Terragen 2 released (with Xfrog plants option)

[pokoy]

looks very powerful, some really beautiful images on the site.
is it also able to render panoramic/spherical images? couldn't find any info on that.

[Venkman]

Looks amazing. They have some tutorials up and solid documentation.

I wonder how fast the renders are? I also wonder how the instancing holds up in animations. Flickering was a big problem in Vue. This looks crazy awesome, though.

[RoyalT]

Looks amazing. They have some tutorials up and solid documentation.

I wonder how fast the renders are? I also wonder how the instancing holds up in animations. Flickering was a big problem in Vue. This looks crazy awesome, though.
Have you seen this (http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/38/38/) animation?

- Terje

[samartin]

Have you seen this (http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/38/38/) animation?

- Terje

Sh!tt!ng hell! :bowdown:

[TheANIMAL]

Have you seen this (http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/38/38/) animation?

- Terje



0_0, I can't imagine how much work would be needed to do that in other programs, just, wow.

[Venkman]

Have you seen this (http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/38/38/) animation?

- Terje

Yeah, it looks awesome!

Animations on the vue website looked great, too, but not very realistic to reproduce without a farm.

[Njen]

I've been a user of Terragen 2 since the beta was first released, and I love it.

The best thing about Terragen 2, is that you are on a planet with a curved surface. So all the clouds trail off into the distance, but still follow the curvature of the world just like you would expect in real life.

I have some visual explorations of what the many controls do on a part my website if anyone is interested in learning more, plus some images I made:
http://www.motionmagnetic.com/a_terragen2/a_terragen2.html

The examples pages were created by me so I could visually document each feature at a time when there wasn't much documentation about them. I then decided to release this information to everyone in the spirit of sharing :)

[aesnakes]

Oh this has to be faster then Vue. I was recently working on a project where they were using vue for the BG elements. It was a nightmare, they could never give us a straight answer, they could never give proper render passes and had no controle over what was rendered out. They became so far behind due to rendertimes I really dont know how deadlines can be met.

I really want to look into this app it looks simply INCREDIBLE!

[Lone Deranger]

Looks fantastic. Haven't touched TG since it first came out many years ago. It certainly has come a long way indeed. Can't wait to play with this. :)

[richcz3]

That looks like they've really polished it. Just purchased the Terragen 2 + XfrogPlants. Will be great to pair this against Vue7inf.

[duke]

It's about time Vue got some production-worthy competition!

[richcz3]

.....I have some visual explorations of what the many controls do on a part my website if anyone is interested in learning more, plus some images I made:
http://www.motionmagnetic.com/a_terragen2/a_terragen2.html.....I then decided to release this information to everyone in the spirit of sharing :)Thanks very much Ryan, these should come in handy. :thumbsup:
It's about time Vue got some production-worthy competition!Very true.

[fahr]

Is it possible to import camera and/or animated object data from other 3d programs like Maya?

How does network rendering work? Is it command-line driven? Does it use it's own render manager or can you manage it with a 3rd party tool like Smedge or Deadline?

The app looks great, I'm just wondering how useful it would be for actual production.

[MattF]

Terragen 2 is designed to work with 3rd party network render managers. Frantic's Deadline supports Terragen 2 natively, I believe. Smedge and others can be easily scripted to use Terragen 2.

Matt

[khendar]

Its definitely come a long way since I used it. The animation was still a bit jittery in places. especially things like the shadows, which didn't track very smoothly.

Still looks nice though....

[gladallover]

Is it possible to import camera and/or animated object data from other 3d programs like Maya?

How does network rendering work? Is it command-line driven? Does it use it's own render manager or can you manage it with a 3rd party tool like Smedge or Deadline?

The app looks great, I'm just wondering how useful it would be for actual production.

I've been using terragen 2 in production for the past 9 months and can vouch for it being production ready.
We were able to swap camera data between maya and terragen (using .chan file exporter).
We also have it integrated into our muster controlled farm, via a simple template.

So far the results have been great, and we have very happy clients!

[pokoy]

could someone please give me any info on whether terragen2 is able to render panoramic/spherical images? i recently purchased vue 7 because of that but it turned out multithreading is disabled when rendering spherical images...

[gladallover]

could someone please give me any info on whether terragen2 is able to render panoramic/spherical images? i recently purchased vue 7 because of that but it turned out multithreading is disabled when rendering spherical images...

People have done this with terragen 2, and there are quite a few posts about it on the forums, http://forums.planetside.co.uk/

Probably the best place for any specific questions, and a very helpfull community over there too.

