Recent posts

#91

Terragen Discussion / Re: Terragen best plant pack f...

Last post by pokoy - July 23, 2025, 07:16:01 AM

TG still doesn't support normal maps, does it?

No, but you can use them alright in the displacement slot/input. Or by using a vector displacement shader as input for that slot. Not optimal, so it needs some fiddling.

Good to know, thank you!

#92

Terragen Discussion / Re: Terragen best plant pack f...

Last post by Dune - July 23, 2025, 01:21:32 AM

TG still doesn't support normal maps, does it?

No, but you can use them alright in the displacement slot/input. Or by using a vector displacement shader as input for that slot. Not optimal, so it needs some fiddling.

[awesome]

#93

Open Discussion / Re: VUE, PlantFactory and Plan...

Last post by ShelLuser - July 22, 2025, 01:25:06 PM

Holy crap... 

Err, pardon me.. First: I just came to appreciate this forum so much more. No, not because of the mention of the above freebie (that's already on my computer), no, because of the "powers that be" that didn't go on a zealot spree but allowed this post. Let's just say that I saw "other sentiments" on "other fora" when "the competition" got addressed.

Second...  So, I just discovered this feat for myself (outside of this forum) only a few days ago. Yah, I'm that Internet nut who can appreciate good things so I actually tried to show some appreciation by posting on the Bentley System forum. I dunno what happened, I posted, and immediately got warnings that I didn't have permission to view the contents. My assumption (!) right now is that I found an accidental loophole (I mean: I never purchased any of their stuff). My profile (which does exist) doesn't show any activity, which I don't like because I poured serious effort into that post.

AND here we are... considering your account name I'm just going to assume that you're affiliated with Bentley Systems.

Thank you (Bentley Systems) for your awesome generosity!

There's also some poetry here because as much as I (truly) love working with Vue (it's an awesome addition for Daz Studio users) ... I'm actually getting better results with TerraGen. No, I am not making this up and I am not "just saying" just because of the forum we're on (no offense!). But at the same time.. it also often works both ways.

When it comes to terrain generation my main "tools of trade" are both TerraGen and Gaea. TerraGen creates the world for me in a procedurally way and Gaea is awesome to fill in the specific details which I sometimes need. Vue does not support all that which - in my opinion - is a huge pro for TerraGen. Did I forget to mention that I'm not all that good at drawing?

(edit) => but then I realize that I can also (eventually!) bring plenty of assets into Vue, render my 360 Iray landscape and use that. At the time of writing I am working with the free ("community") versions of both TerraGen & Gaea (mad respect!), but that also means that I sometimes overlook things. Consider that corrected.

Anyway... my point being: IMO it's awesome that you guys (= Bentley Systems) decided to share with the community once you decided that you weren't going to further support E-On software (Vue & PlantFactory). Mad respect!

Thank you!

(edit) => Forgot to mention.. while I may not have that much use for Vue.. OMG: PlantFactory!

Any random Bryce 7 users here? => If you ever needed a good reason to abandon that ((still) awesome) abandoned thingamagick: PlantMagic + TerraGen (+ (optional) Gaea).

Even the free versions will get you much better results.

#94

Terragen Discussion / Re: Terragen best plant pack f...

Last post by pokoy - July 22, 2025, 09:06:45 AM

+1 for the above comment. I'm using Plant Factory right now after it turned out I need to use vegetation on a project and the software is great. The library is a bit thin maybe, XFrog had a better catalogue for sure, but what's there looks good and plenty presets to try out for each type of plant. Materials look good, you might have to replace normal maps with bump (I think TG still doesn't support normal maps, does it?). Also, you can quickly generate different plants for the same species, it's a matter of a few clicks.

#95

Terragen Discussion / Re: Terragen best plant pack f...

Last post by ShelLuser - July 22, 2025, 08:49:50 AM

Late reaction, but better late than never, right?

First a small disclaimer: I'm still very new to the concept of what I like to call "professional terrain building" (so: using software such as TerraGen, Gaea, WorldBuilder (edit) => World Creator, etc.), but not to 3D modelling/sculpting.

Anyway, about vegetation: buying assets is one thing, making them yourself... that can become a deal breaker (IMO). I learned that the Bentley Systems company has taken over E-On software and are now providing their software free of charge. This includes Vue, PlantFactory (!), PlantCatalog and extra Vue assets.

