Is it Real, or is it Terragen?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-07-22 06:54pm

Been playing around again with Terragen which is a program for rendering landscape scenes. You can even take USGS topo maps and convert them into nice pictures.

Random water scene

Mt. McKinley in Alaska

NE shore of Kuai

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2004-07-22 07:10pm

Are you using the registered version?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-07-22 07:39pm

Nope, just the standard freeware version. I'll probably upgrade to the registered version once I get my new computer.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2004-07-22 07:43pm

I'm assuming the Mckinley pic is done by terragen?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-07-22 07:57pm

Water and clouds on Mars, because I can.

AnimeJet · Post by **AnimeJet** » 2004-07-22 08:32pm

They all look generated. Something just doesn't sit right in my head when it's terragen.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-07-22 08:48pm

AnimeJet wrote:They all look generated. Something just doesn't sit right in my head when it's terragen.

The problem I'm having is terrain textures, I'm just using the defaults and haven't got them figured out yet. Given more practice you can get more realistic scenes like this one

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-07-22 10:57pm

They all look computer generated, but to be fair, I've been playing around with Terragen for a while so I have a good idea what they should look like. (I don't really aim for perfect realism as much as cool looking, possibly SF-ish scenes.)

Still look nice, though.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-07-22 11:02pm

aerius wrote:
AnimeJet wrote:They all look generated. Something just doesn't sit right in my head when it's terragen.
The problem I'm having is terrain textures, I'm just using the defaults and haven't got them figured out yet. Given more practice you can get more realistic scenes like this one

TBH, even that looks generated to me. Something about the way the grass sits on the side of the cliffs. -shrugs-

It's still damn good, though, aerius. Keep it up!

[EDIT] "It's" being your pics as a whole.

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-07-22 11:36pm

A good give away is the water and grainy look on the terrain, can almost tell its just a bump map and not true geometry the way it has the plastic feel to it from the light. Has that cyran wrap type lighting.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-07-22 11:52pm

Any practical applications?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-07-22 11:59pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Any practical applications?

Fake vacation pictures. Make a custom scene of say Hawaii and then Photoshop yourself into the picture.

But seriously, a more advanced version of the technology is used to generate the terrain in some sci-fi shows & movies, as well as to do fly-by animations and those cool martian rover scenes.

AnimeJet · Post by **AnimeJet** » 2004-07-23 12:21am

verilon wrote:
aerius wrote:
AnimeJet wrote:They all look generated. Something just doesn't sit right in my head when it's terragen.
The problem I'm having is terrain textures, I'm just using the defaults and haven't got them figured out yet. Given more practice you can get more realistic scenes like this one
TBH, even that looks generated to me. Something about the way the grass sits on the side of the cliffs. -shrugs-

It's the lighting that gives it away. Everything just looks kinda plasticy to me. The Kuai pic looks almost real, mostly because of the fog that covers most of the lighting effects. But then the sky doesn't mesh and it just looks awkward.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-07-23 12:25am

AnimeJet wrote:It's the lighting that gives it away. Everything just looks kinda plasticy to me. The Kuai pic looks almost real, mostly because of the fog that covers most of the lighting effects. But then the sky doesn't mesh and it just looks awkward.

Yeah. On the ones with water, Terragen almost always seems to give it a cellophane look. On rocky stuff, it's either too smooth or too flat. But that's just my perception.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-07-23 01:08am

Honestly.. Terragen isn't that great. It all looks clearly fake.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-07-23 02:51am

What *does* work pretty well sometimes is Bryce. But that thing is EVIL to try and use.