Can anyone point me to an area in the forum where I can read the latest news on the
animation portion of Terragen 2.
If there isn't a dedicated area for Animation discussion I'd like to suggest a special forum or sticky area in this forum for discussions for all things to do with Terragen 2 Animation subject matters.
This will allow those of us that stepped up and purchased the animation portion of Terragen 2 that are interested in this area's future development issues to not have to search through all the messages in this forum to find animation info.
That might be a good area to add. Computers are getting fast enough to use Terragen 2 for animation efficiently. I would like to do animation using Terragen 2. Right now my computer is just too slow to do much more than Terragen 0.9x could.
Convergence :)
The point when the requirements of terragen and the needed power of modern computers finally meet is here :)
I've seen posts by users with i7 systems running at 4Ghz+ where at last we can see images and possibly soon animations that really show what Terragen is capable off!
Bring it on I say :)
I'd definitely be interested in an animation section of the forum.
Hopefult very soon I'll be able to contribute to and benefit from such a section :)
Richard
This is a good idea .
If TG2 could use GPU power there would be a sudden jump in animations. Maybe Matt is holding this for TG3 .
I wouldn't blame him for this :)
Kadri
I like this idea too.
A bit of compartimentalization this way is not bad and makes it indeed easier to find animation specific related stuff.
But are we going to post finished anims there, support, or discussion or all of them?
We have resisted compartmentalizing a great deal here on the forums and thus far I think we have struck a pretty good balance. If animation discussion starts to create enough independent threads and traffic to justify its own area, we would certainly consider it. But I don't think that's true at present.
It seems like the original poster is more interested in news about the development process on the animation version. This kind of information is really only available in change logs and news posts when we make new releases. We don't currently provide details about internal development processes, generally speaking, although we certainly want to communicate fairly with our customers regarding status of products they have purchased.
For the moment I can tell you that, following the 2.1 release where our development focus shifted largely to the new object rendering method, we are now focusing on 64 bit support and animation functionality. We don't have a specific release date for a final animation module, but we will announce one as soon as we can be certain of that.
- Oshyan
I think adding just one board to the forum named like "Terragen 2 Animation" for example would be sufficicient.
So there would not be so much compartimentalization as you may fear.
Also, the starter asked 2 different questions, one if there's a central area = thread about animation news. The answer is, no.
Planetside spreads news via changelogs or announcements. Clear enough.
But, he drops the idea of making a separate board for animation topics, mainly because it's much easier to find animation specific topics. I really agree about this, because like many here I often have to search for some specific stuff too and it is not convenient always since the search-engine is not flawless. It's good though, for sure.
So Oshyan I do not really agree with your conclusion that it was suggested just for news.
I understand your reasoning about the threads and traffic, but I find it a bit of an example of the polder-model approach, so the dutch way:
Just wait until it really becomes messy and unclear enough (lots of animation-topics scattered everywhere on the forums) and then see if we can do something about it. Which is in fact too late then.
Richard states perfectly that the latest pc's are well capable of handling animations and thus he expects an increase in interest, threads and traffic.
So perhaps it's useful to already start a separate board out of precaution. Won't hurt, seems to me :)
I hope you don't mind me thinking along :)
Cheers,
Martin
I second that, it would be very nice to have all the animation stuff packed in one place, like TG0.9 and TG2 are not in the same area of the forum.
It would make searching info easier.
let me be clear that what I would like to see is an area to discuss and review with others Animation issues with Terragen 2, this includes all things involving animation including examples and tutorials of motion in Terragen 2.
Planetside offers 2 versions of Terragen 2 when purchasing, the basic version or the basic + animation version. Adding a forum to discuss animation just makes sense as there are a lot of people like me who may have purchased Terragen 2 strictly for the future capability of using it in video/film.
I purchased Terragen to hopefully use with my 3d software (Lightwave/Core & Modo) to replace my Vue 6 & 7 environment software in the future as Vue is becoming to expensive for me to continue with.
I agree there hasn't been a lot of threads on the animation area of Terragen 2 to date, but you have to agree this is due to the Animation add-on being so new and frankly still lacking/young in it's current iteration. This will correct itself as the Animation becomes more robust with your next release as well with the 64bit release.
This isn't about just adding a new thread area it's about an area to discuss the one and only major plug-in add-on for Terragen 2 and that's Animation. This will also benefit Planetside as well, as they will gain info from current users providing comments on likes, dislikes, and wants for future releases. Trust me we are out there so "if you build it they will come". ;D
I hope you consider my request Planetside, Thanks
Rob
Quote from: rkphelps on January 21, 2010, 01:28:04 PM
let me be clear that what I would like to see is an area to discuss and review with others Animation issues with Terragen 2, this includes all things involving animation including examples and tutorials of motion in Terragen 2.
