UNCLE REV's TERRAGEN HINTS

[Revenant]

I have thought that, while I cannot assure a continuous output in tutorials, I may be of some help, given my limited but quite big amount of Terragen knowledge, to all of those who need help in any way concerning Terragen Operations. I will from time to time take a topic which has been exposed in this forum and put out a few hints on the theme.
I hope this will be helpful!!! :)

Just two things: to keep this as a tutorial thread, I will use it just myself. For any questions, and discussion I'll open a second topic called "UNCLE REV's TERRAGEN HINTS (PUBLIC)" for anyone to leave comments or correct the things I say, which may be sometimes faaaar from perfect :)

[Revenant]

*SURFACING HINTS PT.1*

1) You must know the basics before following any tut, and they are quite easy. Given one "Base Layer" surface (the top of your list) you can add as many child surfaces and other nested surfaces to it, just as in a computer folder system. There are just two important rules: the FIRST rule is that terragen processes the surfaces from top (base surface) to down of the list, covering each surface with the following on the list (but just where they actually overlap); the SECOND rule is that if you have children surfaces their effect is applied only where their parent surface covers the ground, not elsewhere, so their coverage, slope and so are *limited* to where the parent surface actually covers. Siblings are actually *very* useful for they affect just a part of the surface (their parent!!!), and not other surfaces. There is a third rule which one comes to learn with use: sometimes very SMALL steps in slope or coverage can do GREAT differences, so you must go very gradually.

2) Begin with easy surfacing. Just a basic with a couple of children, with a child each, so that you can see the actual differences when you move the sliders. If you have problems seeing the differences in the preview (to see where the surface acts), just use a different working colour for it, if you can't see the effect of, say, a darker dirty snow on the white snow, just colour it RED, so that you'll actually see where it covers in the final render! :)

3) Remember that some lighting settings make almost impossible to distinguish between similar colours. Try changing the light settings to whiter and brighter light for a while, to see if there is actually a difference in the surface. (remember to save the settings before doing the changes so that you can return to where you left!!!)

This is one good surfacing tut I have already recommended
Surfacing tutorial at terranuts (http://terranuts.com/index.php?page=surface_mapping)

[Revenant]

*EXPOSURE/GAMMA HINT*

If you want to obtain warmer coloured, more contrasted and better looking renders try and set the Exposure/Light slider in the camera setting at 2 or even a bit more, and the Gamma Correction slider in Render Settings around 1.2 ; the effect depends a lot on the lights you have, but at least the image you'll get is more similar to the preview one, colour- and light-wise.

[Revenant]

*TERRAGEN STRANGE HABITS*
(taken from an answer I gave in another thread, a must read for the newcomers to the program, who may think that Terragen has the habit of freezing :D )

Let's put one thing clear: while you do one TG render you cannot do nothing more than a few simple tasks: reading mail, for example, I sometimes use Photoshop, but it becomes very slow (Athlon 2400, 512 mb and Geforce4 4200).
Anything that involves continuously opening and closing windows is really not a good idea, as Terragen is memory hungry, and it is a *NORMAL* thing that the computer stops responding for a while during the rendering process. Even more if there are complex light settings and lots of water on the screen.
The perfect thing for doing TG renders is totally forget about your computer for the time it needs to render that image.
At 1000x700 it is quite strange that the computer stops responding for more than a few seconds, but it may be, depends on the size of the slice it is rendering, that the computer looks like freezed for a minute or two, at times. During this period *don't* try to force the computer to respond. It is working normally, actually, even if the task manager (I am speaking Win98, here) would assure you that Terragen is not responding.
I have used resolutions up to 4000x3000, and I assure you that (given some images at these res may take *more than two whole days* to render!) the computer may stop responding and seems totally freezed for hours and more, at times. It is normal.
Sometimes it is an aggravating fact that the computer does not respond and that the image seems to be still (no more pieces added) for a long time: it depends on the part of it the cpu is working on, and its size. Sometimes, I don't know why, the program decides to render a very big chunk of it in one single pass, even the whole sky in a single pass, at times, and well, many minutes if not hours may pass before you see a difference in the image. Moreover, if you are working on another program, and decide to get back to render window to see how your image is sorting out, the computer will seem to freeze and render window may not appear or seem totally empty until the chunk has been rendered, and the cpu responds for a little while.
This brings to one single rule, with Terragen: have faith, it will start responding when it's finished!

Not normal it is, obviously, if the program exits unexpectedly, or does other strange things to the computer, but this may depend on the configuration, or some plugins (SOpack has some problems, for example).

[Revenant]

*COPYING ATMOSPHERE SETTINGS*

When importing/copying atmosphere settings from a tutorial or a kindly shared setting, terrain *does* count. Mostly the height, camera facing and MPS (meter point spacing), and that's why if you import (and also if you share) atmo settings from someone, be sure to copy the height and the facing of the camera, and to know the size and MPS (terrain size menu) of his/her terrain. If you go much higher/lower, atmo settings will often seem to be totally different. In bliss, and other special atmo effects, this counts even more, because the "effect" window is smaller, and small changes may bring to big differences and even in the lack of the effect.
Anyway, I'd like to invite you to experiment a lot with settings (but don't forget to save the original ones, so that you can reset your changes if not satisfied).

[Revenant]

*IMPORTING TERRAINS*

All those who do not have the registered version: don't be shy on downloading big terrains (1025x1025 and up), as you can load them and use them!!! The unreg version is limited (terrains-wise) just by the fact that it CANNOT GENERATE them bigger than 513x513!!!!

[Revenant]

* SAVING TERRAINS IN WORLD MACHINE *
by PPETERSEN (thanks Pat!)

To save a file as a .ter file which would be needed for Terragen, you need to do the following:

The output is the one you would do this to:

1. Highlight the file output
2. right click, click 'set properties'
3. check terragen format
4. In the box that now will allow you to labeled Filename, hit the set button,
making sure you put a different name then what is there. I usually put a
date, such as 1_26_06.terr
5. When the save as box opens hit save as which would be then put in your
examples folder in World Machine.
6. Hit ok when it has been saved and the box closes.
7. Now you build your terrain, by hitting the green button.
8. your new terrain will then show in the preview window of WM.
9. Hit the 'toggle terrain button' you are brought back to the window where
your new terrain is.
10. Final step hit the set properties button again, now hit the 'write output
to disk. It will say 'File Written'.....

Now go to Terragen, open your terrain by going to the WM folder, go to examples, open it and your new terrain should be there.