Comparing landscape products
Subtropic Pixel
Posts: 2,388
I'm looking at Vue and Terragen, and would like to also learn what Blender can do. I always thought I'd end up buying Vue, but now I'm thinking that I don't like Vue's expensive price tag, expensive addons, and reliance on expensive subscriptions.
Finally, the fact that Eon got bought out by Bentley Systems a year or two ago and that it seems that they're having lots of trouble coming out with new versions in a timely manner, well I don't want to buy another product that is looking like it will go the way of Truespace.
Thoughts? I'm open to other solutions that are 64 bit, don't make me squint, and can take advantage of CUDA rendering.
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What is your ultimate goal, to render landscapes? To have landscapes to add scenes to? One click solutions, or modeling capabilities to create your own?
Those are great questions.
Yes, to render landscapes, intended to hold DAZ characters. No animation as yet, but animation should be available.
There should be some tools to help speed up various processes, but I don't need it to be fully automated to the point where it makes me coffee in the morning.
the reason I ask is that you need to consider how you are going to get your scenes into the scenery. Of the ones mentioned, blender will be the hardest as it's a modeling app and you will need to know various mesh formats and other modeling tidbits of info to cobble a full scene together and ready to render. Vue would probably be the easier since it works well with poser and as such you can import poser scenes directly into their landscapes. You might try carrara, it has a ton of landscape presets with the ability to edit them, great lighting and the ability to use most DAZ assets directly
Carrara makes me squint and that gives me headaches. Until the UI is updated, I don't think I can use it.
Don't forget Infinito for DS. It's in the Store here.
Kendall
Terragen's awesome. Used it on a number of projects, and the online community's really helpful, including the dev team. Their latest previews of clouds and atmospherics kick butt. There are also ways of exporting your terrains as meshes, but as proper polys with detail on the sides and not just as heightfields.
Do not forget of recently released UltraScatter http://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatter-advanced-instancing-for-daz-studio
It is almost like having Vue EcoSystems directly in Daz Studio. The thread about it is here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/101156/ultrascatter-advanced-instancing-for-daz-studio-commercial#latest
I am also a long time user of Vue Complete, but would like to take advantage of Iray rendering and Genesis 3 figures,
so I have found Daz Studio, the best solution, for what I need.
With UltraScatter the features of Vue program are at least partially available in Daz Studio.
The other option is a Unity 3D game engine, which surprisingly is very well equipped with the tools to create different kind of terrains
(either native tools or the add ons available in their asset store). Then you can export the terrain and the other assets
from Unity as a Collada file and easily import to the Daz Studio, if desired.
Even Daz 3D acknowledged the existence of Unity store and have their products released by Morph3D there.
Morph3D is the part of Daz3D company, designing products for the game development.
Blender would be the most complicated to use for this type of design work but it would have functionality not inherent with landscaping software. Tera and Vue are optimized for this type of work, Blender is more of a jack of all trades and getting to the final result would likely involve more steps than a dedicated solution.
Thank you all for your input. No decisions yet, especially now since you've provided so many new (to me) alternatives.
Just a quick note on this... if this is the only thing keeping you from seriously looking at Carrara, then you may not be aware that in the most recent release version of Carrara you can not only change the type face to any of the ones installed on your system, but you can also scale the size using a setting in Preferences called Font Boost.
Click the below image to see the full sized example. This is the default font, I just set the Font Boost to 2, 3 and 4 and took screenshots:
Honestly the best and most flexible system will be be with Gaia but I haven't yet tried to export to DAZ Studio and apply Gaia created textures in DAZ Studio. You will be able to customize to your heart's content in Gaia at $39.99
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/42618
You will need Unity Free.
https://store.unity.com/download?ref=personal
To export the Unity terrain as an object you can import into DAZ Studio visit this link and use the C# script for Unity.
http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=TerrainObjExporter
One you have Gaia you will be able to use raw heighmaps the world over pretty easily supplied by the USA government and various world cartography organizations one of the biggest releases which was also the Russian government.
To make those height maps more suitable for use by Gaia and Unity use this excellent free program (well technically it is alpha-beta):
http://www.lilchips.com/hmesbeta.htm
I'm not the owner or programmer for any of those SW products I've mentioned but I do own usage licenses where applicable.
There is a pretty comprehensive comparison of Terragen 3 and Vue 11 (released in 2012) by Geekatplay on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkbcJ7fjIcw&spfreload=1) There have been some great enhancements to Vue, which is now a Version 2015. Faster rendering, better stability, and better DEM support (especially with the "Artist" product line) come to mind (but I'm not a big Vue user).
