Planetside Software Forums

General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: SILENCER on July 05, 2017, 03:25:37 PM

Title: Render display module and some other things
Post by: SILENCER on July 05, 2017, 03:25:37 PM
Hey team. Long time user, long time lurker.

I've been using Terragen since the old Foundation Imaging days. It's developed into a real player since those humble free edition 0.9 versions.

I Love Terragen and have used it in many projects, most recently used TGD4 in a pilot for a show called Behind Enemy Lines. The cloud/ocean/and Ukraine landscape renders we generated were gorgeous. Slapped some LightWave 2017 F-18 renders on top.  Add Turbulence for the fire/smoke.mayhem. Hand it all off to Nuke pilots. Wham. Looked fabulous.
BUT

It's time to have stacking available in the render display module, guys. It's a workflow killer to have to save files, compare the two, etc. It's much easier to have them stored in memory and toggle between them to compare settings, etc. LW has had it for aeons, even Vue can do it....and they're French.

Nuke compositors have been griping about the individual.EXR file output from the render buffers instead of the multi-layer embedded .EXR option as well. These files are gargantuan, but they love that shit. Even so, they were gobsmacked at the level of beauty Terragen creates. It's renderer really is a work of art. They were blown away.


These gems , I think, would really assist Terragen. Some are more vital than others, but just off the top of my head:

Parenting. It's time to be able to parent things, even if it's just to a null.
Multiple objects in a a single population. Cuts down on scene clutter. Huge shots can get very unruly.
MDD import.  This would be enormous. Wind displacement from SpeedTree, for example. How boss would that be in a Terragen render?
Twist and Shear.  Seems like a globally applied displacement. I may be doing it incorrectly, but It'd be awesome to be able to localise it.
Painted Shader. Different brush options or image import to use as brushes.
Torn Polygons.  I have been getting ripped terrain geo from crazy strata and PF Shader values. Fair enough, I suppose. You do crazy shit, you get crazy results.
Painted Instancing.  I'll say this for Vue, that is kind of brilliant. But their renderer can not touch Terragen.

Anyway, I know you're a small team, and your work is magnificent. I can't believe  Terragen is only 700.00
Once you get under the hood and start using this thing with deadlines and other people down the road expecting your elements, the variables can get a little dicey. It's not a show killer, it's not a disaster, but you learn from every tool once it is in the field.

Thanks for listening.
Title: Re: Render display module and some other things
Post by: cyphyr on July 05, 2017, 06:04:43 PM
Hi SILENCER and welcome to the gang.

Pretty much agree with everything you say and your not the first nor I suspect the the last to ask for these abilities/options.
Couple of points .. twist and sheer can be localised by passing it a the surface it's "twisting" through the child of a surface layer.
Painter shaded should be able to work as a way of controlling instancing. Just let the preview finish (high res) and hit pause before you start painting. Put the painter shaded through a child input of a surface layer for extra control.
Torn ploys with extreme displacement ... yeah bad artist treating a young and vulnerable renderer like that !! You can export sections of terrain and go woopy on them in zBrush if you want some serious cliff action. 😀
Cheers