Seems to me the majority of Forum posts here concern the hows and whys of objects and the importing of them into Terragen 2. Sure it's great to be able to do this, but what's the point of using it if all you do is place trees, grass, etc. on simple hills or flat ground? Aren't there other programs that do the same thing? When I pre-purchased, it was my hope that I'd be able to create some kickass land formations. I was able to do a little of that, but I find precision controlling the displacements rather difficult. My problem, and maybe I'll work it out someday. But I digress.
Maybe I'm being a little shortsighted about this, but if Planetside intended T2 to be a superior platform for importing objects, they would have named it Treegen or something. Sorry - not meaning to offend anyone, just get the feeling that the full potential of T2 is all too often overlooked.
Quote from: Rich2 on December 10, 2008, 01:41:57 PM
Seems to me the majority of Forum posts here concern the hows and whys of objects and the importing of them into Terragen 2. Sure it's great to be able to do this, but what's the point of using it if all you do is place trees, grass, etc. on simple hills or flat ground? Aren't there other programs that do the same thing? When I pre-purchased, it was my hope that I'd be able to create some kickass land formations. I was able to do a little of that, but I find precision controlling the displacements rather difficult. My problem, and maybe I'll work it out someday. But I digress.
Maybe I'm being a little shortsighted about this, but if Planetside intended T2 to be a superior platform for importing objects, they would have named it Treegen or something. Sorry - not meaning to offend anyone, just get the feeling that the full potential of T2 is all too often overlooked.
because people are getting away from just creating standard landscapes. Adding things to landscapes and a scene or animation is the next step. How often do you see a land formation that is barren of any vegetation, rocks, man-made objects, etc? Hell, even Mars has rocks.
If you take a look back at the historical archives of this forum you'll see that the majority of the early posts are about creating landforms and much of this work has already been done. One conclusion that I have come to (so it's personal) is that there are indeed better programs for creating landform data (particularly GeoControle2 but there are others) and that Terragens niche is to beautifully texture and subtly alter these terrains. Terragen can indeed create great landforms procedurally but by definition (the procedural bit) these will be hard to precisely tailor to specific individual requirement. It can be done but manipulating procedurally created data is problematic, you can't simple "move that mountain over there", you can do it but its involved. Added to this is the ability to import individual models and multiple HUGE populations of models. So ultimately there is no other app quite like TG2 other than Vue, which if your working with TG2 you may have already have an opinion about.
Richard
ps and what pixelmonk says:)
Well... Displacements are ok and node network is extra powerful but it's far from being understandable for someone who's not mastered in mathematics.
Some examples, deep explanation of node network, prefabs or maybe complete "Step-by-step" tutorials on for example how to make a nice looking cliff with voronoi mixed with few other nodes and fractals would be awesome.
Procedurals are great but they require lots of comprehension.
As cyphyr said, we have had a lot of terrain conversations. But the users that work with TG2 for a while now have that part all figured out, so we're now at the stage of defining the scene with details as clouds and objects and plants and stuff...
The main feature which makes Terragen the best is the render engine itself. If you take a poser figure for example, you can render it in poser and it looks fine if you want a studio look, but if you import it in TG2 you have a great and realistic outdoor look in lighting.
So for the landscape details you need software like GeoControl but to get that landscape in a photo realistic environment with trees and the works, you need TG2.
But I understand you want some more info on procedural landscapes and that kind of stuff? Well, that what we're for, so ask away...
Asking is fine but wouldn't it be better to simply collect some nice forum threads and merge them into some kind of tutorial?
Learning process for new users is complicated because everyone needs to get through a conversation in thread, so why establish a form of community driven manual writing?
A few things I recommend -
- Find the beginner's tutorial by Oshyan
- Find the terrain tutorial by Volker
- Find the planet creation tutorial by nvseal
...and then burn some braincells. ;D
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on December 10, 2008, 06:53:13 PM
Asking is fine but wouldn't it be better to simply collect some nice forum threads and merge them into some kind of tutorial?
Learning process for new users is complicated because everyone needs to get through a conversation in thread, so why establish a form of community driven manual writing?
