Free terrain modeling program

[Penndragon]

Looks good. It kind of reminds me of Terragen (http://www.planetside.co.uk/). Have you tried it before? If so, how did the programs compare?

[mikerichardson]

[ Full disclosure: I work for Scenomics. ]

Thanks very much for the recommendation - I appreciate your effort on our behalf.

I thought I'd jump in and say a few words... Scenome is a bit more technical and lower level than TerraGen - it's also more focused on accuracy, scale, and uses parametric modeling technology. Scenome allows the modeler to work directly with the data structures that the engine sees and modify the data structures for optimal performance. This data structure management is performed throughout, and integrated with, the modeling process.

http://www.scenomics.com/documentation/exercises/working_with_paged_databases/introduction.stm
We haven't released all Scenome's features yet - not even close. There is a pretty cool road building add-on coming up and additional graphics features. Scenome is a product geared towards artists but especially technical artists who establish best practice for real-time pipelines.

[Penndragon]

That sounds great! I'll have to check it out later for myself.

Since you guys are doing roads, will you also consider doing other structures and make Scenomics kind of like an independent world generator?

[mikerichardson]

Thanks for your question.

Scenome will likely import Collada files for scene content above - literally - the terrain skin. Then you would be able to build pretty complete real-time game scenes or scenes for visual simulation or what have you.

Modeling-wise, Scenome is focused entirely on the terrain and scene data structures. Basically, the current production process involves building parametric meshes and creating a master file that references the paged databases. So it is likely that the master file would include references to BOX files that contain models of houses, bridges, trees, etc., but that these models will be created with other software that excels at building/texturing such models. Maya, Max, Modo, Silo, Etc.

Scenome has a pretty full-featured parametric polygon modeler with features like extrude, bevel, inset, and smooth - you could actually use it build a wide variety of scene elements but that's not where Scenome really excels and it certainly lacks sophisticated U/V tools except with respect to terrain - where it has very high end U/V tools indeed. Oddly enough, the smooth modifier uses subdivision surfaces, so it is fair to say that Scenome has some parametric subdivision surface modeling but again that's not really its speciality.

One of the tutorials shows you how to use Scenome's polygon modeling tools to build a skybox.

http://www.scenomics.com/documentation/exercises/build_a_skybox/introduction.stm

Later in the week there will be another tutorial that shows you how to build a canyon... similar to these images:

http://www.scenomics.com/gallery/images/gallery_02.png
http://www.scenomics.com/gallery/images/gallery_03.png
http://www.scenomics.com/gallery/images/gallery_05.png

If you examine the screenshots you'll see a displacement mapped terrain skin with a canyon integrated into the terrain. Those familiar with polygon modeling will recognize the "edge loop" geometry of the canyon which was built with extrusions, bevels, edge loop/ring selection, and so forth. Similar to Wings I suppose. The image of the mountain and the lake shows the InsetModifier at work. Anyway the idea here is that you can build these scenes out of runtime-ready data structures and instead of being stuck with a height field for terrain you can use familiar modeling tools to add additional geographic features. Scenome also has common modeling tools like interactive translation, rotation, and scaling - which make it much easier to build terrain.

The current build of Scenome has all the features required to build these scenes but the tutorial is not yet complete so it can't be posted.

[Penndragon]

So, if I understand you correctly, Scenome is an advanced accurate terrain generator that has some modeling tools primarily used to customize the terrain but can be used to create objects, and Scenome will come with pre-built objects in a master file mostly created by other more suited modeling softwares.

As a regular user, will I be able to import custom objects in or would I be dependent on Scenome's parametric modeling system and maybe even add it to the master file?

[mikerichardson]

You would use 3rd party software to build objects and import them into Scenome, probably via Collada. Scenome's modeling tools are for scenery, mainly the terrain skin itself.

Scenome's paged database system often combines hundreds or thousands of separate files to render the relevant nearfield parts of a multi-gigabyte database. The file that references all these other files is called the master file but it's just a BOX file. It is likely that you would import your content into Scenome - a model of a house, vehicle, or tree - and perform some configuration work. Then you would open your master file and reference the imported content to populate your landscape. This scene is exported to OpenSceneGraph or, eventually, Collada.

Scenome's paged database technology is similar to Maya/Max xRef system. It virtualizes most scenery so that you can page [stream] any scene element from disk instead of requiring upfront load.

[Penndragon]

That makes sense. Thank you for your patience with my questions.

[Ashford_Butler]

Looks good. It kind of reminds me of Terragen (http://www.planetside.co.uk/). Have you tried it before? If so, how did the programs compare?
Yeah that’s what I thought at first but this seems to be a little more technical. I have used Terragen in the past but not recently.

[Penndragon]

Pretty much the same conclusion I got from Mr. Richardson. As a lower-level and more technical software, Scenome allows for more accuracy and customization than Terragen. I can't state that Scenome >>> (significantly greater than) Terragen as I haven't used it yet, but it sure seems like it.

How often are the software updates (ex. fix bugs, add new things, etc.)?

[mikerichardson]

First of allow to apologise for the delay in response; I thought this forum sent me a message when another response was posted.

At any rate, Scenome is indeed far more technical than TerraGen. Currently we are posting releases every 7-10 days which includes additional documentation, bug fixes, and new features.

In the future, please feel free to send me questions at: mike scenomics com.

Sincerely,

Mike Richardson

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.