuzik. Don't be shy. ;)
Ha! Okay you asked for it...flagship render
Here I successfully changed shaders on an obj import, made some slushy water, put a snow clip on some terrain, and.....did a blur. :)
I honestly don't have my flagship renders anymore as I had all my stuff on Shadowness which randomly the developer shutdown the site without much notice. All my work there is just gone to cyberspace...
As of recently, probably the quick forest scene I did to test some God Rays: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25353.0;attach=83817;image
I don't often do full scenes, but the bits and bobs to make up them for later use; for example, a new computer someday.
These is a scene I'd really love to re-render with Path Tracing someday here soon when it's in public builds. I feel the shadows will just look beautiful.
Quote from: WASasquatch on October 05, 2018, 02:36:06 PM
I honestly don't have my flagship renders anymore as I had all my stuff on Shadowness which randomly the developer shutdown the site without much notice. All my work there is just gone to cyberspace...
Oh gosh, that is just so sad... Like spending several hours on a render only to find out you can't technically handle it. This is why I keep three copies of my portfolio on my computer, a family computer and a pen-drive. All updated per-case and triple fail-saved.
I would also love to see first renders of Planetside Staff. Although my guess is that they might be to busy to play with their own software... :D
This wasn't all that long ago, but it was the first completely procedural scene that I was more or less happy with. Where I was telling Terragen what to do instead of vice-versa. We all need small victories now and then. :D
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Well, I sadly don't get much time *these days* to do new, original, personal scenes with Terragen. But I have a good amount of "milestone" renders from my past, especially before I was a Planetside employee, heh. There are lots of different milestones, like "my first render with the registered version of Classic" (which Matt kindly gifted to me in exchange for beta testing), or "my first decent TG2 image", etc, etc. The original question seems to me like it could go a couple different ways:
Quote
What is your first render that you have considered a successful composition with no "buts"?
Any picture that you consider a special and defining item in your portfolio?
So what do you want to see from me? :D
- Oshyan
Let's be brief - a milestone render of your choice. Something you consider defining.
Something that you would gladly and proudly show when saying "See, I am a CG artist babe". ;)
Ahhh. Well, a lot of them look outdated by modern standards (from the Classic days anyway). My favorite scene that I've made continues to be St. Helens and the many variations I've made over the years. But in the spirit of this thread I think it makes sense to reach further back. There is a scene I created while first testing Terragen 2 and enjoying the power and beauty of true volumetric clouds and atmospehre for the first time. It's still one of my favorites, which I would happily show to my "bae" to try to impress. ;) I called it "Hello or Goodbye" in the end (because I couldn't decide if it looked more like a sunrise or sunset), but when I created it, it was simply "new mountains and veggies sunset". :D
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This was originally made back in 2005. And... you may recognize it as my long-time avatar here on the forums! :)
- Oshyan
Cool scene.... and soooo old :P I remember seeing the clouds in TG2 for the first time, a thrilling experience.
Quote from: Oshyan on October 09, 2018, 01:08:29 PM
There is a scene I created while first testing Terragen 2 and enjoying the power and beauty of true volumetric clouds and atmospehre for the first time. It's still one of my favorites, which I would happily show to my "bae" to try to impress. ;) I called it "Hello or Goodbye" in the end (because I couldn't decide if it looked more like a sunrise or sunset), but when I created it, it was simply "new mountains and veggies sunset". :D
This was originally made back in 2005. And... you may recognize it as my long-time avatar here on the forums! :)
- Oshyan
Yes, this truly is your defining render then. Thanks for showing (the rest of) it to us! ;)
Atmosphere and clouds is indeed something that many people like to gaze upon in TG. As in real life. :) Oh, by the way Oshyan - did you get my draft?
Ulco, totally agree. But it takes a lot of practice to make them look right, no?
That's right.
N-drju, yes I got the draft. Will respond soon, thanks. :)
- Oshyan
Ok. Thank you, take your time as currently I'm rendering anyway so it has to be finished first before I "regain control". ;)
Back to the topic however, it would also be interesting to see what Matt has accomplished in one of his first renders. Some initial "proof of concept" or validation render after the completion of which, he knew TG will become a thing. After all, he is the programmer as I understand?
He is, indeed, the programmer. Hopefully he joins the thread at some point, though he is very busy. He has had some nice past renders, of course... :)
- Oshyan
This was my first Rendering in Terragen, called "Tropical Island". I was looking for a suitable Desktop Background in High Resolution.
So I decided to start something with Terragen. It was my start into the wonderfull world of Terragen in 2003.
Currently I work with TG 4.12, just a few more years later...hahaha...
The scene has been created for my Windows XP Theme in 2003, see a Screenshot below.
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Tropical Island, Created with Terragen 0.93
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Screenshot of my Windows XP Desktop
STORMLORD
Very nice, I like the water quite a lot.
- Oshyan
True. Nothing quite like a serene, clear water to greet your eyes when back home.
Later on I decided to create another one with Caustics (This was completely new terrain for me at that time).
It's another of my TG classics, which I still use as Desktop until today.... Quiet, clean, balanced...
Next was a more south-sea ocean water experiment, which is also very cool.
All these were my first renderings in TG.
STORMLORD
This is an interesting selection of images. I rarely get to work on my own personal projects, but one which sticks out for me is this one where I decided Edinburgh Castle needed a new hill to sit on. It started out as figuring out how populations work, then moved on to being a proper project. The castle is actually a still from Google projected on geometry in Softimage. Pretty sure this was TG2.
As a lot of my professional TG work is either wide planet shots or close ups of other planets in the solar system, vegetation is something I rarely do lately at all.
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Quote from: Stormlord on October 15, 2018, 06:52:41 AM
Later on I decided to create another one with Caustics (This was completely new terrain for me at that time).
It's another of my TG classics, which I still use as Desktop until today.... Quiet, clean, balanced...
Next was a more south-sea ocean water experiment, which is also very cool.
All these were my first renderings in TG.
STORMLORD
I like the colours in that water. Really great.
Here are my water settings from Tropical Island in Terragen 0.9.43.
The secret is a Plugin, which I used to create the very good looking transparency in the water.
It's called "SOPack" which is a collection of Terragen Plugins from Sean O'Malley (see screenshot), made in the year 2000.
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STORMLORD
It is fun to look at these dialogue boxes now. :D
I think this was my first completed render with populations in TG, not sure if the second came before or afterwards but it was definitely one of my first scenes.
I tried to open the fields project a few years back, Frank wanted to have a look at it, all I got were infinity spikes coming out of the walls. It was the first time I'd used blue nodes and there must have been some naughty math in there, divide by zero from a PF, or something. I only use multiply now because of that scene. :)
Back in 2003 when I first got into Terragen. I accidentally created a "thunderhead".
That illuminated cloud looks very good combined with the landscape. Artistic accidents often yield wonderful results. ;)
Jon, I still fondly remember that fields image actually. :)
- Oshyan
I never saw such an "thunder" effect before....
Really Cool Stuff!
STORMLORD
Great images!
Unfortunately my first (TG 2) images are all gone due to a HD crash some time ago. However I remember vividly downloading the TG 2 Technical preview (that was the name as far as I remember?!) and hitting the render button after the install, rendering the default scene. I loved it.
Jon, I definitely remember that render from the NWDA contest, it was one of my favourites, if not the most :)
I wonder how this one would look with the path tracer ;) Especially with sunset type lighting and EZ clouds :)
I like René's red rock scenes.