Thanks fellas. It's fun to get back into TG while I have time off.
Have you tried doing this in house with Daniil's classic erosion?
I have, and I do own it, but Gaea gives near real time feedback during the erosion process, and it's hard to say no to that. From what I gather, Daniil was involved in helping Dax get his erosion tool where it is today. Classic Erosion is great for mega-scale stuff inside Terragen, absolutely. For instance I may use it for the areas outside the Gaea map, and blend the two together.
Have you tried World Machine before?
By comparison, which one is more useful?
Tried World Machine a long time ago, before I became more node-savvy. I hated it. Terragen, Octane, Gaea were instrumental in my grasping of the nodal way of operating, and now that I want to move into Houdini from Lightwave, I hope that transition will be a little less stressful. For me, Gaea is the way to go for external terrain generation outside of TG. I have World Creator, but never really got into it.
Top Gun: Maverick was likely the last gig where I'd be able to use Lightwave. It really is a fabulous previs tool with Octane, but no one, and I mean no one uses it anymore. A great way to wrap up my LW career after 21 years. Lightwave, with all its faults, was very good to me. And moving the camera in that package is effortless.
As for the ice/glacial runoff in image one, it's supposed to be water/slush runoff for sure. Not really a glacier. The reflective shader and I argue a lot.