Planetside

Terragen Classic Resources

Terragen™ plugins

Plugins can be used to expand the capabilities of Terragen.

For Export Only ( Win / Mac ) - For Export Only is a suite of Terrain Accessory plugins which exports terrains in Windows BMP, Autodesk DXF, Wavefront OBJ and RenderMan RIB formats. For Export Only can also import Windows BMP files.

SOPack ( Win ) - SOPack contains a variety of plugins of different types, from water effects to surface map overlays, to terrain effects and to photo effects.

Solaris ( Win / Mac ) - Solaris is a Lighting Accessory plugin which calculates the position of the Sun according to a location on the Earth ( in latitude and longitude ), a date and a time of day.

WaterWorks ( Win / Mac ) - suite of Water Effect plugins, ranging from surf effects to ice and lava effects.

LensFX ( Win ) - plugin to mimic depth of field similar to a real camera.

Integrate with other 3D applications

The following plugins and utilities help to integrate Terragen with other 3D applications.

LightWave 3D integration

TGS Exporter ( Win / Mac ) - Kevin Phillips' TGS Exporter is a Lightwave plugin which can export animation data to a Terragen v0.9 script file.

3D Studio MAX integration

TG-Max ( Win ) - Mark Sporleder's TG-Max is a 3D Studio Max plugin with comprehensive Terragen scene integration capabilities. It facilitates animation/script generation, terrain import, HDR panorama generation, network rendering and more. There is a Lite version which is free for non commercial use as well as a more fully featured Pro version for commercial use.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. has written some utilities to integrate 3D Studio Max with Terragen. Unfortunately, we have not been able to test these utilities, but they are available for free download here.

 

Cinema 4D integration

Terra4D ( Win / Mac ) - Terra4D is a plugin for Cinema 4D which imports Terragen terrains, can export Terragen script files and more.

TerraCin ( Win / Mac ) - TerraCin is a Cinema 4D plugin which can import Terragen terrains and other information to match scenes between the two applications. It can also read Terragen script files to match the camera and lighting.

 

Blender integration

Ter2Blend - Ter2Blend is a collection of scripts which help integrate Terragen with Blender, a powerful free modeller and renderer.

trueSpace integration

Urban Velkavrh has written a free trueSpace plugin which can write camera scripts and read and write Terragen terrain files.

3D Object Utilities

Deep Exploration ( Win ) - Deep Exploration is an easy-to-use 3D object converter - useful if you want to convert Lightwave Object files (exportable from Terragen) to other 3D formats for use in other rendering software.

 

3rd party applications

The following applications are written by 3rd parties and help to make Terragen features more accessible, such as the animation or script utilities, or are able to import and/or export Terragen files.

Animation/script utilities

Terranim ( Win ) - animation script generator by Daniel Parnham. This is the original Terragen animation utility that kick-started it all. A new version was recently released, which features ultra-smooth curves and a useful OpenGL real-time animation preview. As well as providing control over cloud and sun movement etc, Terranim can support custom animation commands. Whatever Terragen can animate, Terranim lets you control it.

Camera Path Editor ( Win ) - animation script generator by Sean O'Malley. Packed full of all sorts of goodies, including a 'Vehicle Cam', cloud and sun movement, handy 'global change' features and a FOV calculator, to name but a few.

Terragen Linear Camera/Target Movement Generator - a simple web-based utility to create simple Terragen scripts with individual camera/target control.

Terrain utilities

GeoControl ( Win ) - GeoControl introduces the Dynamic Level Generation (DLG) method for terrain generation. This gives fine control over the terrain generation process. The brush, which is based on DLG, not only manipulates the entire terrain but creates new terrains which fit seamlessly into the existing one. GeoControl also offers layer based terrain combination, a wide range of filters, and powerful and realistic erosion. It imports and exports many formats, including Terragen terrain files.

Global Mapper ( Win ) - Global Mapper from Global Mapper Software LLCis a 3D GIS (Geographical Information System) mapping application with GPS tracking that can read many common GIS file types (including DEMs). It can export Terragen terrains.

