I'm to the point where I want to start working with terrain creation for the backgrounds in some of my work. I have spent some time looking at everything from stand-alone height-field generators to the full fledged environment creators.
It's pretty much come down to a choice between Terragen 2 and Vue 7. Is there anyone here that has used both programs extensively and could comment on what they feel are the benefits/drawbacks to either?
I have read in a number of forums that stability is an issue with Vue...is Terragen pretty stable? I thought that Vue was the only program that offered anything like Ecosystems, but in reading the forums here, there are ways to do that in Terragen.
Also, any word on whether or not there will be a 64 bit version of Terragen when it ships, and what final cost will be?
Thanks,
-Eric Gooch
Cybergooch.com
Hi Eric,
Just a couple of answers to some of your questions:
You can do similar things to Vue as regards ecosystems using the Painted Shader to control populations of plants. It's not quite so well integrated as Vue perhaps, but it's still very easy to do and potentially more versatile ( from my limited fooling about with Vue's ecosystems ).
There won't be a 64 bit version of TG2 for the final release, but it's one of the biggest priorities after release. I'd be surprised if we didn't have 64 bit versions on both Windows and the Mac within 6 months, barring unforeseen eventualities.
Regards,
Jo
from my personal experience when i tried out view a little prior to tg2 where objects were usable, it seemed decent, but just didnt get the realistic feel that terragen does in a final render. i'm sure i couldve gotten better at getting view to work good, but for just plain terrains, maybe with a mix of models, it jsut didnt seem as realistic as some of the tg2 renders ive been doing recently. and for just plain terrains/backgrounds id personally say tg2 wins that as thats the area it excels at. TG seems all about nature, doing that best (but its still possible to do anything really with all the shader options, just getting a realistic feel is very easy with tg2)
my suggestion though? try them both and play with them all you want. both tg2 (free) and vue (personal learning edition) have very generous freedom given to them and are free. get a feel for which you prefer.
I don't want to be part of that silly Vue vs. TG rivalry (is this the right word?) but I want to mention some things that may be helpful.
The first time i put my hands on vue was a long time ago (Vue d'esprit 2!!). Since that I always played around with the new (demo-) versions. It has really matured during the last years. There are lots of things you can do with Vue that are not possible in TG2 (integration with other apps, versatile animation features, render passes, easy material editing and so on...).
Nevertheless I prefer TG2, because the results are way more realistic.
OK, Vue has been used in some blockbuster movies, but if you look at those shots it's mainly vegetation you can see. That's in fact the strongest part of Vue. You don't see very much of the terrain.
TG is imho unbeatable in creating realistic terrains including detailed surfaces and in creating realistic clouds and athmospheres.
Vue has new clouds since version 7. They are good but not as good as TG's clouds.
I believe that all those blockbuster shots could have been done in TG2 easily. In terms of vegetation it only depends on the models you have. If you play with the populations for a while you'll see that it's easy to use and if you are creative you can have very natural distributions and colour variances.
Thanks to all those generous people who contributed so many vegetation models, especially Lightning (who's the one to throw the first stone?).
So if you want realism it's clearly TG, if you need a package that's versatile and easy to use but less realistic take Vue.
Yes to Hannes. Easy to agree.
Thanks for the replies...I tend to agree with the comments here about the quality of the terrain itself. Vue's strong point seems to be covering the terrain with plants, but I've had a hard time getting the terrain itself to look very good. That's one of the things I like about the TG terrain, it's some of the best I've seen. Good clouds are important to me as well.
Any comments on TG stability?
There's the occasional render bug, but planetside does a pretty good job of getting rid of them when they are found. And these bugs rarely ever pop up until you start using things in ways they wern't designed to technically be used, or creating very odd displacements and extreme number values, etc. tg2 is still technically in beta, but the actual release is just around the corner now.
also if you are wanting vegetation, xfrog plans to release a low cost dvd at the same time tg2 officially launches, with a nice variety of plants for a good cost (so they say so far), which if you were into purchasing some nice plants, that would give you a nice quick boost to your library of possibilities. you can also scout through our image sharing and file sharing forums, to get an idea of what kind of images people are making, and what kind of things people are willing to share with this community being so nice and awesome. though, just a quick note that many plants in the file share are currently dead links, due to the whole lightning thing. but there still plenty of great things out there.
so really, while terrain is terragens very great advantage, it has been going leaps and bounds towards high quality models imported from other programs. recently most my renders have consisted of A LOT of vegetation, and they've turned out great (at least, i think so ;))
if your looking for backgrounds though, tg2 wins in clouds, atmosphere, and terrain. hands down.
