I have all sorts or building and ruins props but have never worked out a good terrain prop to set them on... any advise for a free or affordable setting for large scale props like building? I just can't fit them even with multiple cyclorama props and such so I am looking for a realistic large scale terrain. I bought RDNA MacroCosm but I can't get a good setting from it.

It's a good question.  I'm finally finished (more or less) with my
paid courseware revision, so I'm free again to play with Poser.

I've been thinking about terrains and working on a "road-builder"
script that forms its own terrains.

What features would you like to see in a terrain-maker? 

You can get Bryce 5.5 for free these days, So I would try that first.. it's pretty easy to learn enough to create realistic terrain objects that can be exported as Wavefront Objects then imported into poser as props.

Thanks for the advise re. Bryce... I have never worked out how to use anything other than Poser though... I'm a dumb old fashioned oil painter.

Gosh, ockham... I don't really know... I am okay with a deformed ground plane for a grassy hill or sand beach but my problem is where to set the DAZ temples I have like Temple Ruins http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/temple-ruins?item=1812&_m=d or a city building  like the tenement http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=44248& or a sci-fi ruin like http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/urban-ruins?item=3483&_m=d. I end up using them pinup style against an empty white background. The best overall panarama I have is the ground and sky for the Celest Diner at http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=52977& and I like the Nike Japanese gardens http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=54613& since they have "cheaters" that hide the deep perspective... I feel like all sets should have those.

I need a big open area to sit a building on that looks okay textures and then a reasonable looking 180 degree horizon and sky... the props I have are too small or most of my greek ruin props so I have to angle the camera up so only sky shows. I have bought some cool buildings such as the Tenement here in the RMP but again I have to hide the fact I have no setting to place it in. I even have to do my interiors with shades or a brick wall across the way since I have not been able to get the angles and perspective right for the sceens outside the window.

People sell all these cool greek ruins but what background prop can scale properly to accomodate them? My favorite settings are the Woodland Playsets at DAZ since they give the coherent panarama I want but they just can't be scaled up enough to accomodate a building. I even bought a cool scene called Forest Mysteria 2 because the promo showed a complete scene but in fact the xcelent scene stops at the wall and I have not been able to scale a  backdrop to place beyond that... see http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=216&

So anyway, I don't actually know what I need... a nice high resolution foreground terrain large enough to accomodate a building with a 180 panarama to cheat the perspective from a veriety of angles so I can move my cameras around the foreground elements naturally... as it is everything has to be set on a hill to hide the lack of horrizon... even the Great Room I have from the DAZ  Dream Home http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/dream-home-great?item=4825&spmeta=rq&_m=d I had to install vertical blinds in since I could not get cycloramas to cover the views out the window and the panarama the sell for it is a d/s only product.

The scenes I would want is post-apocolyptic wasteland, generic warehouse district, and suburban neighborhood, and maybe an urban exterior though that would not need a ground plane since it would be a view from an upper story window.

Thanks for a very informative answer.  I suspect only part of those
requirements can be done by the terrain itself, but I've copied down
the text and will keep thinking about it!

I advise RDNA Microcosm, in conjunction with the free RDNA Skydome.
Actually, a basic version of RDNA Microcosm/Macrocosm comes with Poser 7. The full product is far more versatile, and I dare say, it's ridiculously cheap.

Macrocosm is a LARGE morphable ground plane - think in the order of 100 yards diameter. Comes in a square and circular variant.
You can use muitlple Macrocosm figures in a scene, applying different morphs and scales to them; as long as you use the same UV variant (that's what the numbers are for and, the same ground material (set to global coordinates)you won't see the seams.

I've done a lot of outdoor scenes (see my gallery warning-nudity) and in each and every one of them I've used one or more Macrocosm ground figures.

There's a good terrain and environment sphere in my Celeste's Diner (click my banner below).  I'm also getting some rural town and road terrains ready for the the market soon.  What sort of surfaces are you looking for?

What I am wanting is some sort of a clearing in the woods to place a temple ruin in... some sort of big featureless landscape for post-apocolyptic scenes... some sort of warehouse lot I could put an old run down building in...

Of less general use I have always wanted a hobo camp or place down by the rail road tracks or woods where teenagers hang out for "keggers" which are out door beer parties. I have much nostalgia for the days hanging out on an old junked couch by the tracks grilling hotdogs and drinking diet coke in the middle of the week :) I lived in Anchorage, Alaska and we would go hang out by the Inlet or in Earth Quake Park where a piece of the city had slid into the water... we would "four wheel it" hanging onto the outside of a pickup past the ruins of kitchens or bathrooms jutting out of the over growth. Dangerous but we were stupid. Two girls I knew well were shot by a crazy guy who was ransacker their boyfriends camp site and killed the four of them when they dropped by to pick something up... but then we would have happy pickniks on the flat bed of pickups on the roof section of the downtown high rise parking lots... it was such a strange blend of rural and urban there. A fair sized town but then fifteen twenty minutes out the mountains with snow even in the summer. A river we would innertube meandering right through town into the inlet... moose wandering down the train tracks right into a downtown school yard... etc etc. Tiny old shacks wedged between shiny oil company office towers downtown, subburbs consisting of residential units converted from motels of the pipeline days... quite a place.

Quote - I have all sorts or building and ruins props but have never worked out a good terrain prop to set them on... any advise for a free or affordable setting for large scale props like building? I just can't fit them even with multiple cyclorama props and such so I am looking for a realistic large scale terrain. I bought RDNA MacroCosm but I can't get a good setting from it.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, exactly.  One thing you might be able to use is Terragen.  It's free for personal/non-commercial use and you could use it to generate foreground/background textures.  http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

With the right textures, you could use this freebie to make a decent groundplane for large scales.  http://www.sharecg.com/v/26480/Poser/Luna-Fayes-Morphing-Planes

IIRC, there's also http://www.sharecg.com/v/26572/Poser/LF-Morphing-Walls  Which you might be able to use to create a nice, semicircular backplane.  IIRC, the back wall is very large and morphable so you can curve it to whatever angle you wish.  Increase the y-axis, give it a higher-resolution map and you're in business.

There's some other freebie "morphing terrains" around as well.  I have a couple, I think.  I just don't remember the names atm.

The most important thing for your purposes is that they aren't all simply "hills" and have enough room for a building.  BUT, there's no rule that says you can't use more than one.  What about using two?  Use a simple, hi-res flat plane with a texture on it that is close enough to the morphed plane and then position them so they look contiguous.  A bit of fooling around with the lighting, turning off any shadows on the flat plane and you would probably be fine with the edges seeming to blend in decently.  If you needed to cover them up, a few simple flat planes with 2-d pictures of scrub, bushes and such could be placed just in front of them relative to the camera.

Thanks :)