Planetside offers 2 versions of Terragen 2 when purchasing, the basic version or the basic + animation version. Adding a forum to discuss animation just makes sense as there are a lot of people like me who may have purchased Terragen 2 strictly for the future capability of using it in video/film.
I purchased Terragen to hopefully use with my 3d software (Lightwave/Core & Modo) to replace my Vue 6 & 7 environment software in the future as Vue is becoming to expensive for me to continue with.
I agree there hasn't been a lot of threads on the animation area of Terragen 2 to date, but you have to agree this is due to the Animation add-on being so new and frankly still lacking/young in it's current iteration. This will correct itself as the Animation becomes more robust with your next release as well with the 64bit release.
This isn't about just adding a new thread area it's about an area to discuss the one and only major plug-in add-on for Terragen 2 and that's Animation. This will also benefit Planetside as well, as they will gain info from current users providing comments on likes, dislikes, and wants for future releases. Trust me we are out there so "if you build it they will come". ;D
I hope you consider my request Planetside, Thanks
Rob
Trust me we are out there so "if you build it they will come". ;D
I'm one of them!!! I've had to go out of my way to find programs to create simple videos, like an AVI creator. Somebody posted a lunar video on Youtube and I was hooked. Fast enough computers? Yes indeed. Try these same animations in Mojoworld, IF you have the patience. Terragen 2 is a LOT faster in creating the source for animations. That is why I switched and committed now. And seacrhes will be faster too. I had to ask if Favorites were available in the forum to keep track of topics. I have to resort to adding Favorites in my browser. But that's ok. I am VERY impressed with the pictures that people have posted and are on the Planetside webpage. I wanna see some animations too. I just find it intriguing and very satisfying that Planetside has such an active and engaging and mature forum. This really goes a long way in promoting an excellent product and inspiring new users.
Yes, I'd like to see an animations section. I can only wonder what TG3 might become??? Keep up the excellent work Planetside.
We'll keep it in mind, but let's just say that it will be more compelling to do this once the animation module is finalized. ;)
- Oshyan
I use TG2 almost entirely for animations and that is where I have had my problems. I find it perplexing that everyone is getting on so well but I am floundering at every turn, but it seems not many of us are animating. If all animation posts were in the same area it would give developers a more realistic view of how this software is performing and where attention is needed. The black triangle issue is a good example. For stills it hardly mattered as it could be easily fixed in Photoshop and this masked the problem, but for animations it was a killer and was promptly fixed. This also applies to the problem I am havving with the flickering foliage, it does not show up in a still and my search of the forum only turned up solutions that did not work, the issue then seemed to get forgotten until now when it is getting some attention. If all these issues were in one area it would be easier to identify what needs to be done in the final animation module. Suggestions like ease in and out, graph editors, previews etc could be aired there and would be easily accessible to Planetside staff.
I wish you could do low-res animation (at least) in TG2 Free Edition. :(
Himalofa, while I definitely recognize your concerns, I don't think the proposed solution would really do anything to address the underlying issues (i.e. software problems). At least one staff member reads every single post on the forums - often times multiple staff members read a given post. You'll frequently see replies from 1, 2, or even 3 of us in a single thread. So I don't think the separate forum would really help much in that regard. We do keep track of issues that happen over time and will escalate an issue if it seems to be occurring more frequently. And while I do think there may be some valuable suggestions from users to implement in the upcoming Animation Module updates, basic things like a graph editor, etc. are certainly already planned. Getting full baseline functionality in and working is our focus at this point, after which ideas for further refinement and additional features would probably be more impactful.
I believe Matt is working with you privately on your foliage noise issues. Hopefully those can be resolved, though I suspect there will be render time cost (isn't there always ::) ). Perhaps you'll take some comfort in knowing Vue seems to be consistently plagued with this as well.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan, I am impressed with the attention my problems are recieving and appreciate your points. I do however feel that the animation functions are of secondary importance while so many users are producing such good stills. It is a long, hard, slow process to render good animations. Using an AA of 12 seems an excessive requirement for a long animation. Previously I used WCS6 (does not work under Win7 64 bit) and that was able to merge distant vegitation into a colour thus preventing this distant flickering.
Quote from: himalofa on January 25, 2010, 08:43:59 PM
and that was able to merge distant vegitation into a colour thus preventing this distant flickering.
There's absolutely nothing stopping you do that in Terragen. In fact it's something I often do.
Quote from: himalofa on January 25, 2010, 08:43:59 PM
I do however feel that the animation functions are of secondary importance while so many users are producing such good stills.
I think a lot of people are waiting for the upcoming animation module before jumping into animation in a big way. From what I hear animation is not the most pleasant thing to do in TG2 at the moment, but this will change when the module is released.
Quote from: Hetzen on January 26, 2010, 07:38:58 AM
Quote from: himalofa on January 25, 2010, 08:43:59 PM
and that was able to merge distant vegitation into a colour thus preventing this distant flickering.