TG2 stability - Usually, when there is a problem in the present version (Beta), it is often because someone is trying something unusual or because of experimentation. This isn't bad, since TG2 is so open to try so many things. The node network and the functions open doors to worlds and adventures where we have yet to tap even the surface...so far. This freedom, in my observation, is one of the greatest things about Terragen 2.
When the Gold version comes out, I expect it will be much more stable than it is now and will be much more user friendly. I'm very impressed so far. For the price, it's ranks at the best of "dreams come true". As far as after it is Gold, the price will rise. This discounted price should presently be incentive for anyone still holding back.
Quote from: jo on March 03, 2009, 08:39:18 PM
I'd be surprised if we didn't have 64 bit versions on both Windows and the Mac within 6 months, barring unforeseen eventualities.
Regards,
Jo
Is that in Planetside time or real time? ;D
Hi Mac,
Quote from: mac on March 04, 2009, 08:14:10 PM
Is that in Planetside time or real time? ;D
Actual real time. Unforeseen eventualities may force a rift and shift into Planetside time, but I'm optimistic. 64 bit is a big priority for us.
Reegards,
Jo
both vue and terragen have their strong points if i were you i would use both apps as i do terragen and vue combine very well together ;)
Quote from: jo on March 04, 2009, 08:20:45 PM
Hi Mac,
Quote from: mac on March 04, 2009, 08:14:10 PM
Is that in Planetside time or real time? ;D
Actual real time. Unforeseen eventualities may force a rift and shift into Planetside time, but I'm optimistic. 64 bit is a big priority for us.
Reegards,
Jo
I say we shoot for August 13th :P
Would be a great bday present :P
One thing to bear in mind regarding Vue, is that the vegetation can be animated by placing wind forces in your scene...
Martin
Hi,
Quote from: Martians on March 08, 2009, 06:53:36 AM
One thing to bear in mind regarding Vue, is that the vegetation can be animated by placing wind forces in your scene...
It's cool, but have you seen any examples which don't look weird? All the ones I have look a bit odd.
Regards,
Jo
Well, the ones from the Vue 7 showreel look pretty good to me - Although I must admit that I haven't been able to get quite the same results myself :)
Terragen's strength lies in it's procedural approach to everything. You can generate realistic looking planets with complete shaders that cover it's surface. Vue is more local and seem to fake things a lot more than Terragen. If you're into creating quick, small scenes, Vue might offer better performance and control but in my opinion Terragen is way better in creating huge spaces.
Performance: Terragen 2 seems slow compared to Vue, but it's a matter of usual working conditions described above. If you try to build similar scenes in TG2 and Vue, including only procedurals (both terrain and bumps), switch global illumination on and populate the sky with some fat cumulus, you'll see that Terragen can handle it better.
Vue also has a tendency to eat lots of RAM, especially while using procedural bumps or terrains. However - it's more hybrid than TG2 in terms of render engine. You can for example use built-in 2.5D depth of field rendering or simple bump-maps instead of procedural ones.
You might also want to consider the price. If we assume that both software offer similar capabilities, Terragen is 1/10 of the Vue's price (at last it was few months ago).
The best way would be to test both tools and decide which one suits yourself better. If you do lots of postwork, Vue might come very handy with it's G-buffer or multi-pass.
Quote from: jo on March 08, 2009, 07:19:18 AM
Hi,
Quote from: Martians on March 08, 2009, 06:53:36 AM
One thing to bear in mind regarding Vue, is that the vegetation can be animated by placing wind forces in your scene...
It's cool, but have you seen any examples which don't look weird? All the ones I have look a bit odd.
Regards,
Jo
I completely agree with this Jo.