[pokoy]

yeah, i just realized that. thanks!

[Magnus3D]

Has Terragen 2 really gone final already ?! i thought it was at gold releasecanditate 1 stage now.

/ Magnus

[Als]

Hi,
that looks amazing.
It's great to have xfrog library with it too!
I have few questions.
Are there some render time tests ?
Could xfrog animation be rendered inside Terragen?
Can I make animation with xfrog 3.5 and import it and render it with terragen?

Thanks


Als

[Larry_g1s]

Wow!! and I do mean Wow. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

[Ollarin]

Wow! That's some really amazing work.

I remember using Terragen back when it was at version 0.8 or 0.9, it's certainly come a long way.

[RoyalT]

..Can I make animation with xfrog 3.5 and import it and render it with terragen?..No. I don't belive you can import animated objects, unfortunately, but I'm pretty sure it will be possible in the near future.

- Terje

[richcz3]

They have a pretty active forum on Planetside with plenty of tips from users. The staff monitoris the boards and have been very helpful. They read about questions on my order and forwarded my license key to start using it this weekend - :thumbsup:. My Xfrog collection arrives Monday so this should be interesting.

[hotknife]

could someone please give me any info on whether terragen2 is able to render panoramic/spherical images? i recently purchased vue 7 because of that but it turned out multithreading is disabled when rendering spherical images...



If you have access to 3ds Max as well you could render the background through that and put a distort in the lens slot, it's a Camera shader that will distort the scene into a panoramic or spherical image for you. I'd imagine Maya has it to and should be multithreaded for either...

[Lone Deranger]

Agreed! I bought a license on sunday evening and figured it would take a few working days to get the key-file sent out to me. Instead I received it just two hours after purchasing. Somehow I can't imagine AutoDesk sales staff coming in on a sunday doing the same thing. :)
One thing I would dearly like to see is a 64 bit version. I was a bit surprised to find out that after all those years of TG being in development it is still very much 32 bit.

They have a pretty active forum on Planetside with plenty of tips from users. The staff monitoris the boards and have been very helpful. They read about questions on my order and forwarded my license key to start using it this weekend - :thumbsup:. My Xfrog collection arrives Monday so this should be interesting.

[RoyalT]

If I remember correctly, they said they will be working on a 64 bit version after Terragen 2 was finished. So there is still hope :beer:

- Terje

[JavaJones]

Hi folks, I handle support and documentation for TG2 so I think I'll be able to answer most of your questions.

As Matt mentioned, TG2 does support commandline frame rendering and so can be controlled by a number of render management systems (almost anything that supports commandline app control, essentially). I've heard of Deadline, Dr Queue, and Backburner all being used, and Smedge, Condor, and others could also be setup to handle it fairly easily.

TG2 does not currently support native spherical or panorama rendering modes, however there are easy workarounds with stitching in 3rd party applications. We do intend to add native support for these camera modes in the future as well.

Vertex animation of objects is not currently possible, but may be supported in the future through data import from other applications. It's unlikely we will be providing native tools for creating such animations however. TG2 is very focused on its specific problem domain of realistic natural landscape creation, and is designed to be used closely with other applications whose strengths are in other areas. Our aim is to provide object support to the degree that it enhances Terragen 2's core functionality and output focus. Beyond that our focus is on good import/export support so that the strengths of other applications in object animation and rendering can be combined with TG2's output seamlessly and easily.

You can find TG2 benchmarks here:
http://3dspeedmachine.com/

We'll be working on a 64 bit version as a high priority for the future. It will be released as a free update for all registered users of Terragen 2, including pre-purchasers and those who purchase during the extended discount period (current pricing available until May 30th).

TG2 can import CHAN data, which can be exported using plugins for various applications including Lightwave and Maya. There is also a 3rd party Max plugin that makes working with TG2 and Max very easy:
http://www.emecstudios.be/index.php/plugins/planetside-software-terragen-2.html
We will be adding more import/export support in future updates.

I'll be watching this thread and will try to answer any additional questions you have. Feel free to join our forums as well to get an idea from our user community of what it's like to use TG2. We have a number of clients working with TG2 in production, some of whom frequent the forums and provide great advice and help.
http://forums.planetside.co.uk

Regards,

Oshyan Greene
Planetside Software

[FrankB-de]

I've been a user of Terragen 2 for a few years now during the alpha and beta phase of the program. I would like to add my view on it here.

