The Official Terragen Frequently Asked Questions
interface - animation - rendering problems - community - systems - technique - registration - terminology
Last updated
January 31, 2004.
- Sometimes, black dots may appear while rendering. This
should not affect the final saved image.
- The interface will not look as good when using Large
Fonts mode under Windows. Unfortunately, there is very
little we can do about this.
- What do I do with the sequence of Bitmap files
after rendering an animation?
You need to use a third-party utility to convert the
sequence into an AVI, MOV, MPEG etc. file. For AVI files, we recommend
VirtualDub. Windows XP comes with
the Windows Movie Maker which can also convert BMP sequences into WMV files.
- My computer crashed halfway through rendering an
animation - how can I carry on where I left off?
You need to have saved your world and Terrain
files for this to work.
Open your script file in a text editor - One of the first
lines you will see will be something like:
initanim c:\anim1\anim,
1
Change the number at the end of the line to the next
frame to render (if 100 frames were rendered
successfully, change the number to 101). Now delete the
frame definitions for the frames that have already been
rendered - In Camera Path Editor and Terranim, the
beginning of the frame definitions are marked by a
comment (line beginning with a semicolon) indicating the
frame number.
Start Terragen, and load the world and terrain files. Now
execute the new script, and your animation should
continue.
- The sky doesn't reach all the way to the
landscape, leaving a black area.
In the Clouds dialog box, increase the Sky Size
and try again.
- When I render images, the colours do not blend
together and instead are "banded".
If your screen mode is not set to true-colour,
you might get this effect while rendering, but not in the
final (saved) image.
If you still see banding in a final image, you may
need to increase atmospheric accuracy.
- When I render an image, it renders fine until the
end and the entire image is replaced with grey.
1. You may be behind a piece of terrain that does not
show up in the preview. In this case, move the camera upwards.
2. increase color depth to minimum of 24-bit (TrueColor)
3. get the latest drivers for your video card from the
vendor.
- Some parts of the image don't seem to be rendered
properly, missing out parts of the terrain.
Make sure that the camera isn't under the
landscape, or underwater! This can happen if you enter
the z-coordinate of the camera manually, or sometimes by
other factors. Setting the "Fixed Height above
Surface" checkbox and entering an appropriate value
(default is 1) can fix this.
If this is not the problem, then try turning off Backface
Culling (found in Render Settings on the Render Control
dialog).
- How can I reduce rendering times?
Try reducing the "Sky Size" (in the Cloud
Dialog). Often, you can get away with lower values before
the sky doesn't cover enough area.
- Why do low zoom values look so bad?
Real-world cameras use a "spherical" lens,
while Terragen does not yet imitate the effect of one.
- Where do I find Terragen Galleries?
There are now so many galleries that there is no longer a
definitive list available. A very large list can be found
at TerraNet (although
this inevitably contains a few broken links), while
another option is the Terragen Webring.
- What is TerraCon?
TerraCon
is a Terragen contest held every month or so, which is
designed to tax the limits out of Terragen users.
- What mailing lists are available?
There are now several mailing lists, each suitable for
different things. Click on the link for more information
and to subscribe:
terragen - the
main list. Here you can ask questions about using
Terragen, share tips, techniques and utilities and
discuss anything Terragen-related. Off-topic chat is
definitely not tolerated, though.
terragengalleries
- a list for announcements relating to Terragen galleries.
Here you can post the address of your gallery.
terragenfriends
- a general chat list for users of Terragen, but not
necessarily related to Terragen. Off-topic chat is most
definitely encouraged.
There are more mailing lists available - see the 'Resources'
page for more.
- What is the Shared Files Area?
The shared files area is available to all Terragen
Mailing List members. Frequently, list members will
upload files there to explain emails better. To access
it, log in to Yahoo Groups's
Terragen area, and click on the link provided.
- Terragen is not multithreaded. There is no
advantage in using a multiprocessor system unless you
want to have two copies running or other programs not
slowed down. This will change in a later release. Because of this,
newer Pentium 4/Xeon processors will appear to only use 50% of the
processor's capacity.
- Support for computers/operating systems other than
Windows and MacOS is unlikely to arrive for quite a while
yet. However, it is planned that Terragen will eventually
be ported (at least) to Linux.
- How do I convert between Field of View and Zoom?
FOV = 2*tan-1(1/Zoom)
and Zoom = 1/(tan(FOV/2))
where Field Of View is in Radians (degrees = radians *
180 / Pi).
