Aknight recently posted an image with some models of the actual Kitbash3D contest "Mission to Minerva". That made me curious, and so I downloaded these incredibly beautiful and detailed models (for free!!!) and tried to make them usable in Terragen. This took me about two weeks (...and ten years of my life!! ;) I'll write about that in another thread). So after I had finished that, I thought I could create something for the contest.
After numerous tries I came up with this. I used PS to clean it up a bit and I added some very subtle lens effect for the backpack lights of the astronauts.
The rocks are a population of a sharp rock by Quixel.
Yesterday I submitted my entry on their FB page.
Superb!
Two weeks... ten years!!! I admire your tenacity. But the result is great, beautiful light and composition. Contest, huh, well I hope you win!
Me too! ;D
As far as I could see, I'm the only one so far who used Terragen for that.
Wow! You are much more patient than I am to get those models working! Looks great though!
Thank you!!! :)
Wow! Fantastic Hannes, I wish you luck. You have a capable image to boot. I haven't seen the original models but it can be a dance sometimes to get things to wor in TG. If this took you that long it seems like one of those that I end up throwing my hands up and surrendering. 😀 very nice image and lighting. Good luck Sir!
Thanks a lot! These models were so tempting, that I couldn't resist working on them. Once you've done it, you have a nice collection of high class sci fi models you just have to put in your scene. This is definitely not the last image that uses some of those models.
Btw, placing lights in Terragen is a pain in the a§§!! So for this scene Kitbash's green house model is located at 0,0,0. I loaded the same OBJ (for TG I converted it to TGO) into 3ds Max at the same location, placed some omni lights where I wanted them, and exported them as FBX. Importing this FBX gave me a bunch of lights at their appropriate places. The only thing, that's quite inconvenient, is, you have to set their parameters before you export them from 3ds Max (or whatever 3D app is used). Editing each and every light in Terragen separately is no fun. Especially when you have a scene with 60 lights (like in my first Minerva attempts, where I tried to put almost all models into the scene.
So fortunately in 3ds Max there's a tool named Light Lister, which is fantastic, since you can edit all selected lights at once. If you find you're lights are for example too dark in Terragen after importing, it's easy to edit them in Max, export them again and import them again in TG. It's a matter of less than a minute.
Some sort of a Light Lister would be cool in Terragen
And attaching lights (or objects) to other objects or whatever, or grouping them is a feature I desperately miss in Terragen. Actually I think, this is quite an essential feature for a 3D app.
:-X ... grouping etcetcetc ... :-X
The scene is looking nice!
CHeers, Klaus
The new Remote Procedure Call (RPC) feature just announced in the November newsletter and made available as a "beta" feature in Terragen 4 Professional 4.6.31 will open up Terragen in ways to address these kinds of issues. For example, a python script could be executed to modify the all the lights in your project with a click of a button.
Thanks for your answer, Kevin! That sounds mighty good! :)
I guess, you need to know a lot about programming to do something like that, or will it be somehow simplified to make it easier for those who still think about snakes, when python is mentioned? ;)
However, it's good to know, there will be more possibilities in TG.
Hi Hannes,
You bring up a great point, and perhaps we can come up with some RPC related videos or additional wiki tutorials aimed towards an "artist" or "non-programmer" user. I tend to learn best when someone shows me what to do and explains the "why" behind it; much like what you've shared in your posts about bringing 3D assets into Terragen. Eventually it becomes second nature and just a step towards achieving the artistic or visual look I'm after.
Sounds great, Kevin! :)
Another great Image, the Light is excellent!
Really astonishing which results you archive with TG!
Opened a new account, now downloading the free Kitbash Kit, THX for your hint Hannes!
https://kitbash3d.com/pages/minerva
STORMLORD
Cool! And thank you! Good luck, Dirk! ;)
They have some magnificent kits anyway. I really dig this one! Not expensive either.
Oh yes! Looks crazy (good!). Terragen can handle many large models at once quite good, but these Kitbash kits are really high res, so be prepared that you might be in trouble, if you're planning to make such a rich scene. :)
I'm afraid I won't, as I don't even have a means to purchase overseas anymore (like paypal or creditcard). But I think if I'd have the models, I would decrease polycount with an appropriate app. There are often a lot of poly's even in flat areas, so likely a lot can be gained.
Quote from: Hannes on November 17, 2022, 05:01:20 AMEditing each and every light in Terragen separately is no fun. Especially when you have a scene with 60 lights (like in my first Minerva attempts, where I tried to put almost all models into the scene.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Last year I tried to make a Christmas tree with ~ 30 Terragen lights. And then animating them so they randomly blinked.
Grueling process.... >:(
I guess that would call for a pop of illuminated spheres, and a moving world fractal to have them blink. For fast circumvention of that gruelling process.
Previously in this thread, Hannes brought up some issues that he wished Terragen could handle better, and I suggested that Terragen's Remote Procedure Call (RPC) feature might be a way of addressing some of these items.
We're happy to announce that we've just posted the first blog introducing the RPC feature. It's aimed towards non-programmers and artists, and attempts to demystify the programming process by using a very simple example; adding a Landmark object to the active Terragen scene via a program written in the Python programing language.
Click here (https://planetside.co.uk/blog/hello-rpc-part-1-scripting-for-terragen/) to take a look.
Future blog posts will explore how to handle programming errors when they occur, as well as a number of practical uses such as modifying the value of a light based on Kelvin temperatures.
We've just published part 2 of our introduction to Terragen's RPC (remote procedure call) feature. Building upon the code written in part 1 (https://planetside.co.uk/blog/hello-rpc-part-1-scripting-for-terragen/), the focus of this blog post is how to deal with errors when they arise.
Click here (https://planetside.co.uk/blog/hello-rpc-part-2-error-handling/) to take a look.