TG2 TechPreview announced for 15.12

[cajomi]

That are really great news.
I am looking forward to it. The timing is well, I can build version2 with an eye on TG2, to get the best out of it in TG2.

[Criss]

I am definatly making the time for this. The node interface will be a challenge but well worth the effort i think. It will lack afew features like shore foam and speed optimizations but none the less this is a good oppurtunity to get into TG2 early on and test out some nice GeoControl terrains inside this software.

What is nice about TG2 is heightfield terrains (ala GeoControl) can be freely mixed in with procedural terrains and various degrees of shaders. This will be intreasting to see.

I have to brush up on my vegitation model creation as well.

[cajomi]

I am mostly interesting in comparing it to Vue. I have found, that it is possible in Vue to enhance the details of a heightfield terrain with a procedural function, to get infinite details for close ups. What is missing now is a export function in GeoControl for selections, so that it will be possible to apply different functions to different areas.
Also the new spectral atmosphere of Vue is really impressive and the eco paint also is very convincing.
I am mostly interested, how the render engine of TG2 is. The actual problem, to render 2-4 times higher resolution and then resize it, is really bad for animations. The rendertimes at all are much to long. But as you say, the tech preview is not speed optimized, and so I am expecting very long render times.
But we will see. If TG2 is able to use a heigtfield for detail enhancement, then the rendertimes for large terrains (4096) may be shorter than in terragen.
At all, looking forward to TG2. I am sure, that also will bring live into the Rero gallery.

[Criss]

You can do very much the same thing in Terragen 2. You can take terragen's procedural noises to enhance imported Heightfields, DEMs, .TERs and additional image formats.

The alpha testers of terragen 2 had never needed to downsize there renders that i know of and i speak to them often. Animation will have production quality anti-aliasing and motion blur. Also one alpha tester was rather surprised that a image with afew million objects did not take as long to render as one would expect so that was good news.

This may not be a fair comparison but these images are the closest i could get to a simular scean. One being Vue 6 Infinate and the other being Terragen 2 Alpha.

Terragen 2
http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/v/tg2gallery/nicolas_hoffmann_gi_mount2.jpg.html

Vue 6 Infinate
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1333058

[Criss]

Also have you been to the official tech preview page yet?

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tg2/tech_preview.shtml

[cajomi]

The TG2 images are more clear and crisp. But you have not to forget: Most Vue users are orientated in plantful landscapes. So a comparison between no-vegetation secenes is typically more TG like, and there are the advantages of a TG user, with so much experience. And the solid growth with the unique 200.000 plants of the same sort is really powerful.
At least I think, I will work with both.

[Criss]

I do like that fact that Vue has varied solid-growth plants. If xfrog were a plugin to Terragen 2 then that would be very nice but that is up to greenworks and planetside to make that call.

It will be nice to see what each program is capable of doing in the near future. Now i just have to practice learning how to use xfrog. :)