Terrain-Creation Programs - Which do you prefer?

While we all know that MED has it's own built-in 'terrain' functionality, it is no secret that it is quite limited in terms of what you can accomplish. After perusing these boards I found several 3rd party terrain programs, each with varying features and costs...

Though I am no stranger to terrain, I've not used a terrain software since roughly 2001 and I'm sure things have come along quite a bit since then. I want to know what YOUR terrain program of choice is and (if possible) why. I could really use the help in determining which program I should buy.

Cost is a factor! let me know how much the software goes for if at all possible.

Let me start by listing a few terrain programs I know of, but have not yet tried - please give some feedback on these if you can:

-IceX 2.0 (any good? seems to be the cheapest I can find at 13 euros)

-World Machine

-World Builder

Feel free to comment on any others...

There's Terragen as another one, but I don't use it. I use MED and I don't make HMP terrains, I make MDL terrains due to the many more advantages of MDL terrains.

AAAAAaaaaaaaannnd... Still no answers! are people just looking at this thread and saying 'stfu noob'? Surely everyone has a preference in terms of what terrain generators they use. Let's discuss them!

You like World Builder above all else? okay. Why? What features does it have... Is it easy to bring into GS? All this is up for discussion.

Please keep in mind that this thread isn't just for me, hopefully many other developers who are new to A6 will see this thread and gain some useful insights from it -- that is, if people start putting in their two cents!

Have a check on Large 3D terrain generator. Its free and a great software.

Creates Heigtmaps, Normalmaps, Lightmaps and Texturemaps.

my prefered method is to model the terrain by myself just like ulillilia.

but if i would go for a terrain generator i would go with ice-x2.
it looks very promising.

im sure, nobody who has read this thread, thaught that its a newbie question.
it is a very interesting topic.
i think many people (like me) just havent tested these editors, so it is difficult to write an answer, that would please u.

cheers

sinnlos

IceX2 is a fantastic tool. Freeworld 3d is another very good alternative.

Worldmachine and L3DT are good generators with very cool options to generate realistic looking terrains. They are a bit more complicated as IceX2 and Freeworld but are better generators. But they lack the interactivity that IceX2 and Freeworld 3D provide.

Terragen is an interesting generator and has superb rendering quality (for terrain and water, the clouds are bit simple). But the interactivity while deforming terrains is not very useful.

Vue5 can generate, export and deform terrains.

My favourites are IceX2 and Freeworld 3D.

Best regards,
Frank

ive only worked with ALE (Advanced Landscape Editor), L3DT, and a little bit with Terragen.

I was most impressed with L3DT. *Very* nice terrian effects editing. You can do erosion and such whatnot. The two downsides to it are that a) there is no 'official' version, the author is still developing it so the best you can get is an evaluation version, and b) it only saves in its own format and .x, its format isnt something that Gamestudio can use and the .x files it makes takes MED *forever* to open up.

ALE also impressed me. It took my hieghtmaps and made terrains out of them without much fuss. As well, the terrains werent 'stretched' or distorted like they can be with MED. You can also paint the skin right on to the terrain in the editor, something i found to be paticularly nice. The downside to ALE is that in the eval version you cant save so i have no idea if it saves to any format that can be imported to MED.

Terragen...well im not real sure what to say about it. Everyone else seems to love it. and some of the terrains ive seen made with it are truely awesome. However i found the software to be counter-intuitive and hard to learn. I'm sure its easy enough once you overcome the learning curve, but i just didnt have the patience for it.

I make my levels as Huge MDL´s. With completly reprogrammt scripts, that work quite fine. I Build the levels completly in 3D Studio Max an export them to Game studio. I need only one big texture for the whole level ( except of Models i put in afterwards, like Trees or such things). I Texture the whole level in Bodypaint and so you can buile huge out- and indoor levels in quite a short time, and they look very good. The only negative thing is, that u must change a lot of scripting to make a mdl level work the same way like a block level and the 3ds max an bodypaint are very expensive.

Hi I got some question's what way is the best way to create large outdoor level's? like in grand theft auto vice city, is it better to use med or a modeling software to make the level? or to used wed? I created my level in wed and when I make the level run in max screen with high def after like 5 sec's my computer crashes, would making the level as a model make it able to be runed as high def. I have engine A5pro edition, however I need help with each step. any suggstions on way's to make my level's pro looking in high def, or any comment's on good way's on making huge level map's.

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Have a check on Large 3D terrain generator. Its free and a great software.

Creates Heigtmaps, Normalmaps, Lightmaps and Texturemaps.

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Hmm interesting. What method do you use for importing into gamestudio. As in apart from using heightmaps that seems to screw everything up in WED.