In it's specialized area of landscape and atmosphere rendering, I can vouch for TG2 being a really amazing piece of software. You simply *have* to have a look at the image gallery on the planetside homepage to see what it can do. It's somewhat hidden on the site, so I digged that up for you: http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg2/

If you still would like to see more, my personal favourite gallery is the one of Ryan Archer: http://www.archer-designs.com/zp/index.php?album=digital-art%2Fterragen-2
... and I also run a little gallery of my own doodling with the app.

Render speed is not really an issue: like in other apps, you will find your compromise between detail and render speed in animations, if you know which knobs to turn. A couple of renderfarms now support TG2 as well. The combination of xfrog plants and some great AA filters built into TG2 can really pull off realism with vegetation. Modelling time will usually be greatly reduced through the procedural approach in planets, terrain, sky and clouds. Combined with preset packs that are available and/or the shared "clip files" (a TG2 term for presets that you can include in your projects) that are shared among the TG2 community forum, you also save a lot of time creating freely animatable scenes.

For example: this image from Tangled-Universe http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=6236.0
... has been created by combining and tuning various presets in under an hour, and then sent off for rendering.

The best thing - I think - is that there is a free edition of TG2 with just a few limitations. Documentations and tutorials are nowadays available over a wide range of subjects. Ideal to test it out without making an investment first. However, in my view, for professional users and businesses, the price for the full version doesn't really affect budgets anyway. Give it a shot :-)

You can probably see, I'm pretty enthusiastic about it. I hope I could still provide some useful information to you guys.

Cheers,
Frank

[Als]

Render speed is not really an issue: like in other apps, you will find your compromise between detail and render speed in animations, if you know which knobs to turn. A couple of renderfarms now support TG2 as well.

Thanks for the links and info.
I'm great fan as well, but I'm afraid to say that render speed is an issue, and only issue why I don't use many of those great new renders out there, like maxwell, fryrender etc.
There are lot's of new products which have render speed as a main selling point.
But I agree that Terragen2 is amazing product, but I'd really like to know render times of images in those galleries. This will not make them any less amazing, but it would be good to know.
The render farms are probably the answer, but I'm not sure about their cost or practicality of rerendering, since every client changes their mind...

Here are some render farms I found on fryrender website:

http://randomcontrol.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&Itemid=86

Are there some render farms for terragen2 ( I thougth there was a link somewhere for one)
and how much it cost to render, etc.

I would like to know more about xfrog inside terragen as well, and would like to see that tutorial mentioned as well.

Thanks


Als

[richcz3]

@ Lone Deranger
Received my Tg2/XFrogs copy on Monday:thumbsup: - it appears they have a local office here in Venice. Its a 4 DVD set.

There are some quick start up tutorials (SWF run in html) that give a few setup pointers. From starting a basic screen from scratch to using billboards to help populate scenes. It's not 32bit, but they are definitely keeping busy over there with the updates. I've have had two since this weekend.

Although I've only constructed some basic scenes, this is by far and away easier and more intuitive than Vue. The Nodes build up as you work in the Menu interface. So its easy to see how the Nodes interact which helps me allot. You can choose to edit or work with the Nodes directly.

I'm going to have at loading some of the Xfrog tree libraries today and see how that goes.

[arctor]

been following this release for quite a while and the features and images are really impressive...
the only thing stopping me from buing it right now is that I can't seem to find a workflow for rendering elements instead of a full scene...

keep up the great work...

[Als]

@ Lone Deranger
I'm going to have at loading some of the Xfrog tree libraries today and see how that goes.

How the xfrog works inside? Is it possible to use xfrog animation or only model?


Als

[FrankB-de]

How the xfrog works inside? Is it possible to use xfrog animation or only model?
Als

For now you cannot animate the xfrog models directly inside TG2. All other aspects and scene parameters that are native to TG2 can be animated, though. Almost every parameter in every node can be animated. Objects can be animated as well, as far as position, scale, rotation is concerned, but they cannot grow and morph like in xfrog.

Regards,
Frank

[romi]

i just want to add my praise for Terragen2. last year, i was the sole artist who worked on the xbox live arcade game, DeathTank (http://games.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/2174/Death-Tank/) at Snowblind Studios. i needed to create skies & clouds for different environments in the game and i tested all (if not most) of the 3D environment programs out there and Terragen2 came out the clear winner. imho its the best of its class right now. and network rendering helped a lot to bring the rendering times down especially for volumetric clouds.

cheers,

[duke]

I have two questions:

1) Do the xfrogplants that come with that option have all of the xfrogplants (USA, Europe, etc.)? Does the license allow you to use these OUTSIDE of Terragen?

2) Given the long development time and delays of TG2, when can we expect to see the animation module?

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