It looks like some trolls are standing on the ground shaking the trees. It does not look like wind in what I have seen.
Quote from: PorcupineFloyd on March 08, 2009, 07:44:53 AMYou might also want to consider the price. If we assume that both software offer similar capabilities, Terragen is 1/10 of the Vue's price (at last it was few months ago).
Then you need to find a better place to buy your software. Since you are talking similar capabilities, then you obviously have to include animation. The Pre-Purchase Terragen 2 "Deep" with Animation is $299 as a special offering (which will no doubt increase when it is actually released). The high-end Vue Infinite product goes for $895. Both are downloads from their respective companies. How in the world do you get 1/10 out of that???
It never fails to amaze me how these 'product A vs. B' discussions are always so heavily slanted when discussed within one or the other brand's own forums. They're both great products, but this type of misinformation doesn't help anybody.
I was comparing Pre-Purchase of Terragen 2 "Deep" without animation to Vue 7 Infinite and that's of course approximated. I've paid like 400 PLN for TG2 without animation and Vue 7 Infinite costs 4477 PLN. I've made a mistake by comparing non-animation version of Terragen with Vue (because that was the version I've pre-ordered) but you have to agree that in my case (Polish retailers) price difference is still significant, even for "Deep" with animation.
What about "choosing sides" while discussing about something:
Can you imagine most users on Planetside forums praising Vue and most users on e-on software's forums praising Terragen? That would be kinda weird considering who uses which forum (and which software for most of the time).
Quote from: chromecity on March 08, 2009, 06:30:37 PM
It never fails to amaze me how these 'product A vs. B' discussions are always so heavily slanted when discussed within one or the other brand's own forums. They're both great products, but this type of misinformation doesn't help anybody.
That's why you should try for yourself, and make up your own mind. On this forum, we only know where TG2 is better than Vue (in our opinion). On the other forums it's the other way around. So overall you should have a good idea of pro's and con's. Then you should try the free versions, and then decide which one to use.
Good advice, Mohawk.
also if you want to pay even more for vue you can get Xstream which is a set of plugins that intergrate into max maya lightwave c4d etc and it does it briliantly in vue 7 you can merge plugins like fumefx afterburn etc seamleslly within xstream then render through mentalray with such ease it is Brilliant i have to admit :o
Vue 7's strength is that it's an all around decent rendering package that do ecosystems. You can import a poser figure, sprinkle some trees around and render it all out fairly quickly. It has a decent material editor, node editor, decent atmospheres, excellent GUI (one of the few apps I can work comfortably with a 4 panel view).
It's weakness is that is NOT a terrain or landscape program. It's not a scenery program. It can't quite figure out what it wants to be. It has radiosity but it's got so many flaws in the engine it will drive you crazy. It's terrain editor is circa 1990 (Bryce is more advanced IMHO). It sucks "resources" but strangely doesn't use alot of RAM. You'll get Out of Memory errors when it's only using 500 megs of RAM but Vue indicates it's down to %40 resources. This has been a problem that's plagued it for years. It's ecosystem engine is very good and very annoying. It gives you a fair amount of control with ease but (a) it's buggy and unpredictable (save every 10 seconds and you might be safe) and (b) lacks that extra "oomph" control to push it over the edge: Example, it internally lowers the density of planted objects as they approach a 90 degree slope. There's no way to override this. It assumes you want a "normal" hill where things start or stop growing as the slope increases above 60, 70 degrees. Yet it has controls to control the slope vs density. Which works to a point but that internal automatic override still kicks in and lowers the density ontop of what you're own settings do.
It has a decent rendering engine but as someone said here, take two procedural landscapes, put in some "real" clouds, put in some real trees, and hit render, and TG2 will probably be faster.
Vue also has major problems with it's unit system. Again, e-on can't quite figure out what units to use and so they use like Hybrid units that mean very little. One typically will be placing cloud banks at 40 feet high to give the appearance of mountains peaking through the clouds. Totally ridiculous. TG2's ability to work EXACTLY with real world units is it's biggest strength.
The atmosphere in Vue is not real either despite having a new Spectral atmosphere type carried over from V6. It's ok, but again, there's no basis in reality.
