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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: Chaplain on February 03, 2009, 01:17:05 PM

Title: How do I control the terrain
Post by: Chaplain on February 03, 2009, 01:17:05 PM
I am not new to programs which generate and manipulate terrain. I am using Terragen to create a terrain that I will export into a game engine. However, I need a certain topography. I can get the look I want, but when I start manipulating the terrain with the tools, I can't seem to get the same look. Even if I "canyonize" of "glacerize." What I am looking to do is create a grassy rolling terrain for a role playing game. However, I need to create realistic mountains that cause the player to stay in a certain area. Then, on the Eastern border I need a large mountain range. Is it better for me to simply use the terrain manipulation tools, or to create 2 terrains and merge them?

Thank You,
Chaplain
Title: Re: How do I control the terrain
Post by: RArcher on February 03, 2009, 04:24:41 PM
I think that potentially this would be far easier to accomplish in Terragen 2.  This is the process that I would follow:

1. Create a rolling hills terrain using a simple powerfractal
2. Create a mountainous terrain using an alpine fractal
3. Restrict the alpine fractal using a distance shader so that there is a spherical distance of your choosing of your rolling hills, that then turns to large mountains at the outside.
4. Export the the terrain to a .ter file for import into your game engine.

To me this seems far easier than fiddling with carving out your terrain using the tools in TG 0.9x
Title: Re: How do I control the terrain
Post by: jo on February 03, 2009, 04:50:25 PM
Hi,

Dare I say it, but there are better tools for terrain manipulation than either TG v0.9 and TG2. Something like GeoControl, Leveller or World Machine might be more what you're looking for.

Regards,

Jo
Title: Re: How do I control the terrain
Post by: Arandil on February 03, 2009, 08:29:30 PM
I'd highly recommend getting World Machine and there's always Wilbur, which has some useful tools (and it's free!).