Terragen

[d_kendal]

yup, its pretty expensive, I'm really lucky that I found the version of it on that magazine CD I got. but Terragen is still great, especially for things like making skys if you need to put in a new one in a photo retouching / manipulation you're doing since you can get the angle exactly right in 3D.

- David

[DJ Dubovsky]

Like Tim_S, that's what I was most impressed with. I have had several occasions to replace the sky and needed a good sky generator. I have KTP 6 with Sky effects but I don't think they are as realistic as Terragen.
DJ

[DJ Dubovsky]

I've been playing around a bit more with adding surface covering such as snow and grass. In the Landscape window there is something called Add Child. I thought that meant to stick some little kid in the scene. Yes, I'm rather dumb. Turns out, that's how you modify your terrain to a more lush appearance. So here is the first one. I added greens to the equasion creating a mossy grass appearance on my rock formations.
DJ

[DJ Dubovsky]

It's really just the start of trying to get some surface texture. Anyway, here is a sunset with a light dusting of snow on the rocks.
DJ

[CJ Swartz]

DJ --

In the Landscape window there is something called Add Child.

What pretty children you created!

Very nice, realistic effects.

[DJ Dubovsky]

It's funny CJ but you start to feel God like creating these things. They're all my little children.
DJ

[d_kendal]

those are great DJ! I especially like the second one. it looks like a photo.

- David

[DJ Dubovsky]

Thanks David. This program does generate amazingly realistic scenes. I love new toys, especially the free kind.
DJ

[G. Couch]

Finally downloaded this program and had a chance to use it...very cool! The landscapes do not look as "canned" as some 3d programs. Here is my first doodle...I made a few minor levels and saturation adjustments in photoshop.

[DJ Dubovsky]

It is possible to get some better looking terrains but it's really kind of complicated stuff. Also I think what you saw was generated by using various plugins that are available for it. We tried a few plug ins to it and my son has been helping me figure it out. You did great with the snow cover Greg. You and David are definately better at this stuff than I am. I will use it mostly for generating certain skys for photo work though and maybe eventually I will understand the terrain part better.
DJ

[d_kendal]

that looks great greg! I like the snow, and the shadows worked really well.

- David

[d_kendal]

Up til now, Terragen was only for PC, but about a week ago, a beta version for Mac (OS 9.x and OS X) was put out, so now all of you who refuse to use anything besides Mac can use this neat little program.
I've been playing around with Terragen again, so here's some new results:

- David

[d_kendal]

I found a cool program called World Machine that can create very nice heightfeilds, which can then be imported into terragen. that's what I used for this one:

- David