Basically Vue is a highly advanced Bryce (with the exception of it's terrain editor). It can do some limited boolean and metablob modeling and as I said, does import Poser and other objects with relative ease. Just be prepared for crashes, OOM errors, weird things like input boxes showing too few digits (ie... you input an origin for a material at 30.50 and the box only shows 0.500 because it can't see the 3. It's there... you just can't see it. This makes life a total nightmare sometimes.
I will add or should add, I've rendered close to 300 images with Vue, starting with 4Pro and have upgrade through to Vue7Infinite. Vue and TG are really two totally different things. If I want to do an actual "Landscape", TG is my choice. Real clouds, real mountains. TG is unfinished though and it keeps me from using it too much. Vue IS a good package. Overpriced now I think and awfully buggy to the point of hair pulling, but it "can" produce stunning results. There are head scratching aspects to the program of why the developers did or didn't do something. But in the end, I do always come back to Vue despite it's flaws. I hate it and love it at the same time. I would love to see TG2 catch up a bit. I want to use it more but certain things are still just not in place to make the big push over to it. Example: I build a castle in my modeling program and want to import it and texture it and place it on a mountain... I'm like "hmmm... TG2 is really a pain in the but to add and work with imported objects and their materials"... So I'll use Vue instead... That's really TG2's main problem for me.
Thanks for the nice Vue vs. T2 comparison, ekholbrook. This was very helpful for me.
Yeah. It'll be interesting over the next year to see how Planetside handles this.
Quote from: ekholbrook on March 08, 2009, 11:26:34 PM
That's really TG2's main problem for me.
Quote from: calico on March 09, 2009, 10:00:55 AM
Yeah. It'll be interesting over the next year to see how Planetside handles this.
Quote from: ekholbrook on March 08, 2009, 11:26:34 PM
That's really TG2's main problem for me.
I think just removing the texture limit (or greatly increasing it) would solve a lot of frustration with importing objects.
I think just removing the texture limit (or greatly increasing it) would solve a lot of frustration with importing objects.
[/quote]
I must agree.. ...
I've been using Vue for a little while now, and here's what I've found. Please note, though, I've used Vue alot more than TG2:
Ease-of-Use: Vue (For some reason, at least to me, Vue just feels comfortable when layout out scenes. Perhaps that's partly the GUI, but I can't say for certain. At this stage, though, Vue seems to slightly outweigh TG2 in this aspect)
Stability: Varies (Vue, for smaller renders on a single machine, works fine. My chief gripe is with the renderfarm module, HyperVue. The amount of grief this module has given me (such as failing to connect to other computers due to in-scene texture scales, etc) has really bugged me. That having been said, I've never done an A3 render with TG2, so I can't speak from experience when it comes to that.
Realism: Ughhhh... well... 'it depends' is the best answer I can say at this stage. I've seen some incredible things done in both. But I suppose the question is more along the lines of Global VS Local:
Global: TG2 (TG2 hammers Vue into the ground when trying to create seamless terrains or high-altitude shots. Set up a procedural planet, tweak the atmosphere and place your camera - that's the groundwork done. Whereas with Vue, doing the same thing (again, for me personally) is like pulling teeth. Vue does have procedural terrain objects, but... well, I've not succeeded in making it stretch over the horizon and still look right yet.)
Local: Vue (This seems to be Vue's primary purpose - placing individual mountains and trees to get that 'just-right' postcard look. Or, at least, that's what I use it for.)
Pricetag: *gulp* (Okay... this is a funny one for me. I bought Vue 6 when it was 50% off (which is pretty much what made up my mind to get it in the first place), and, yeah, it's done a fair job. But then Vue 7 came up. To benefit, I had to fork out the same amount ($200USD) that I'd already paid for Vue 6, and I'd only just bought it less than a year earlier (closer to, well, six-eight months). So I'm slightly biased in this regard ~ I almost boycotted Vue altogether after that, and I'm still torn between getting Vue 7 and just getting TG2 and being done with it ;) But again, that's based entirely on my personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt.)
Well, that's my Vue-related life story - hopefully that gives you a little extra information to play with when you make your final decision. I apologise if it seems too slanted.
~Shashin
I agree with what's already been said above.
