Terragen is a scenery generator program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X developed and published by Planetside Software. It can be used to create renderings and animations of landscapes.
Released in stages (tech preview and beta) to a participating community, Terragen 2 was released to pre-purchasers on 2 April 2009.[1][2] Terragen 2 is offered in feature limited freeware and full-featured commercial licenses.
Planetside Software released the first public version of Terragen 2 after more than three years of development of both the core technologies and the program itself.[3][4] Since then there have been several released updates to both licenses of the software along the development cycle with a series of technology previews and a beta release. The "final" build was released on April 23, 2009, and more updates, including feature modules, are expected to be released later.[5]
Planetside released Terragen 3 in August 2013.[6] Version 3.1 was released in February 2014. Version 4 was released in 2016.
A highly reflective lake, showing off the possibility for photorealistic renders in Terragen ClassicJulia island from Terragen Classic. It can be combined with other tools (here land-mapping as a Julia set).
Terragen Classic
Terragen Classic is popular among amateur artists, which can be attributed to it being freeware, its intuitive interface, and its capability to create photorealistic landscapes when used skillfully. It can also use DEM (digital elevation model) files, and other graphic surface maps for rendering.
A commercial version of the software is also available and is capable of creating larger terrains, renders with higher image resolution, larger terrain files, and better post-render anti-aliasing than the freeware version.
The terrain is generated from a two-dimensional heightmap. The program contains facilities for importing and exporting heightmaps to images, for use in other programs.
An image from what is now known as Terragen Classic appeared on the April 16, 2001, cover of Newsweek, and Terragen was used for animations in Brandy Norwood's "What About Us?" music video. The classic version was also used by numerous artists, such as Joan Fontcuberta ("Orogenesis" series),[10] and the French photographer Mathieu Bernard-Reymond ("Vous êtes ici" series and "Pôle" series). Terragen Classic was used to create skyboxes for 3D video games such as Serious Sam.
^"About us: Matt Fairclough, Proprietor and Lead Developer". Planetside Software. From 2000 to 2003 Matt was also a Technical Director at Digital Domain in Venice, California. He is credited in The Time Machine, Star Trek: Nemesis, and The Day After Tomorrow. Matt initiated the development of Digital Domain's proprietary terrain renderer which was used in the films Stealth, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima and other films and TV commercials. Much of its core technology went on to become Planetside Software's Terragen 2.
