Playing arround with Terragen

[Cheez]

http://www.cstretton.net/pics/render.jpg

Just experimenting with water depths. Not bad, needs work though.

[JeRkY]

a great little program

[Gunsmith]

nice proggy, shall have to see if i can get a hold of it

[Elbonio]

chris trying to be all cool


"oh yeah.. you know i just sorta knocked it up.... played around with a few settings..."

[Cheez]

You've clearly never used Terragen Elbonio. That's litterally all I've done. :)

[EuRo_KiLLeR]

Very nice, can almost see the babes on the beach :D

[Elbonio]

well i downloaded it and whilst it is all sliding things up and down to get something like that picture takes a little effort at least :p:

[Cheez]

After some more fiddling.

http://www.fluffl3.net/pics/floodland.jpg

This one has come out a little blue for some reason. :-/

http://www.fluffl3.net/pics/endofwinter.jpg

[Limi]

Ooo really like the first one out the two you just posted

[Cheez]

One last one, was wondering if I could do a night time shot.

http://www.fluffl3.net/pics/coldmoonlight.jpg

The borders are there because I'm sticking them on Deviant Art as well. :)

[Nibbler]

Very nice, if i do say so my self... Might have to look in to that program. Is it free for download?

[WhiteKnight]

Meh, ive always found terragen a bit on the "digital" side..

Ive seen much better and FAR more realistic image generated with other programs.

Bryce for one, World Contruction Kit for another..


Not that i`m saying those pics above dont look good, just nor very realistic.

Despite what a lot of people will say, photo quality pics are exactly what these programs are SUPPOSED to do.

[Guigsy]

Here are my efforts i did a while ago (http://www.guigsy.co.uk/art.html) And a few more i have just done lately.
http://www.guigsy.co.uk/art/needsaname.jpg
http://www.guigsy.co.uk/art/sunset.jpg
http://www.guigsy.co.uk/art/winterperninsula.jpg

[JeRkY]

its just so easy for absolutely any one to do some good looking stuff on terragen, it is such a good iccle program

[WhiteKnight]

I`m not saying that the results arent any good....

Most of the pics are really quite spectacular, as you say, considering the size of the app that produced them...

Its just that they are obviously not a real photo, or nowhere near photo-realistic..

However, some of the stuff created in other packages looks far superior imho.

Its irritating, but i just cant find any of the OMFG pics ive seen in the past, but here are some of the ones i found with a quite trawl on the WCS site.

Examples of good things:
http://3dnworld.com/users/28/images/AncientGreeceCoastline.jpg
http://www.3dnature.com/images/NearHome.jpg (a bit overkill with the fake flowers but the rest is ok)
http://3dnworld.com/users/32/images/approaching_gainspoit.jpg
http://3dnworld.com/users/24/images/GISWorld.jpg
http://3dnworld.com/users/34/images/ecoposter00.jpg
http://3dnworld.com/users/37/images/dedwardscloud3.jpg

Examples of average things:
http://3dnworld.com/users/28/images/ReefMindy.jpg
http://3dnworld.com/users/28/images/ReefCloseUp.jpg (obviously rendered, but pretty good none the less)

Examples of BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD things... :
http://www.3dnature.com/images/WToonIsle.jpg
http://3dnworld.com/users/39/images/AdirondackModern800.jpg
http://3dnworld.com/users/71/images/recreationtrailnearresidential.JPG

[Cheez]

Those are still quite obvious renders though.

Maybe because I KNOW they are renders my brain is psychologically making them look like it. I dunno.

[WhiteKnight]

I know they are, as i said, i cant find the REALLY good examples... shame...

[Mamacita]

they're not sposed to look real.. are they?

[Cheez]

IMHO No. But then I've yet to see any computer generated image that DOES look real.

[Elbonio]

they're getting there


there are a couple where i've really had to look hard



the main mistake that i think people make when they try to make things photorealistic is that they make the scene perfect. A perfect scene rarely exists and it just looks like fantasy.

Take a cityscape for example - people are generally portrayed walking along in nice posed positions - you never really see anyone mid-fall or picking their nose or whatever....

[Zenith]

www.digitalblasphemy.com

That guy has almost got photorealistic sorted out. Three examples that I like are "Glenwood", "Satori" and "Tropic of Cancer". While they are still noticably CGI, they are getting very close to blurring the line between being obviously CGI and a photograph.

[Elbonio]

"Tropical moon of Thetis" was my wallpaper for a long time a few months ago ;)

I wouldnt say theyre quite there yet... im sure ive seen better but, alas, i cant find them again :rolleyes:

[WhiteKnight]

Originally posted by Mamacita
they're not sposed to look real.. are they?

Then why do the companies that sell the software pimp them as "photo-realistic renderers" ??

To quote the terragen site;
"Terragen is a scenery generator, created with the goal of generating photorealistic landscape images and animations."

While they will almost always have a hint of the digital about them, there are some renders that i have seen that really do compare favorably to a photograph of a similar vista.

The problem i have with the images above is not that they arent photo-real, its that the software claims they should be, and they dont come close to it.

The images in their own right are pretty damn good, and do take a certian amount of skill to produce... but they still arent "photo real" in my book.

[Cheez]

Terragen's site says photo-realistic is a GOAL. It also says it's a work in progress.

I've also noticed the the Windows version is lacking in several features, noticably the live 3D preview. Yet it's supposed to be the maturer version? :confused:

[Elbonio]

i think its definately possible to get 100% photorealism as at the end of the day it's only pixels ont he screen - a digital photograph is one and the same

its just finding the skill and a program clever enough to learn how REAL photographs look with all of their minor inadequacies which, like everything else in the world, makes it real.

nothing is ever perfect, i think once this is truly integrated into these 3d images we'll start to see scenes that are virtually indistinguishable from real life scenes...

[Guigsy]

tried to get it a bit more realistic
still without textures tho because i dont have any. if i can remember how to do them that is
http://www.guigsy.co.uk/art/ridge.jpg