There's absolutely nothing stopping you do that in Terragen. In fact it's something I often do.
I don't know exactly what you mean Hetzen , but i think what he is saying is in the render engine level .
Kadri.
Yes it would be implemented in the renderer or the object panel, where you can set a distance where the vegitation is rendered as a colour that matches the trees. It worked well for distant forests.
QuoteThere's absolutely nothing stopping you do that in Terragen. In fact it's something I often do.
If there is a way of doing this in TG2 please tell.
As you have said, animation is somewhat less "mature" than still rendering technology, in TG2 and elsewhere as well, realistically speaking. As we turn our attention more to animation, improvements will certainly be made in these areas.
- Oshyan
Great.
Quote from: Oshyan on January 22, 2010, 02:25:32 AM
We'll keep it in mind, but let's just say that it will be more compelling to do this once the animation module is finalized. ;)
- Oshyan
Quote from: himalofa on January 26, 2010, 06:55:33 PM
Yes it would be implemented in the renderer or the object panel, where you can set a distance where the vegitation is rendered as a colour that matches the trees. It worked well for distant forests.
QuoteThere's absolutely nothing stopping you do that in Terragen. In fact it's something I often do.
If there is a way of doing this in TG2 please tell.
Sorry, that was a pretty broad and sweeping statement. What you can do, is set a distance shader to blend populations (which are already controlled by a fractal placement) into the same PF used as a coloured displacement. This will work on side panning stuff. For forward, you'll have to set up a greyscale distance pass (z-depth) on just the population, which you then use to blend over the same terrain withought the population, but with the same pop PF displacing your forrest colours.
Oshyan, do you and the staff have a rough time-frame for when the final animation module will be available?
thanks
Quote from: warnerbrown on February 28, 2010, 06:32:18 PM
Oshyan, do you and the staff have a rough time-frame for when the final animation module will be available?
thanks
We do not have a release date at this time unfortunately. I can say with certainty it will be within 2010, but I know that's far from the level of specificity you were probably looking for.
- Oshyan
Is it okay to ask what sort of things are the priority of the development team presently?
Recently purchased Terragen 2 with XfrogPlants with the hope that animation would be possible. Write up on the storefront page mentions that this program bundle contained... "(with animation and five render nodes)." Reading through the forums, I'm not so sure now if Terragen can produce what I need it to do. I'm still going through the learning curve to use Terragen 2. I've also sent a request for information to Support for additional answers as well. Because as mentioned above by a couple of others here; spending countless hours reading through the forums for specific information, are hours I don't have-- as I suspect most of you here already more than understand, if you're in the production pipeline.
My hope was to be able to animate an environmental scene where the surrounding vegatation is moving as a result of wind and/or gravitational effects. From what I'm gathering, from what information I can find, it sounds like the only animation that might be capable is panning the camera around, i.e.: fly thru. I'm hoping the camera can remain stationary while the environment moves, as mentioned above. Is this currently possible? Or will it be possible?
Theres no function within Terragen to animate foilage (as if it was blown by the wind) That would be animating the model rather than an terragen specific element of the scene (all of which can be animated).
However all is not lost :)
Although you cant apply gravitation/environmental/wind effects within terragen you can load object sequances (I think). Since you own the full package including XFrog you should be able to apply environmental effects (wind etc.) in XFrog and save incremental models (tree_001.obj, tree_002.obj etc) and have terragen load these. Use the format: "tree.%04d.obj" in your object loader should work.
Hope this works for you, let us know the result.
Richard
QuoteIn 2009 we will add a graphical curve/key-frame editor, more interpolation options and powerful import/export functions. These will be released in free updates for anyone who pre-purchases the Animation module.
Maybe you should correct this in the Planetside website ;)
Quote from: cyphyr on March 08, 2010, 09:37:12 AM
Theres no function within Terragen to animate foilage (as if it was blown by the wind) That would be animating the model rather than an terragen specific element of the scene (all of which can be animated).
However all is not lost :)
Although you cant apply gravitation/environmental/wind effects within terragen you can load object sequances (I think). Since you own the full package including XFrog you should be able to apply environmental effects (wind etc.) in XFrog and save incremental models (tree_001.obj, tree_002.obj etc) and have terragen load these. Use the format: "tree.%04d.obj" in your object loader should work.
Hope this works for you, let us know the result.
Richard
I have tried this a couple of weeks ago and this doesn't work Richard.
It works for image-sequences though.
I filed a feature-request for this in the alpha-forum, so we'll see when it shows up some time?
Cheers,
Martin
It's been over a year since I started this thread and Thought I'd ask if anyone knows the current state of the Animation module for Terragen 2?
It won't be long before It'll be the 2nd anniversary of when I stepped up and payed the extra for the Animation version vs the base version of Terragen 2 Software when I made my purchase.