TerraConv ( Win ) - TerraConv is a freeware program for converting Terragen terrains into image file formats readable by image editing programs, and image files back into Terragen terrains. TerraConv supports 16 bit color depth, so you do not lose any altitude resolution in the process.

LandSerf ( Win / Mac ) - LandSerf is a freely available Java based GIS (Geographical Information System) application. It can import many common GIS file types ( including DEMs of various sorts ) and perform many GIS operations. Amongst other things, it can export Terragen terrain files.

3DEM ( Win ) - program for the display and manipulation of DEM files. It can export Terragen terrain files. 3DEM is no longer supported by the developer, but is still available for download, and useful for older DEM formats.

GeoFrac 2000 ( Win ) - GeoFrac 2000 is a terrain generation application with a range of capabilities, which is able to export Terragen terrain files.

Leveller ( Win ) - Heightfield editor/modeller/converter by Daylon Graphics. It can import and export Terragen terrain files.

Terrify & Terrain Browser ( Win ) - Terrify can be used to convert Terragen terrain files to RAW or Windows BMP formats. Terrain Browser displays a thumbnail view of Terragen terrain files. Visit the "Delphi Programs" page to download.

Wilbur ( Win ) - program for manipulating and converting heighfield data in a variety of formats including Terragen terrain.

TerraPainter ( Win ) - TerraPainter is a terrain editor which lets you create Terragen terrains by painting with a variety of brushes.

World Machine ( Win ) - World Machine is a terrain generator with quite a unique approach, you connect together various "building blocks" to generate the terrain. It has some excellent erosion filters which make for realistic terrains. It can save to several formats, including Terragen terrain files.

Landformer Pro ( Win ) - Landformer Pro is a standalone version of the terrain editor from Geomantics' Genesis II GIS program, and it uses Terragen's terrain file format as it's native format. It will be particularly useful to those wanting to use real world data and do things such as turning contour maps into Terragen terrains.

DEM2RWX ( Win ) - DEM2RWX can import Terragen terrain files and convert them into terrain objects which can be used with the Active Worlds 3D virtual reality/chat environment.

TerraMaker ( Win ) - TerraMaker is a terrain editor for Terragen terrains with a wide range of capabilities and interesting tools.

planetGenesis ( Win / Mac ) - planetGenesis is an opensource Java based planet and landscape generator. Amongst other formats, it can generate Terragen terrains at all sizes.

Miscellaneous utilities

TerraScreen ( Win ) - TerraScreen is an application which uses Terragen to render images that it sets as your desktop wallpaper, and which can be set to update over time. It can set a realistic sun position based on your real world position, as well as cloudiness based on real world data found online.

TRaM ( Terragen Render Task Manager ) ( Win )
TRaM is a render task manager for Terragen. It controls Terragen running in the background and can be used to render a number of images or scripts without user intervention. It can optionally shut down your machine once all tasks are completed.

DigArts Software ( Win / Mac )
Terragen Classic does not support native rendering of vegetation, but one way of adding it to your scenes would be to use the variety of tree and foliage painting tools offered by DigArts Software, which work in conjunction with Painter, Paint Shop Pro, Photo Paint and Photoshop.

Community

Terragen has a strong user community, which you are more than welcome to take part in.

Forums and Other Discussion Areas

This is a listing of web forum based Terragen communities. 

The Official Planetside Forums

Terragen.org and the Ashundar Community

Renderosity Terragen Forum

Terragen Mailing List - A Terragen mailing list at Yahoo Groups. It is now very low traffic, with most discussion moving to the official forums linked to above. The group message archives have some useful information however. 

Contests

A number of Terragen contests are run, most on a monthly basis. Most of the contests maintain archives, and it's well worth browsing through them to get an idea of the range and ability of Terragen and it's users. There are some spectacular images from past contests.

TERRA-Worlds - TERRA-Worlds is a monthly contest.

Ashundar - Ashundar runs a monthly Terragen contest.

Renderosity Terragen Forum - The Terragen forum at Renderosity has a themed monthly challenge competition. You need to register with Renderosity ( free ) to view the forum.