Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Basics of Terragen 2 - Part 6

Hello, everyone!  This will be the final part in the Terragen 2 tutorial series (then I'm back to making more Blender tutorials!  But I need tutorial requests :D), and this will cover both Water and Objects.

This is the final result of all of the tutorials combined (with higher detail settings and different render dimensions):


So let's get started!  Begin by first selecting the big Water button at the top, then adding a Lake water object.


Just about the only thing we need to change on our water is the water level, which we can adjust by changing the Water Level slider.


But how high do we put the water?  This can be answered by hovering your cursor over the 3D Preview (where you want your water to be, more specifically) and look at the number next to the letter 'y' on the small panel beneath the window; then type that number into the water level value.


That's it on the water!  That was short, wasn't it?  Yeah, that's why I've incorporated Objects into this final part, too.  So let's add some in!  If you look at the first part of this tutorial (that can be found here) I suggested you download the two additional plant packs at the bottom of the page; well, this is where I'll be using them.  Let's start by clicking on the Objects button up at the top in the toolbar.

If you click on Add Object you get 2 choices; whether you want to add an Object, or a Population.  An object is just one single object, whereas a population is a group of objects.  We're going to add a population, so hover over Population and choose tgo Reader.  Locate your plant that you want to include; in my case, I'll be using the Grand Fir tree from XFrog.

You'll notice that when you add the population, nothing show up.  This is because you need to define the center of the population by hovering over the spot you want it to be in in the 3D Preview, right clicking, and selecting Copy Coordinates.  Paste the coordinates in the Area Centre spot in the properties panel.


Now our population is set, but we may need to change a few of the other settings.  In the Distribution tab, you may want to adjust the Object Spacing.  This defines the amount of space between each object.  In the Object Scale tab, you might want to adjust the size of your objects.  I won't go over those, as they're fairly self explanatory.  Once you want to test out your settings, do a quick render to see how it looks.  Once you've finally settled upon something you're happy with, click the big Populate Now button at the bottom of the properties panel.


Now I'll give you a real treat; let's add a planet :D


A box should appear in your 3D Preview; click on it, then use the arrows (or 3D manipulator) to move it around.


There are other settings for the planets, but I'm not that familiar with most of them, and I'm happy with the defaults anyway.

That's it for the final part!  I hope you've enjoyed looking at this whole series, and if you have any questions, comments, or problems you've encountered, feel free to post them below or email me at ben.amend@gmail.com.  Thanks for reading!

1 comment:

  1. Nice tutorial to begin with.
    Have you ever tried to import blender objetcs into terragen2 ? (looks like it's feasible, probably without the ebility to animate them)

    If so, a tutorial for this would be nice !

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