At the time of my purchase Planetside made it sound like the update adding the animation features in Terragen 2 would be coming soon and pre-ordering it would be a cost savings to me.
I truly expected the update with-in the first year of my ownership of Terragen 2.
We do not have a release date at this time unfortunately. I can say with certainty it will be within 2010, but I know that's far from the level of specificity you were probably looking for.
- Oshyan
If I knew then that almost 2 years later I still would not have what I was buying to save money on I would have maybe only bought the base Terragen 2 or maybe none at all at that time.
I have seen that they are working on things like 64bit versions but hardly any news of a full featured animation version of Terragen 2 that was being pre-marketed 2 years ago. Does anyone know if we'll see animation this year?
And yet, there are a lot of us using TG for animations already.
For someone that uses TG in a production environment, I'm glad they are concentrating on a 64bit version over something that will essentially be a curve editor, that most will only use for camera moves. I tend to export my cameras into TG anyway, so there is really very little need to plot them within app.
The import options have been improved considerably over the last 18 months, film backs, scaling, etc. Brilliant stuff.
If you want linear movement, ie no ease in/out, the 'get frame' node is more than sufficient.
TG animation in it's essence, allows you to output a stream of framed images. Running out of memory from 32bit population/mask restrictions is a bigger issue, which thankfully has a higher priority and is close to being achieved.
I'm happy for you Hetzen, glad you will be getting what you deem is most important ::).
But when this was marketed they were not selling the 64bit version, or the what Herzen thinks is most important module or even what will be what's most important to the people on the forums module. Yes Hetzen there are plenty of ways to use other programs to add animation and I own plenty of them and have used most, but I was promised an integrated module that would make all this easier and that's why I took the hook.
All I'm asking for is what was promised to me when I paid my hard earned money or at least info on the status of the Animation Module 2 years after the fact, nothing more, nothing less. Again I just want what I paid for, I'm funny that way when I buy things ;D.
Terragen 2 Animation
With the optional Animation module, Terragen 2 becomes a virtual movie camera. Almost every parameter in a Terragen 2 project can be animated over time, not just the camera. This can be used to render dramatic fly-throughs, time-lapse effects and more.
The Animation module is still being developed, so we are offering it as a pre-purchase option, but many animation features are already available now if you pre-purchase the Animation module. You can key-frame parameters, import key frame values from text files and render image sequences from the user interface or frame by frame from a command line. Camera paths are plotted. You can preview fly-throughs in real time in the 3D Preview.
In 2010 we will add a graphical curve/key-frame editor, more interpolation options and powerful import/export functions. These will be released in free updates for anyone who pre-purchases the Animation module.
Phelps, you're absolutely right and I certainly understand your frustration. Work is proceeding on upgraded animation functionality, including a curve editor and better import/export support. Any release time frame I could give would be a rough estimate and likely ring hollow after the last one was not met. But if it's any consolation it is our major focus after the upcoming 2.3 release which focuses on 64 bit.
Again I understand your feelings, and we don't want unhappy customers. So if you'd like a refund on the animation portion or the whole purchase, please let us know.
- Oshyan
Thanks Oshyan for your reply
Good to hear that the Animation Module will be a priority after the next release, so I sure hope that means a 2011 release.
Rob
I can't wait to see this animation module... ;D anyway, if you want to see animations, I already managed to make some using Terragen 2 : http://www.nicolas-hoffmann.net/source/animations-terragen2-terragen-apophysis.php
Otherwise, I admit that it takes time to render one, but you can have correct rendertimes, if you are not too greedy with the quality. My last one "Alone in the light" took only 10 days to render on a single PC.
So, can you or can you not animate a camera in Terragen 2 with the Animation module? I'm seeing Terragen 2 animation samples all over the web, and one part of the Planetside website says you can do animations, but another part says the Animation module is still in the works. So how are these animated flythrus being created?
I'm evaluating whether Terragen 2 would be a suitable tool to create a Google Earth-type animation of a geographical feature located in California. I have another post up with more detail.
Thanks.
Shawn Marshall
Marshall Arts Motion Graphics
You can create basic camera paths and animate a great many other settings, what's mostly incomplete is the actual editing interface for keyframing, motion curves, etc. Right now you essentially edit by moving things where you want them to be, on the frame you want them to be there, and adding a key frame for the values you've changed. You don't have much control over the interpolation curve aside from adding more key frames to specify exactly how you want the motion to be. So we're working on improving those things along with better import/export of camera and geometry data for the final release of the animation module coming up later this year.
Right now you can certainly create simple camera path animations, which seems to be your goal. For greater control many choose to create camera paths in other applications and import the data into Terragen. This can be accomplished by exporting data in the Nuke CHAN format, which TG2 supports.
- Oshyan