Terragen

Terragen is a Gratuiciel (although a paying version exists) Générateur of landscape functioning on the operating systems Windows and Mac OS. It can be used to create images and animations of landscapes, starting from more or less many data. Its name is a Mot-valise English: terra generator .

Catch in hand

With launching, nothing simpler: a window, comprising it even several removable/maskable boxes at will. These boxes correspond to management of the clouds, the sky, the sun, the ground and with the outline.

This software one of those is preferred by the artists amateurs, which comes initially owing to the fact that it is a freeware, but also from its very intuitive interface, and especially from the possibilities of creations photorealists of the landscapes. All these functions are controlled easily as soon as the software was handled several times.

Characteristics

Terragen thus allows the modeling of grounds, but this simplistic management allows neither a very fine parameter setting of the unevennesses, nor to generate a complex landscape (with vegetation for example). This is why Plugin S are given the responsability to fill some of these functions, for example to replace or supplement the procedural textures by images employed like mappées textures.

In the same way, of the external software are used to mitigate certain lacks of Terragen, as World Machine which makes it possible for example to create grounds thanks to a system of filters (erosion, layers, canyons…) and with a random generation, which is largely appreciable for the informed users.

A commercial release of this software is it as available, and makes it possible to create images of Résolution more important as in the version freeware (which has a limitation of returned to 1280 X 960 Pixel S). An image created with Terragen was published as a cover for magazine Newsweek (the April 16th 2001), and the Logiciel allowed the creation of Animation S in the Clip " What Butt Custom? " of Brandy Norwood.

The software is slow, because it uses the Raytracing. However, the recent versions integrate a previsualisation in OpenGL, which makes it possible to choose well the site and the orientation of the camera.

Professional use

Terragen was also used for the landscapes of background in some video games. Serious Sam (Quake-like), is an good example, or last the AWG. The software was also used for certain films, like Pearl Harbor II

To come

The new version, Terragen 2 will make it possible to benefit from even more functionalities (addition of vegetation and stones…) what should make it possible to place the software on a level similar to that of Vue Spirit or Bryce 3D.

A first version alpha, called Technology Preview, is available since December 15th, 2006 for Windows and MAC OS: http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tg2/tg2tp/ It integrates the " nouveautés" such as the calculation of “ambient occlusion” and the “total illumination”. This version will be slower, because calculations will be more complex, including external objects 3D. The Multiprocessus will be taken into account.

External bonds

Official site of Terragen
official Forum of Terragen

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