Any good software for terrain & landscaping generation?

[vertexART]

Hi guys,

do U know any good software for terrain, landscape, trees, kind of all in one type of program?

Is Vue 5 Infinite any good? I think it's the latest, could use some info on it..

I will have some terrain demanding projects in near future, so I am looking for the best and easiest way to do it.

I am using Max,

thanks

[arqjuan]

Hi.

 

Terragen is a good software, but I dunno if it make trees

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

[Devin Johnston]

I've never seen one that dose all 3.

[vertexART]

Hey arqjuan, thanks for the fast response and the link. I'll try terragen cause it's free, but it seems a bit like 3D clipart...

 

Hey Maxer, I just thought if Vue 5 is worth a buy/try..

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Gallery/Gallery.php?Index=3

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Gallery/Gallery.php?Index=15

 

it seems to do it all... will see.

thanks guys

[IC]

Vue 5 is terrific by all accounts but I've only tried the demo so I don't know how well it integrates.

 

Terragen doesn't do vegetation and it's only free for non commercial use.

[lambros]

Both Vue and Terragen are top of the line software. Terragen has been used in film productions I think, and version 2 will be released some time soon. I think that it is free for non-commercial use, you will have to do a registration for commercial use.

Vue on the other hand is terrific, and the latest version holds many eye candy tools. E-on software will be releasing plug ins that will upgrade the workflow between major 3d applications. Vue Infinite may be expensive compared to Terragen, but it is well woth the money. I would strongly reccomend it for production work.

[vertexART]

Hmm, yes I've seen that demo has both exporting and saving disabled, so I'll trust U all and have a go on the full version.

Vue on the other hand is terrific, and the latest version holds many eye candy tools

can U tell me does it cooperate with Max, maybe? through .3ds or any other format... What are the formats Vue can export? thanks

 

Thank U all for your inputs, I appreciate it.

[lambros]

I will copy from e-on site:

Vue infinite features:

multi-pass rendering: g-buffer, specular reflections, normals, etc

multi-layer psd export

"Vue 5 Infinite comes with a set of synchronization plugins to ensure perfect matching of camera motion, focal length, as well as lights.

Use you favorite program to create and render, say, a character animation. Next, create a perfectly synchronized background animation in Vue.

Finally, composite the two sequences using Vue 5 Infinite’s G-Buffer or multi-pass rendering!

Vue 5 Infinite synchronises with the following 3D applications:

 

* Alias Maya 5 and later

* Discreet 3DS Max 6 and later

* Maxon Cinema 4D R8 and later

* NewTek LightWave 8 and later

* Softimage XSI 4.2 and later "

 

 

Also, exports meshes in 3ds, obj, lwo, c4d,dxf...

Skies can be exported as skydomes or skycubes. Skies can include illumination data in HDR. Basic objectanimations can be exported as 3ds or lws.

 

Imports 3ds,dem,dxf,lwo,obj among others.

Quite impressive!

 

 

I have used Vue to import meshes (3ds) from viz and add vegetation and render. It worked well, but i have not used Vue infinite and its synchronization features.

With Vue infinite you can export vegetation to render in max etc.

Infinite is at $599 , which is quite a bit, but if you can afford it it is a good choice. In my opinion, much much better than Bryce etc. Only Terragen can do good enough landscapes , apart from vegetation.

[vertexART]

Thanks lambros, my fault I haven't checked the site more deeply, it does sound impressive. But the price is too

 

One more Q: Since it can create complex scenes and meshes, can their complexity be tuned, maybe? Like, I don't need a zillion polys on the horizon, so I can choose low, med, high presets and such...

I guess it's possible, but I never had earlier versions, so I wouldn't know.

thanks again

[lambros]

exporting meshes in 3ds presents you with an option to adjust number of polygons, as well as the resolution of the texture, so I guess that point is covered.

I bought tree horizons jpgs with alphas to cover that matter though

In such cases it is best either to render landscape and trees in vue and composite later using g buffers, or use the new synchronization plug ins (I hope that somebody has used them and will give us some info on that).

If you really need many many trees, you will have to use Vue's ecosystem material ability, or try RPCs (or any other billboard solution).

[vertexART]

In such cases it is best either to render landscape and trees in vue and composite later using g buffers

 

I guess that would be my option, sounds good.

I've seen the ecosystem capabilities on the site, looks amazing really. Still browsing... looks like they covered a lot of things, it sure is a teaser

 

thanks again

[Sawyer]

Now I have been looking for a sim solution for site plans. I have Vue 4 and I really like playing with it the file linking was really poor and I dl the Vue 5 demo but it seemed like the only way to import civil info to make meshes is from DEM's. Otherwise you are just importing a cad mesh or a 3ds mesh that looses the great terrain tools that Vue offers. I guess you can do many of the same things I just don't know enough about it. My impression was that it could create really awsome scenes but not accurate scenes not engineered scenes. Or at least not that I could see.