Thanx for the response, folks! I'm no mathmagician. either - I have a tendancy to tank my @#%$!! checkbook, for cryin' out loud... But I guess the point is that we are not finished with TG's capabilities, be it terrain, atmo, objects - whatever! Thing is there's a lot to be figured out, and I am a big terrain enthusiast. I guess I was on my soapbox for a moment in trying to explain that. But I know the staff at Planetside would agree that TG2 was designed mainly to generate realistic - or even nonrealistic terrain features. Tutorials would be fine but staff says it's not in the budget. And a lot of us have not the time to make one, for what ever reason. So when all is said and done, we are still in the baby-steps here, and just taking the easiest route, which seems to be importing objects. Not a complaint, just acknowedging it for what it is. Thanks again - you all keep up the great work!
Quote from: calico on December 10, 2008, 08:27:15 PM
A few things I recommend -
- Find the beginner's tutorial by Oshyan
- Find the terrain tutorial by Volker
- Find the planet creation tutorial by nvseal
...and then burn some braincells. ;D
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on December 10, 2008, 06:53:13 PM
Asking is fine but wouldn't it be better to simply collect some nice forum threads and merge them into some kind of tutorial?
Learning process for new users is complicated because everyone needs to get through a conversation in thread, so why establish a form of community driven manual writing?
That's indeed a good suggestion.
I also wrote a 20-page pdf some time ago about the creation of one of my canyon images as well.
In general it is all about asking....ask people for explanation about functions/nodes etc., ask how they created this or that, whatever...just ask! I always do that myself and I get many positive responses and help. I think what matters then is that I as well am quite generous in sharing knowledge/files. That motivates other people as well I think.
Quote from: Rich2 on December 10, 2008, 08:59:09 PM
Thanx for the response, folks! I'm no mathmagician. either - I have a tendancy to tank my @#%$!! checkbook, for cryin' out loud... But I guess the point is that we are not finished with TG's capabilities, be it terrain, atmo, objects - whatever! Thing is there's a lot to be figured out, and I am a big terrain enthusiast. I guess I was on my soapbox for a moment in trying to explain that. But I know the staff at Planetside would agree that TG2 was designed mainly to generate realistic - or even nonrealistic terrain features. Tutorials would be fine but staff says it's not in the budget. And a lot of us have not the time to make one, for what ever reason. So when all is said and done, we are still in the baby-steps here, and just taking the easiest route, which seems to be importing objects. Not a complaint, just acknowedging it for what it is. Thanks again - you all keep up the great work!
No offense Rich, but you're not new to Terragen at all, you're an expert on TG0.x and are "familiar" with TG2 for almost 2 years, but looking at your postcount and involvement in the forums here I think you should just try to put some more effort in getting the grasp of it. I might be terribly mistaken of course, if so I'm sorry.
Like I said, there's a LOT of info to be found here and if something isn't clear, ask :)
Of course many of the topics are about objects, but like Calico said there's also quite some comprehensive info on terrain-modeling/texturing. I think if you go through these 3 to 4 tutorials a lot of basic and intermediate aspects of terrain manipulation should be more clear, it's then just a matter of diving into the tweaking parameters to get to know the fine details.
I agree with you that many people tend to "cheer up" their renders with models, however.
So yes, I also agree that there could be more info about terrains etc., but if you look carefully, just ask a lot to people and have patience (which I think you are) you should get where you want to be eventually.
Martin
Didn't mean to miss your tutorial above, TU. Dang. I do remember being awed by the work that preceded this and am still amazed at some of your work. I need to pay some more attention to this.
Do you have the link readily available?
By the way, I have tons (a lot) of tutorials I've put together in a document from the beginning until now - these are from other people from Planetside, but this thing is a jewel.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 11, 2008, 06:11:53 AM
That's indeed a good suggestion.
I also wrote a 20-page pdf some time ago about the creation of one of my canyon images as well.
Martin
Wasn't there a wiki for Terragen? All I could find was a wiki general description, and that was out of date :( I dont know anything about editing wiki but from how I assume it works it would be an ideal way for Terragen users to combine there tutorials. That said there are a lot of tuts here on PS forums.
Richard
@Richard - Great idea. A Wiki for TG2 would prove invaluable.
Quote from: calico on December 11, 2008, 07:41:39 AM
Didn't mean to miss your tutorial above, TU. Dang. I do remember being awed by the work that preceded this and am still amazed at some of your work. I need to pay some more attention to this.
Do you have the link readily available?
By the way, I have tons (a lot) of tutorials I've put together in a document from the beginning until now - these are from other people from Planetside, but this thing is a jewel.
