OK so I spend an hour creating a proceedural terrain in the terrain editor, I get it just the wat I like it. Click OK and continue on. See something I want to change in the terrain so I open it back up in the editor and Low and Behold the terrain that appeares in the editor is nothing like the one in the viewport. Using Vue Infinite. What is wors if I click OK. Then the different Terrain now becomes the one in the viewport. This is really frustrating and I have to start all over again. What gives, Why is the terrain changing when it is subsequently opened up in the editor after creation. At best it is a remote facsimily of the actual proceedural terrain in the viewport. Also for some bizzare reason the Export terrain button is always grayed out in this mode.

Procedural terrains absolutely cannot be exported. Dunno why, it's just the way it is. As far as your terrain problems, I too have some difficulties understanding its problems. Sorry I can't help but some issues like this are being addressed in the forums over at eon. You might want to check them out. G&C

If the material on a procedural terrain is using object-parametric mapping mode (the default material) and then you resize the terrain by dragging the x,y, or z axis, it WILL change. Also, if later you decide to change materials and you select one with a different mapping mode, again, the terrain will change. To get away from this, always use world-standard mapping mode and if you see a message box asking you to add nodes because you are switching mapping modes, say no! Using world-standard mapping allows a procedural terrain to be resized without changing how the terrain looks. Peggy

Procedurals can never be shared between different programs because they are themselves unique programs.

That is, when you create a procedural material, procedural terrain or anything else procedural, you are causing Vue to write a little program describing that material, function, terrain, etc. - instead of using physical things, like images as textures or height maps and such. You could say that these are 'virtual' textures, virtual terrains, etc.

These little programs allow a lot of advanced features in your scenes that wouldn't be possible otherwise. But, every graphics application that creates procedurals does so differently - there are no industry standards being enforced here.

So, naturally a procedural written in one program cannot be understood by another program. The exception is when a big effort happens between the engineers of one company and another, in order to integrate two programs, such as the way Poser figure import was integrated into Vue.

Hope that clarifies things.

_ jc...'Art Head Start' e-book
.......'Art Head Start.com site Digital Art skills. Free lighting chapter, tutes, Vue models, tex pix.

OK all neat explainations. Except Right now I am only using Vue to create a terrain for export to Lightwave. After creating the terrain and clicking OK I then go to file export object and the terrain exports as a LWO object just fine. Just a different rout to the same end. The weird thing is. that I create the procedural terrain. Click OK. Select the terrain from the list and select edit. BAM the terrain is different in the editor. I do NOTHING except those three steps. No resize, no move no nothing. Just Create, Click OK, Reopen in editor. Suppose that I just have to be happy with the one shot at it deal. Never leave the editor until the terrain is exactly like I want it as it seems there is no going back after the OK Tab is clicked.

That's strange... What version are you using? 5.08 or 5.09? That should not happen, so I am wondering if something is corrupt. Might want to send a support ticket to e-on.

Just did a quick test in Vue 5i V 5.09-02, Build 280618.

New default scene, started Terrain Editor with a procedural terrain (enabled that "Generate fractal terrain" checkbox).

Made a quick mountain, leveled the top with altitude slider, dug a hole and hit OK to add it to scene.

Without moving or changing anything, i right clicked on it and it appeared back in the T. Editor correctly. Did 2 more cycles of same, modifying the terrain some more each time and all my terrain edits were preserved correctly next time i went back into the T. Editor.

So, it seems to be a problem local to your system and therefore you should certainly contact e-on support - maybe send them the scene as well.

My understanding about how procedural terrains are exported is that Vue tries to make an 'industry standard' (my wording, not e-on's) exportable terrain mesh that is as close as possible to the procedural one.

Of course these are not very good looking, since the whole idea of procedural terrains is that they can be a lot better looking than standard terrains. After all, if procedural terrains could be easily converted to equally good looking standard mesh terrains, wouldn't that mean they had few or no advantages?

HTH

_ jc...'Art Head Start' e-book
.......'Art Head Start.com site Digital Art skills. Free lighting chapter, tutes, Vue models, tex pix.