[Maximus3D]

G'day friends and enemies

I just have to speak of this my newest little investment yesterday, a small but o so good program when you work with landscape programs like Terragen and Vue, this one is especially good in combination with Terragen.

It's a $40 program but capable of some incredibly realistic looking landscapes, i love it and it's quality. Here's a quick screenshot example (realtime view) i made of a highly eroded valley, and you can do so much more with this.



And the link to the website
http://www.world-machine.com/

/ Max

[Leonardo]

Looks great... show us more!

[mrcharles]

I can attest to the power and sheer fun of world machine. I'm one of the beta testers for the next pro version and it is a big leap forward.

Shown is a screen capture of World Machine followed by a landscape rendered in Maxwell...

[ivox3]

Mr. Charles / Max, ...... could you elaborate on the export and import in to Maxwell.

I grabbed the standard edition, ....but am a little confused w/the 'save options ..... ?

Are there more options with the paid version .....?

[sandykoufax]

wow, looks great1

[Leonardo]

couldn't you do those same terrains in terragen or vue already?

[oz42]

thought I'd throw this one into the mix as well...

http://www.guruware.at/main/index.html
(bottom of the page)

[mrcharles]

ivox3... Generating a useable mesh is one of the biggest problems... the beta version of World Machine has mesh output capability that is currently limited (non-optimized) but is in development to extend the capabilities. So... there are two methods that I use.
1: Save the built landscape as a .ter file (terragen)... open in TG2 and output a .lwo mesh. This works great except that my section of land is broken up into approx. 64 pieces, each 129,000+ polys, that need to be knit together and optimized.

2: Save the built landscape as a heightfield and use Lightwave to use the heightfield as a displacement map on a subdivided plane. This produces a large, single mesh that then needs to be optimized to reduce the poly count.

I'm no pro at terragen and so perhaps there a ways to generate meshes with more control than currently offered in TG2. A big stumbling block is texture mapping in Maxwell. When using physical sky + sun on a bump-mapped, textured landscape you run into problems with jagged shadows.

Leonardo... as mentioned, I'm no expert with Terragen... but based on the work I've done with both softwares... World Machine offers much more in the way of local control of landform shapes and erosion (this is especially true with the version of WMachine that is is development).

[Maximus3D]

Leo: Thanks and yeap it's a great lil software ..another test landscape for ya posted below.

MrCharles: Very cool, and what great looking landscapes you made so you're a betatester of the new Pro version. I'd love to try it out too. It's nice to see there are more fractal landscapers here keep posting more of your creations please.

Chris: You have to ask mrcharles about that, i haven't yet got a chance to try to export my landscapes yet, but soon..

Koufax: Yep sure does look good

Leo: You kinda can, but usually erosion and stuff like that don't look as good in any other app i've seen. Even in Terragen it don't look this natural and you have to twiddle your thumbs alot to get it even close. This tool just saves you a bundle of time and work.

Oz: Nice find! thanks man i have to look into that more, looks interesting and useful.

Here's another quick test i made today of a snowcovered mountain.



/ Max

[glebe digital]

Jeez, that last image is bang on the money.

[ivox3]

....brrrrrrr.

Nice one Max.

thanks Mr. C ..... ....good info.

[DrMerman]

Whoa That last image is amazing. Time to do some research methinks....

[lebbeus]

is this just fractal creations or can you import DEM files (or something else?) from real-world locales?

[sandykoufax]

Wow, Max. Did you rendered it with maxwell?

Really nice!!

Hey Oz, thanks for the info.

[Maximus3D]

Glebe: Thanks man it's nice isn't it.

Ivox: Hehe, if it makes you freeze then cover your eyes! thanks

Doc: Thanks!

lebbeus: These are all fractal generated terrains, non of them are based upon DEM data. Which is what makes it so damn good working with DEM data is a mess and i'm tired of it. I find this to be much more fun and creative, i mean you can achieve pretty much whatever type of landscape look and feel you want.

Koufax: Thanks nahh this is a screenshot from World Machine's realtime preview: I haven't yet attempted to export and render my landscapes for Maxwell rendering but soon.. when i do then i'll post some. Meanwhile maybe mrcharles could create and post some more, he successfully rendered his landscape(s) with Maxwell.

/ Max