I used to own Vue but sold it since I didn't use it much, due to the below points.
For terrains, TG2 wins by far.
For foliage populations, Vue wins, but not by much, since TG2 can still do populations as well.
For atmospheric lighting, and clouds, TG2 wins by far.
For surfacing, TG2 wins, but Vue has SSS implemented, which really helps on for certain techniques
I used the Vue 7 beta a few weeks ago and couldn't get a handle on it so I ditched it. I just reinstalled it today and fully understand why I uninstalled it the last time. I just tried to create an eclipse scene only to find that the planet object is fake. It's a flippin' texture.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the main (actually huge) difference between Vue and TG2 is that Vue cannot do overhangs. It does not have lateral displacement, only vertical. As such, it's much closer to TG0.9 than to TG2. And don't think it just means Vue can't do grottos and stone arches, it also means near-vertical structures, such as canyon walls, cannot have any relief. The closer you get to a perfect vertical, the flatter the surface becomes.
Which is why the illusion of relief in Vue for rock faces can only be obtained by using colour textures and bump maps.
This is incorrect.
Care to elaborate? Show an image... whatever...
I think this (http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/media/pages/folder_1/page_3544.jpg) and this (http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/graphics/widescreen/cloudcanyon1920_xthumb.jpg) is made with Vue.
- Terje
2nd image is not visible due to site restrictions... first is good, but can I assume based on the lack of scenery around it or integration into an actual environment that it ate resources like candy?
I'm not sure Vue does lateral displacement, the technique there has always been to flip heightfields on their side. ;)
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on March 12, 2009, 11:41:54 PM
I'm not sure Vue does lateral displacement, the technique there has always been to flip heightfields on their side. ;)
- Oshyan
I checked and I found an amusing fact: if you create a sphere and texture it with a displacement material, you get all kinds of bumps/spikes and whatever (recently on Renderosity and GeekAtPlay it was shown the use of this tecnique to convert the cartoonish rocks of Vue into photorealistic ones); but... if you apply the same material to a terrain, you get only up/down perturbations.
This should be assessed in the light of the fact that POV-Ray provides a primitive called isosurfaces which allow to create scenes like this http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=LOTW_07_23_04 (http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=LOTW_07_23_04). For other examples, see http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Project_Tierra (http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Project_Tierra) and http://hof.povray.org/ (http://hof.povray.org/).
Not bad for a free app, released in 1991 (and based upon DKBTrace, released in 1986), don't you think so?
Bye!!!
So that's what I thought from playing with the Vue6 PLE. Not sure about Vue7 tho.
Quote from: bertrand on March 13, 2009, 06:40:21 PM
So that's what I thought from playing with the Vue6 PLE. Not sure about Vue7 tho.
Give the free Vue7 BETA a try..apparently it's available from the vue home site...I'd be inteested to hear what you think.. ...
Quote from: latego on March 13, 2009, 07:55:30 AM
This should be assessed in the light of the fact that POV-Ray provides a primitive called isosurfaces which allow to create scenes like this http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=LOTW_07_23_04 (http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=LOTW_07_23_04). For other examples, see http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Project_Tierra (http://www.ignorancia.org/en/index.php?page=Project_Tierra) and http://hof.povray.org/ (http://hof.povray.org/).
Not bad for a free app, released in 1991 (and based upon DKBTrace, released in 1986), don't you think so?
Bye!!!
Isosurfaces - the next big ticket! Anyone know if there are plans for isosurfaces in TG2?
The next Ice Age? ;D
I can't imagine how long it would take isosurfaces of all things to render with this beast. Isosurfaces are Voxels so they are solid shaded volumetric 3d data surfaces.
MojoWorld has isosurfaces as well. I think Vue's hyper textures may be considered isosurface-like but i am not sure entirely.
They are from slow to horribly slow (in POV-Ray you have to set a parameter called max_gradient which has to be big enough to match the isosurface behaviour and the heigher it is, the slower is the render) but Terrageners should not be afraid of spending a few hours doing a render, don't they?
The plus side is that you can create all kind of structure like caves, arcs, etc.
For sure, they would be a great addition to TG in the future.
Bye!!!