I know you didn't mean that, nor did I mean to try to get attention/acknowledgement this way, I thought it fitted the question/topic well :)
Anyhow, here's the link Calico:
http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item342 (http://www.ashundar.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item342)
Quote from: cyphyr on December 11, 2008, 07:57:00 AM
Wasn't there a wiki for Terragen? All I could find was a wiki general description, and that was out of date :( I dont know anything about editing wiki but from how I assume it works it would be an ideal way for Terragen users to combine there tutorials. That said there are a lot of tuts here on PS forums.
Richard
The wiki you mention is probably the German Wiki. As far as I know it doesn't exist anymore. I can't find it anymore as well.
Quote from: calico on December 11, 2008, 09:14:20 AM
@Richard - Great idea. A Wiki for TG2 would prove invaluable.
Can't we set that up ourselves on the original Wikipedia site? Probably Planetside has to approve the content of it...?
Anybody who wants to is able to post tutorials in the user created tutorials part of the forums:
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?board=6.0;sort=subject (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?board=6.0;sort=subject)
From what I remember when I posted mine it did not have to be approved.
@TU - Thanks for the link.
Everyone - What about the fact I have simply accumulated various tutorials and explanations into one big Word document over time? This has been since the very beginning two years ago. But, these are not my tutorials. These are from the many helpful people here on Planetside. It would be cool, if I could find a way to upload this entire document. It has loads of good stuff that anyone would find useful.
Yet, this is in Word format. :o
Well, what's the size then? :)
Since you're a kind of a forum-lurker (;)) I guess there's tons of info in that file :P
Quote from: Rich2 on December 10, 2008, 08:59:09 PM
.....and I am a big terrain enthusiast.....
understatement!!
you are terrain wizard!
I'll check, but I think it's near 5M. It has images in it, which were taken from the tutorials. I tried to always give credit per article.
Maybe I should sell it on eBay. :P
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 11, 2008, 10:15:42 AM
Well, what's the size then? :)
Since you're a kind of a forum-lurker (;)) I guess there's tons of info in that file :P
Quote from: calico on December 11, 2008, 02:16:31 PM
I'll check, but I think it's near 5M. It has images in it, which were taken from the tutorials. I tried to always give credit per article.
Maybe I should sell it on eBay. :P
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 11, 2008, 10:15:42 AM
Well, what's the size then? :)
Since you're a kind of a forum-lurker (;)) I guess there's tons of info in that file :P
pdf it or export it to html
I learn better via video tutorials I think planetside once they have released the final build of terragen 2 get to work on creating some basic video tutorials maybe some of our top members could help out?
My Word document is about 1.2M and in HTML is 183K.
Quote from: calico on December 11, 2008, 05:58:21 PM
My Word document is about 1.2M and in HTML is 183K.
Where is it? ;) ;D
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=5374.0
Calico, thanks for your work ...
Rich2, I agree that most threads only include basic informations and you really need to go for trial and failure to get decent results.
That function thread of Efflux and me for example has lots of value to me - as I know, what I did ... but for anybody else it has almost no information to work with.
Unfortunatly I do not have the time for writing any tutorials at the moment without risking a personal financial disaster ;)
Volker
I'm hoping that when the final release is announced T2 will come with completed/comprehensive documentation with lots of tutorial examples of the more complex aspects of terrain building and surfacing. If I was a little more knowledgeable with the process of node networking and the construction of complex procedures I might consider compiling a book on T2 and publishing it at Lulu, or some other web book publishing site. As is my book on T2 would be shorter than the "Wisdom of George W Bush". But that's what's needed; a comprehensive manual which starts at the basics and carries the user through to the expert level.
John
We do hope to make a Wiki available in the near future and that would be an ideal place for you all to start compiling a community-driven documentation project. We will be making available a complete set of basic documentation with the final release of TG2 itself, but to be clear this will simply be an extension of the documentation currently available, encompassing the basics of working with all aspects of TG2, as well as a complete node reference. We unfortunately won't be able to provide significant "tutorial" resources specific to the creation of any particular scene type, landform, or other specific natural phenomena. These resources may follow, but I think the community is really the best resource at this point. There is tremendous information in the forums here, it just needs to be distilled and organized. Hopefully the Wiki will make that possible. It will just need some dedicated people to maintain it. But one thing this community definitely does not lack is dedicated people!
- Oshyan