still: Terragen work

#1

Hi all,
I am a new user of this forum. I am a Frenchman, from Marseille, and I am working with Terragen since two years.
Here is one of my last renders, thanks for comments and critics !
Olivier

#2

wow some nice work you got there there is just to much light i think :slight_smile:

#3

Amazing. Simple amazing man.

#4

very very nice. That is really beautiful! What software? How about a wire. Front page nomination!

#5

Terragen doesn’t make wires. it’s all voxel base or something like that. Basically, crazy displacement mapping. Amazing what that program is capable of…

#6

Yes, there is a lot of light in this one, indeed !
Another render, which won 2nd place at a Terragen french contest some months ago :

#7

could you remove some light ?

i would love to see that with less light :slight_smile:

#8

This is nothing special.

Ok, it looks good, but with Terragen and some knowledge about it you can make this in half an hour. So no frontpage nomination from me.

Less light will help the scene just quite a bit.

Nice image, but nothing really special. Sorry don’t flame me. :blush:

Cannonball

#9

An half hour, 20 hours. Where is the difference? Terragen is a freeware program and I love the results of it. Especially the watersurface (great program to make own skyboxes for 3ds max).
You see the people love it too :slight_smile: .

#10

The difference is: 20 hours.

It is a handy programme, but building this world from scratch up is, I think, a better achievement than let terragen make it for you (and it does that almost automatically, you just have to do simpel adjustments, especially when working with it for 2 years).

And that is how it is. I like the renders, they are good, dont get me wrong. But I don’t think it’s frontpage material.

But for a Terragen contest, it’s not bad at all. Case closed, I said what I wanted to say, that’s all.

Cannonball

#11

Hi Cannonball !
Thanks for commenting.
I think that you are right and wrong at the same time !
Making a Terragen pic takes me a lot of hours. You’re right, it is possible to make a quick render with TG, but not like these ones.
I spend a lot of time on making terrain, working with Photoshop and others apps like Mojoworld or World Machine to make a good terrain. Then setting surfaces and atmospherics takes also a long time.
My best renders takes me sometime more than 2 or 3 days of works, really !
Then Terragen is not a freeware, there is a demo version, with a few limitations, and I play with registered version, to help program development.
Thanks again, Cannonball ( I like a lot old country tune “Cannonball rag” by Merle Travis and so on ! :slight_smile:
See you
Olivier

#12

Originally posted by Cannonball
[B]The difference is: 20 hours.

It is a handy programme, but building this world from scratch up is, I think, a better achievement than let terragen make it for you

I also want to say, that I never “let Terragen make” a terrain for me !
I make “manually” my terrains with different programs, as World Machine or Mojoworld, which let mer use some complex fractal algorithms to make a good terrain, but it is NEVER easy ! :hmm:
I can also draw a complex terrain with Photoshop, sometime, depending on the mood I’m looking for.
See you
Olivier

#13

but building this world from scratch up is, I think, a better achievement than let terragen make it for you

Then why do programmers spend their lives pushing the limits of their programs and cos spend millions to get things done in a single click ?

Why not build a full length movie in assembly language, rather than buying expensive 3D apps, if you want to achieve something big ?

IMHO, in CG, the achievement is always a combined one… of the hardware enginneers, programmers, businessmen, the artist and the viewers…you leave one out and you are back in stone age of CG…

What is achieved here is that terragen [or vue or whatever], lets your creativity fly and do something in 20 min, so that you have a bit of more life to spend on better things than to do a 20 hour donkey work…

#14

I actually forgot to write about the image itself… :stuck_out_tongue: …happens…

The textures are really impressive…but in first pic, the white horizontal lines mess things up…what are they?
In the same pic, the clouds look procedural…

#15

White horizontal lines are … strata ! :stuck_out_tongue:
And clouds, in the both pics, are 2D “pure Terragen” clouds.

#16

Hi there Olivier :slight_smile:

I think Your Terragen renders are pretty good, specialy second one. However, You should realise, that there folks are working with litle different kind of 3d applications, where all is achieved by hard “hand” work. They just don’t know or doesn’t have experience with apps like Terragen. So they can judge about Your images in most cases only from pro 3d app user viewpoint (hence the wondering about procedural or good textures lol). In they world texturing is very important part and its the thing that they can appraise.

However, some of this forum users tried Terragen or saw a lot images by Terragen and impression from this experience wasn’t the best. Hence sometimes very snuby or negative response. Or loud WOW from peoples, that doesn’t know about Terragen :slight_smile:

Yes, Terragen main purpose is landscape modeling - there all is tuned for that. With few click You can achieve pretty atmosphere effects that can be achievable in LW or MAX by very hard work and render times. There are OGO Taiki for LW and Dreamscape for MAX with very similar results, only the render times arn’t comparable :slight_smile: Though, to achieve great looking scene without some mistakes, You should spend a lot time - just like in MAX and other apps. In other hand, You can judge about amount of work only if HAVE EXPERIENCE in Terragen. Otherwise, I agree, Terragen renderings all looks pretty photorealistic the same :slight_smile:

PS. Thats why I hesitate to show there my Mojoworld renderings, becouse people here working more on objects or characters :frowning:

#17

btw, I don’t see there problems with lights… it look great for Me. Maybe there are peoples with Apple computers, that uses different gamma?

#18

Hi Armands ! :beer:
Glad to see you here !
I agree with your analysis, I just want to show some of my TG pics in others places than Renderosity or 3DC… I like a lot the critics here, this is a much better constructive place than other 3D forums.
And I am happy to receive any critics or negative comments, it’s good for my progression.
Nevertheless, I think you should show here your awesome MJW works…
See you
Olivier

#19

Yes, CG Talk is generaly good to receive constructive criticism until some starting to tell Ya about how easy or speedy they can set up such scenes :slight_smile: Its great to see Your renderings here! Even if I’m not Terragen fan anymore :wink:

#20

Hi hillrunner,

I personally like your images too and don’t see anything wrong with the lighting. Terragen is a great program that lets you achieve near photorealistic landscapes easier than with other programs, but that doesn’t take away from your art. From what I have heard, the end result is what matters, and not what you had to do to get there.

For those claiming that they can slap a scene like this together in twenty minutes, with the freeware version, I’d like to see it.

Also, just because he is experienced with the program and can do things faster with it than most, doesn’t take away from its worthiness. That’s like saying that if I where to create a scene in LightWave that took me a week to setup, and it takes someone else a month that mine is not as good because I didn’t take as long… :shrug: