You may be interested in seeing what the "competition" are up to ... ... ... http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tgd/images/oshyan_hello-or-goodbye_snap2.jpg http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tgd/images/tgout.0015.jpg http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tgd/images/luc_tgd202.jpg Regards, Bernie

Whoa. Time to step it up a notch ;)

The first one is just amazing !

True that! I wonder, really in terragen or not?

Attached Link: http://lucbianco.free.fr/tgd_index.html

Here is the main page, with more images. I am still speechless.

Attached Link: http://lucbianco.free.fr/3D/TGD11.jpg

lovely one here and yeah i think e.on needs to start paying attention to the clouds part of vue, it realy is a big part of a scenery application and especialy now that vue is aiming more and more towards serious studios.

Concerning Vue sky - another thing that should be incorperated into the sky, is the sun object. Terragen is ahead on that also in that the clouds can cover the sun, giving rise to volumetric affects, shadow casting clouds etc.
IMHO Terragen is much better at exporting HDRI skies than Vue also. I was surprised last night when I exported a Vue sky as an HDR Image and the sun wasn't included...although I shouldn't have been, seeing that I knew how the sun was incorporated into it's skies.

The only problem with Terragen is that the steps forward with features are sooooooooooooo slow. Terragen Version 2 is and looks cool, but both programs have their weaknesses and strengths and at the moment Vue has more strengths over all for me...although Terragen is used in Digital Domains pipeline.

Cheers

Message edited on: 09/23/2005 14:20

Those are the best clouds I've ever seen rendered on a computer but....no trees!

Terragen is also really slow to render.

Carl

As far as I know TGD is based on the same technology as the version that Matt developed for Digital Domain, although for obvious reasons he can't use exactly the same code. Development of TGD has been painfully slow, but remember, it's basically being developed by one guy with helpers, not a dedicated software team. My understanding is that TGD will support importing of 3D objects in a wide variety of formats - including XFrog - so you may have as many trees as you wish!! As far as rendering times are concerned, my (subjective) experience of TG is that it is no slower than Vue, and significantly faster than MojoWorld. Bernie

Agreed Bernie and I am nothing full of admiration for Matt...but, it is a fast moving world and I'm hoping because of the experience of DD, features that it lacks can be made up for with it's communication with other software (i.e. Maya, Max, Cinema 4D) I find render times fast also in TG, but it is yet to be seen how fast it will be once transparency maps, geometry etc is added to a scene. This is one area that impresses me in the 24hrs I have had Vue5i - since Vue4 I think render times have been improved quite a bit. Cheers

Attached Link: Terragen 2 Alpha image gallery.

As the author of the first image I can say yes, it is 100% Terragen. No post work. And thanks for the compliments. :) Clearly, if you look at the full gallery (see attached link), this is one of TG2's major strengths right now. You can also expect clouds and overall atmospherics to improve even further by the time TG2 is released. Once we can show object stuff you can judge for yourself how that stacks up to Vue. An instancing system like the Ecosystems will be included, but from my experience with the demo of Vue 5I I can say it will be tough to beat. I have confidence in Planetside and I think they will do a good job, but only time will tell if it is as powerful and versatile as the Ecosystems. The main concern at this point is that there is no announced release date. TG2 was originally due in 2005, around now, or perhaps a couple months ago. The last word on a new release date was "some time in 2006". Fortunately there will be a "public beta" later this year (2005), and you will probably all be able to try it out. So you can see for yourself what it has to offer. :) I think Vue is a great tool, but for me it has always been atmospherics that really set landscape programs apart. That's why I've stuck with Terragen for many years, even though it doesn't support objects and most of the other programs do. I've missed the ability to add things into my scenes, especially vegetation, but the beauty I feel I can get out of Terragen is still unmatched (for me) by any other program, vegetation or not. Of course the types of scenes I can do are very limited. ;) Anyway I think in the end it's very possible TG2 and Vue will be able to coexist well in a person's production pipeline. TG2 will clearly be good at atmospherics, and hopefully at vegetation and instancing (although they've already made it clear that no built-in procedural vegetation will be included). But Vue is very versatile in its object handling capabilities and with Fusion it will also have much closer integration with other 3D packages than Planetside has indicated will be the case with TG2. TG2 should have good import/export support, but as far as is known thus far it will not have advanced connection plugins like Fusion. So Vue's built-in vegetation and other object handling and integration may match up well with TG2's own strengths. We'll see... See the TG2 FAQ for more info if interested: http://planetside.co.uk/terragen/tgd/tg2faq.shtml Btw HDR output from TG2 looks really great. There is an incredible amount of range! More than you see in the typical HDR real-world photograph (light probe) I think. - Oshyan

Many months ago I e-mailed E-On and pointed out the incredible clouds created by Terragen2 - with several links that many have provided here. While Vue clouds are okay, you really can't compare them with Terragen2. They REALLY need to get on this - though I sincerely believe they ARE already on it. (They just have to be.) An update to Vue5I with real-looking clouds like T2 along with Vue Fusion (and your 3D app of choice) will be an unbeatable combination. Though E-On had beter hurry - T2 will have 3D object import and (it looks like) instances (similar to Eco-System) and it's supposed to be ready by the end of the year.

Megalodon

oh im quite confident that e.on will be improving on quite alot of segments in the next vue incarnation, in my opinion e.on started to move vue forward quite rapidly once v4pro was released so once t2 is released in 2006 i would guess that e.on will already have replied back :) so im confident that clouds will be one of the major improvements (i could be wrong of course) and i do hope well get to see the next solidgrowth engine aswell in v6I (lol yeah i know i would much rather see it happen in v5 aswell but realisticly i just dont see that happening) Anyway we see it, landscape and scenery 3d has a bright and interesting feature and im looking forward to both the next vue and terragen version.