If your into a node based workflow, then you may really like Terragen. But Vue is much easier for someone who isn't a dedicated landscape artist.
However, Carrara still has the best integration of DAZ 3D products and Genesis. Depending on your needs, Carrara may be your best option. The fontboost noted by MDO2010 is a HUGE plus for me, I use a 17" laptop with a 1080p display - saves me a lot of squinting and eye strain!!
I started with TerraGen, experimented with Blender, have Carrara (from v3 up to 8.1) and Studio since v.0.8 or so, but stayed with Bryce. Not 64-bit, no CUDA rendering but network rendering, easy to use, fast, Studio integration, great lighting options and very versatile, "Make Art" button missing, though. Of course, the best program is the one you know how to make it do what you want. There's always a learning curve, no matter what program you are finally using.
A quick experiment with the terrain made and UV mapped in Blender, exported as .obj file and imported to Daz Studio.
Then rendered in Iray. Alien Rock Shaders were applied to terrain http://www.daz3d.com/alien-rock-shaders-for-daz-studio
and the bunch of raccoons http://www.daz3d.com/raccoon-by-am were placed on terrain, by using UltraScatter
http://www.daz3d.com/ultrascatter-advanced-instancing-for-daz-studio
Also used Gianni 7 dressed in http://www.daz3d.com/hfs-interstellar-officer-for-genesis-3-male-s
i would assume Vue will have a sale soon..as 2016 is due for a release. The pricing is pretty similar to Terragen, even at full price.... so on sale would be a nice buy.
I will point out that Mcasual's Elevate free script can also do a great job.
Make a plane with a high mesh density, grab a heightmap (random or from USGS or wherever), apply script. Either use as is or, once you set the elvation morph how you want, export as obj.
The biggest thing lacking in Daz Studio are good elevation shaders, at least in Iray; this is one area where 3DL might be more helpful (I don't know of a specific elevation thing, but it seems doable)
Most terrain generators will allow you to render an HDRI with a sphereical camera. You could then use the HDRI in DAZ to render the figures with the landscape in the background and shadow catchers placed where needed. This way you get the procedural shaders, clouds, mist, sky from the terrain tools which is a lot easier in my opinion than trying to get those setup in DAZ or characters exported into a terrain tool.
One question remains;
What are all these raccoons doing in the desert?
This inspired me to test out making a terrain. Just used a random cloud map, then multiplied it with a radial blur (to get a mountain), placed on a high density plane via Mcasual's Elevate script.
It lacks some of the ridgy features I'd normally want that comes from erosion modeling and whatnot, of course. I also think, in future, it might behoove me to model a simple shape first and then do it, so that the bumps project more outward rather than simply up.
Still, with some iray decals to make height bands and ultrascatter to populate it... nice!
They do live in some of the deserts but apparentl skip most of the Sonoran, Mojave, and Great Basic Deserts. They are also wild now in parts of Europe after escaping as pets.
Another example of the terrain generated in Blender, exported from it, put to Daz Studio and rendered with Iray.
Ultra Scatter was used to place a couple of Drone Troopers on the terrain.
This would be my suggestion as well, and I was also going to mention taking a look at Bryce. Os see this thread. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/108916/terradome3-doesn-t-seem-like-such-a-rumor-anymore-look-what-i-found-in-the-gallery#latest
As mentioned in this thread:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/108916/terradome3-doesn-t-seem-like-such-a-rumor-anymore-look-what-i-found-in-the-gallery
Terradome 3 for DS will soon be with us, so that makes staying with DS for landscapes somewhat easier.
That looks like coal heaps from strip mines in this area.
And now I feel dumb because, hey, I have bryce, which has lots of terrain generation.
That's waaaay easier.
Another example. Terrain made in Vue 2014 Complete, exported as .obj with maps 2048x2048, put in Daz Studio
and rendered in Iray. Esha's grass patches and puppies was placed on terrain by using Ultra Scatter.
Also added Kalea 7 for size comparison.
You can also use Carrara for this.
If you look at Hemlock Folly by @TangoAlpha - I believe he originally made that in Carrara and then converted it to DAZ Studio. I am not sure what his process was but you can both export terrains as objects and export the heightmaps from Carrara.
I've done this before and it works well, especially if you use Inagoni's Baker plugin to bake higher res maps from the terrain procedural textures before you export. Also works really well with tiling textures from Filterforge - I'm on my way out the door to work but I can post an example or two when I get home.
I played around with Bryce exported textures and was somewhat... left cold. Going to play with Carrara and see how well it works for this.
The meshes from Bryce ended up looking a bit jagged, but the heightmap export, with a little tweaking, made for nice basis for elevate morph.