I’m actually playing with terragen 2, its free to download and the screenshoots are amazing, the rendering is very slow, but worse, its extremely difficult to handle…
Do you guys know a very good but not too complicate environment program?
prolly wanna look at Vue too
I’ve heard it’s pretty easy and can integrate with other 3d renderers
(like 3dsmax in your case).
I agree that T2 is too slow to be of much use at present. Most of these apps require quite a bit of time to get decent results.
You might want to try WorldBuilder - it’s often overlooked, but it’s fairly intuitive and can produce good results.
http://www.digi-element.com/wb/index.htm
I’m guessing you know of these:
MojoWorld: Website down.
Vue: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/
what about good old Bryce
Is not free but very cheap and able to do really amazing things when properly used.
Personally I am using Vue though.
Vue 6 would be the way to go for anything photoreal Seb. BUT your still looking at some horrendous render times for good looking renders. it is easy to pick up without too much trouble. (I personaly use it as a way of relaxing from CG after a bad week…yeah I know ironic lol.)
If its just stuff for stills maybe take a look at using a matte painting instead. (LOL it’d probably end up being far quicker to do than waiting half your life for Vue to render something out. )
Wayne…
Just released the new version and on sale from:
Terrain, tree and plant generator, atmosphere/sky, volumetric clouds, auto scaling (new), and wizard/preset systems to simplify creation, and a pretty decent renderer with up to five satellite render nodes built in, if you buy the pro version.
ABC
Thx for the advises!
Bryce 5.5 is still freely available at download.com - http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?tg=dl-20&qt=bryce&tag=srch from a promotion that Daz did last year. Having a licensed version of 5.5 also gives you a cheaper upgrade price if you decide you like it.
I’ve downloaded vue 6 for free on there website. It seems to be an adanced version of bryce…
Impressive rendering and material…
Wait till you get under the hood and past the big stuff. There’s a lot of really useful and impresive things in Vue. I have a feeling you may like it. Best of luck with it.
Wayne…
Hi Seb,
I find Vue was very similar to Bryce some years ago but in my opinion they don’t play in the same category anymore. Vue is far more superior now (and as Bryce was my very first 3D software yeaaaars ago, I’m a bit sad to say that). I don’t know if you have access to features like the Ecosystems, the plant editor or the function editor in the PLE version. If yes, just give them a try !
Yeah Pilou, they do such cool stuffs now in Sim city…
but I would like to do photoreal stuffs.
I would like to do environments cubemaps for a video game…
Schbeurd, I’ve played a bit with with the ecosystem, thats great… you can populate an environment very easily…
What is the function editor?
The only thing is I need is a lot of practice to handle it and get the mountains I want…
Seb,
With Ecosystems, you can even use external 3D objects to populate your scenes…
The function editor is the place where you can access the most elaborate features of Vue when editing a material. Almost every parameter of a material can be driven by a function. (a simple example being the repartition of color on an object).
For example, if you edit a material and select its color you’ll see something like this :
Functions can then be modulated by a filter.
It’s an extremely powerful tool but if you’re looking for an easy to use solution this is certainly not the first place to check in Vue ! :lol:
BTW, I forgot to mention that one of the coolest feature since release 6 (and now 6.5) are the spectral atmospheres… You can create extremely realistic skies !
If you want to export your environments, you can do this in two different ways :
You can export your skies (there are options like spherical or cubic maps) in different formats including HDRI.
You can also export a render of your entire scene in full panoramic format (also including HDRI). I use such spherical environments from Vue to create lights in Modo scenes…
Funny to see 3 french speaking guys discussing this topic in english, hehe ! 
Oh, normally there’s a manual in French available for download (doesn’t cover all the features of the Infinite version but it’s already very complete).
Attachments
HAHAHA right! 3 french speaking english…
Imagine if we were in real life lol
Thx pilou for the link!
I start to have a hand on the program. i think its the tool I was looking for…
Damn is so cool to be able to export scenes in HDR…
I start to play a bit with the terrains creation system… Thats interesting…
Gonna give a look at the functions, looks a bit complicate, but might worth a look, if you can modify your shaders, like an hypergraph in maya…
I’m still amazed by the renders possibility (sss, custics) and how asy it is…
Vue is awesome! Iam using Vue5 Infinite but will eventually update to Vue 6. Some shots from the Pirates of the Caribbian used Vue5 Infinite software along with Zbrush.