[bjornkn]

Vue 5 Infinite is great. It's quite amazing when you have a scene in front of you with 800,000 full 3D trees and 8 billion faces, and it still renders in a few minutes

Vue is at the moment part of a deal for pre-ordering Lightwave 9 (that's how I got it), and there is quite a lot of discussions about it in LW forums around, like CGTalk, SpinQuad etc.

What the synching for LW does is just synching the camera (and lights?) from LW to Vue, making it easier to composite scenes. Vue also has a lot of render options, like G-Buffer, which I've not tried yet.

For landscaping it works fine importing TINs. Vue contains poly-reduction tools, but no smoothing/subdividing of meshes AFAIK, so imported terrains should be smoothed beforehand.

I've been doing some simple experiments with SketchUp terrains, where I apply/project a black2white vertical gradient to it. The resulting "DEM" is exported from Top view as a bitmap, clipped and eventually adjusted in Photoshop and then copied to the clipboard and pasted into Vues terrain generator. You could also make it a procedural terrain and add various functions in Vues nice node-based editor.

You could also use the same "map" as a base for makingdistribution maps, to tell Vue where to place maple trees, and where to put grass, roads, fir trees, cars, rocks and so on. It's really very flexible, and makes it easy to get nice soft transitions between grass and gravel on paths for instance.

When it comes to exporting, you can't export ecosystems, so if you want to render in other applications you'd need to build your "ecosystems" by hand. But then, what other software can handle hundreds of thousands of trees and other 3D objects?

[vertexART]

What the synching for LW does is just synching the camera (and lights?) from LW to Vue, making it easier to composite scenes.

 

Hmm, but how could that be accomplished without LW? I am using Max and .3ds format doesn't include cameras and lights in exporting... This is the main issue, I think, being able to render landscapes with accurate light/cam positions from other apps and compositing them in final rendering.

I have experimented a bit with Vue's mats and it's editor, looks good, and there are a lot of options for custom landscaping based on 'alpha' images, like U said.

But, if accurate cam and light is not possible, I think I'll pass. I mean, I cannot afford a LW too

Any ideas on Max>Vue production pipeline?

 

thanks for your input!

cheers

[bjornkn]

The syncing doesn't happen with an exported file.

In LW I just run the sync plugin, and when I switch to Vue it detects that LW has exported sync data (to the clipboard?) and automatically imports it into the Vue scene. I would think that the Max plugin works in the same way?

BTW, AFAIK 3ds format can contain both cameras and lights.

Vue comes with sync plugins for Maya, Max, LW, C4D and XSI.

I haven't used it much, but if you have a moving camera in Max you should be able to sync to Vue so that the camera gets exactly the same motion.

It looks like you can also synchronize other objects inside Vue with this data, but it looks like exported objects from Max/LW can only be cameras and lights? There is also a scale factor which can be applied.

 

This is from the help file :

 

Generating Synchronization Data

 

From your favorite supported 3D application, you will use the corresponding synchronization plug-in to choose which objects (among cameras and lights only) should have their animation data exported to Vue 5. When you are done generating synchronization data, switch to (or launch) Vue 5. The existence of new synchronization data will be automatically detected and Vue 5 will ask if you want to retrieve it. If you click Yes, the synchronization data will be loaded into Vue 5 and used for synchronized objects. This flexible approach lets you touch up the animation in your other application, and then re-synchronize Vue 5 at the touch of a button.

 

Note that if synchronization data contains animation data for a camera, Vue 5's main camera will automatically be synchronized with it. If you save your scene, the animation data will be saved with it, in order to be reused later.

 

Note: If you refuse to retrieve synchronization data, this data will be destroyed. You will have to generate it again when you want to synchronize your scene.

 

Synchronizing Objects

 

Once synchronization data has been retrieved, you can synchronize objects from your Vue 5 scene using this data:

 

· Select the object you want to synchronize,

 

· Go to the animation tab of the Object Properties Panel,

 

· Choose Synchronized motion type in the Motion type list box,

 

· Select the name of the source object in the Synchronize with list box. This will instruct Vue 5 to use that source object's animation data for the currently selected object,

 

· Adjust the Scale factor that will be applied to original synchronization position values. This Scale factor is the same for every synchronized object in order to ensure homogeneous synchronization.