In other words...  Why not build some plant assets of your own, then export that as a mesh and import that into your TerraGen world / project?  You can find all that using this link. Maybe food for thought?

#96

User-contributed Tutorials / Re: Please use the wiki for al...

Last post by Kevin Kipper - July 21, 2025, 02:42:15 PM

Hi ShelLuser, welcome to Terragen.  We're glad you're enjoying the software.

The wiki page online documentation has gone through major updates in terms of feature and parameter descriptions and examples since the 2013 post just before your observations and questions above.

In the past couple of years several users have posted fairly in-depth guides regarding their discoveries and workflow in Terragen right here on the forums.  I would encourage you to do the same.  If you develop a good workflow between Daz Studio and Terragen and write something up, please feel free to share it here.

#97

User-contributed Tutorials / Re: Please use the wiki for al...

Last post by ShelLuser - July 21, 2025, 12:16:01 PM

I am well aware that this is an old thread, but ... being a vivid guide writer myself I couldn't resist..

Is this still something you guys prefer or have you changed the rules in the mean time?  I mean, there's also a certain risk if you give newly registered users full access "just like that". For the record: I just tried to log onto the wiki out of curiosity, which didn't work (no complaints here, IMO that's a good thing!).

But that also brings me to... are there still sections you guys need / want working on?  At the time of writing I'm using the free edition of TerraGen in anticipation to nab a full license within the upcoming month(s), so if there's something I can help with in regards to documentation... I'd be more than happy to.

Meanwhile I already have a few plans of my own... including a "getting started guide" which will be more geared towards Daz Studio users; right now my plan is to post that on Reddit; but I'd be more than happy to share with you guys as well if you think this could be useful.

[really]

#98

Terragen Discussion / Re: Things you may not know : ...

Last post by ShelLuser - July 21, 2025, 11:59:54 AM

I'm well aware of the age of this thread (IMO pretty awesome that this forum has such a rich history!); it's not my intention to "necro" posts, only to add something relevant (and maybe a little more up to date?).

Anyway... I think there's also something to say for becoming more familiar with the default ("Universal") preset, especially if you plan on 'expanding' your workflow. Because these controls aren't called "Universal" without reason...

See, it's my experience that you'll more than often get more out of your setup by combining workflows. I love working with TerraGen to create environments (terrain, sky/clouds (!)) but I also think it's fair to say that it's more geared towards world rather than a terrain building. So what if I want to set up a specific looking mountain? For that I rely on "a 3rd party terrain builder" and guess what? It uses the exact same Universal controls, which means that it doesn't matter what environment I'm working in: navigating through my 3D viewport is done in the exact same way.

It really helps if you don't have to stop and think about all that, but just get things done.

Just my 2 cents here obviously.

#99

Terragen Support / Re: TG4 uses the wrong URL to ...

Last post by Matt - July 20, 2025, 04:35:03 PM

Thanks for reporting this (and thanks for the compliments too!)

We should have a forward in place, but apparently it's not working at the moment, so we'll need to fix this.

#100

Terragen Support / TG4 uses the wrong URL to acce...

Last post by ShelLuser - July 19, 2025, 04:01:36 AM

Hi gang!

First, slightly offtopic (sorry!) => But I can't help compliment you guys with what I consider to be one heck of a terrain / world designer. I still have a lot to learn, but nevertheless I'm actually having fun with all this; which is a very important detail for me.

Anyway, there seems to be a small issue with this menu option: "Help => Visit Planetside Forums on the Web"; the URL it points us to does lead to this forum, but it doesn't work for some reason. My assumption is that your forum backend doesn't recognize the URL as valid and therefor some functions become unavailable.

If you click the above option it takes you here: https://forums.planetside.co.uk/

...however, when I follow that link it tells me that I'm no longer logged in, icons don't show up, trying to log on gives me an error, etc.

So if I go to the right link then everything behaves as normal (so, this one: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/ ).

This isn't "permanent", for example you can easily resolve the above by clicking on the Planetside logo, in my case this immediately recognizes my current session and I'm logged on again. But I still figured I'd better report this because I can easily imagine that this could confuse some new(er) users.

Thanks for reading, I hope this could help!