For photographers, there is a table comparing field of
view, zoom and focal length here.
- Where do I get information on improving my
Terragen technique?
Carol Brooksbank has written an excellent
tutorial available at
http://caroluk2.crosswinds.net/terratut/.
It contains information suitable for beginners and more
experienced users of Terragen. It is currently being
updated for Terragen 0.8.
Jo Meder has written an excellent Surface Map guide, available at
http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/smgdl.shtml
Another good way to learn Terragen is to join the
Terragen
Mailing List - here, over 800 users of Terragen
exchange tips, techniques and compete in contests.
- What are DEM files?
DEM files are Digital Elevation Maps - data that
represents the real world (or at least America). By using
third-party programs or plugins they can be imported into
Terragen so you can render pictures of real places. See
the Terragen
Resources page for more details.
- Who writes Terragen?
Matt Fairclough. Also involved with Terragen are John McLusky (who does
support and handles registrations) and Jo Meder, who written the
Mac version and has helped out in many other ways.
- How do I register, and what do I get?
You can register from the main
Terragen
Page. It currently costs US$79, with free updates
until (but not including) Terragen 1.0, and a discount (at least $79) on the final version. You also get priority
technical support by email, unrestricted render size,
"ultra" antialiasing, larger terrain sizes and more bonuses in the
future. Go on, you know you want to!
Registration is compulsory for
commercial use.
Registration is by web (PayPal). All web transactions are secure.
- What do you mean by "commercial
use"?
If you are making money from Terragen images, or
using Terragen images in a product which costs money, it
is commercial use and you will need to register. You do
not need to register if you just want to put images on
your (free to access) website.
- If I'm a non-commercial user, can
I have a key for free?
Sorry, no.
- I've registered - when do I get
the keyfile? What do I do with it?
Unfortunately, we (Planetside Software) only receive
information on new registered users on working days.
Therefore it might be a day or two before you receive
your key by email if you register on a weekend. When you
receive this key, place it in the main Terragen directory
to unlock Terragen. We aim to have registrations sent within 12
hours, though.
- What if I lose my key?
Send your original receipt by email to registrations@planetside.co.uk, and we'll send you a new one. If you can, please let us
know the full name on your key and when you registered - it will help us
send a new one out quicker.
- Bank. The angle of "tilt" of
the camera. Negative values of Bank correspond to a
anticlockwise tilt
- Canyonism. Sharpens the valley bottoms,
creating an effect similar to canyons in the desert (although
usually not quite so pronounced)
- Corona This does not simulate what
astronomers call the sun's corona. It is a halo around
the sun which partly compensates for the fact that
Terragen does not yet render lens flare. It has the
effect of softening the edge of the sun's disc.
- Density (Haze). The "effectiveness"
of the haze.
- Density Contrast. Has the effect of
changing how "sharp" the edges of the clouds
are, and will also make them appear darker under normal
settings. The lower the setting, the softer the clouds
are.
- Density Shift. Allows you to alter how
much of the sky contains clouds. Large negative numbers
move towards having no clouds, large positive values move
towards having a totally grey sky.
- Detail. The level of detail used for
both preview and final renders. The higher the detail is
set, the smaller the triangles are drawn.
- Exposure. Not just "lightness",
Exposure mimics the exposure of a real camera.
- Glaciation. Modifies the landscape by
flattening valley bottoms and smoothing sharp changes in
gradient
- Half-height. The densities of the
atmospheric components decrease as altitude increases.
Half-heights specify the heights at which the atmospheric
components are half as dense as they are at an altitude
of zero. Lowering these "flattens" the
atmosphere.
- Head. The angle between the camera and
target.
- Pitch. The vertical angle of view with
respect to a flat plane.
- Preview. A small, low detail render
which is used to get a "feel" for the current
settings.
- Realism. A higher setting generates a
more realistic terrain with smoother transition between
high and low. A lower setting can be used to create a
more "craggy" landscape
- Rendering. The process of creating an
image from all settings used.
- Roughness (waves). The vertical height
of the waves.
- Size (waves). The 'width' of waves.
- Smoothing. Adjusts how smooth the
landscape will be. Setting this too high can interfere
with the realism setting and create unwanted results
- Surface Map. Analogous to a texture, but
is not an image. The surface map relies on altitude and
gradient as defined by the user.
- Surface. The Terrain and the Water layer
combined.
- Zoom. Increasing zoom does not simply
give the effect of moving the camera closer to the target
- it changes the field of view.
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