 

This is it! Your object is synchronized according to the animation data of the original scene. You can observe the results by moving the current time cursor in the Animation Timeline and see your objects follow the same animation paths as in the original scene. If you want to de-synchronize a specific object, just change its Motion type.

 

Note: the animation path and orientation of synchronized objects cannot be modified. You can still modify the animation of other animated parameters. For camera objects, not only position and rotation are synchronized, but also focal length and motion blur amount. Therefore, you won’t be able to modify these parameters for a synchronized camera.

 

Once you have completed rendering of both animations (the original one and the one in Vue 5), you will be able to composite items rendered in Vue 5 with your original animation very easily and precisely.

[Susan]

try Simu terra. It is quite inexpenwsive, easy to use and well worth the investment. It won't do your trees, I agree I don't think any software does all that, but for terrain modelling, you can't beat this one. There is a free trial download

 

http://www.compuneering.com/simuterra.php

[vertexART]

Hey Susan, thanks for your input, I've never heard about it before. Will check out simuterra surely..

 

I am getting seriously hooked on this Vue thingy, though..

I've managed to import the terrain and cams/lights into Vue, but it has some strange scaling issues... ... and I can't find any 'unit setup' within the app.

 

For example, I import the terrain which is at Z=0cm position in Max, and it shows up at Z=50 in Vue?? Any info on that maybe ?

 

But, with a bit of tweaking, I've managed to look as near as in Max..

 

Thanks for your inputs and sorry if I drag this subject too much

[bjornkn]

There is a setting in File/Options for "Resize and center imported objects" that by default is set to on. Not a good choice of default value IMO, and not a good place to put such a setting, which should rather be available from the Import dialog IMO. It will probably help with your Max objects too.

There is no units setup in Vue.

Units in Vue are strange, as they are not real world units. I typically use meters for my models, which works great for exchanging data between SketchUp and LW (and others), but in Vue it's not so good. I have not yet found the best way to do it - scale inside Vue, or export/convert the objects before importing? Or maybe use a different unit setting when saving objects and scenes in LW? If I keep the meters for my objects I have problems with the cameras front clipping plane cutting off lots of the models, and with all plants etc because they are way too big in their default scale, and needs to be scaled down considerably. It doesn't quite look like the unit in Vue is feet either, but more like a decimeter? So far I have only been playing around in Vue, and done little back-and-forth export/import between programs, but I guess it should be possible to find a smooth pipeline in regards to scale/units.. I believe e-on are aware of the problem.

 

BTW, SimuTerra is a nice program too, but very different from Vue. It's great for landscaping and making terrain from contour lines etc, but have no trees or any texturing options AFAIK.

[vertexART]

And I thank U again Bjorn, U have been very helpful to me!

I will check the options you specified, and see if I can work it out. I've tried exporting in different units, but with the same result. That's why I thought the problem lies in 'importing'.

I have 28 more days to figure it out!

cheers

[rhinason]

Just find this attractive forum and this subject,and Ive bing searching for a good landscaping tool for months ,previously I used speedtree,by and by, I regreted that it cannot handle more complex and larger scene . Now I tend to try vue,i think. Thank you bjornkn,you are very helpful. Thanks erveryone. This is really a good forum

[jackb602]

Has anyone used Vectorworks Landmark, the version of Vectorworks for landscape architecture? It doesn't look like a competitor to Vue, but rather a CAD package for landscape design. Its strength appears to be in creating a landscape, cutting and filling, and adding roads, curb cuts, driveways, etc. I'd be curious to hear what others' experiences have been with it.

 

Jack

[RyanSpaulding]

Vue 5 Infinite is insane software. I'm doing my first full production rendering as we speak. I'll talk more about Vue workflow later. Gotta finish this first.

[vertexART]

Hey Ryan, good luck with your project!

Are U using Vue the whole way or just for the environment?

 

Don't forget to post some renders here when U are done

cheers

[RyanSpaulding]

I will definitely. The client messed it up though. Last minute they wanted a big tan block next to the render to show the mass of the nearby building. FREEKIN ruined my render. So I'll be posting it when I finish MY version.

 

Looks good though.

[Simon Moir]

I've just started using Vue Infinite, I'm pretty impressed (especially considering the price). However, it does have some flaws regarding units and scales, import\export etc (perhaps some of these will be addressed with the release of Vue Fusion, I understand this will only work in the Max Scanline though).

I'm hoping E-on will address some of the problems that prevent Vue from being the killer App for landscaping, at the moment it creates pretty pictures but for me at least it lacks the precision and control needed for Arch Viz. I'm looking forward to seeing more Vue work in this forum in the future.