TERRAFORMER 0.50 Finished And Submitted!

Terraformer_Author

Hi guys.
Well - I've done all that I am going to do with "0.50", and I have submitted it to Ralf. I'm assuming that he is now reviewing it, analyzing it, testing it, and doing the qaulity control thing.
I wanted to get it out in late October but it didn't fly that way. Zipped - the whole package is about 815.17 MB. I sent him the download link via the "DropSend" service (free version", so I hope the whole thing got to him - if not, then I'll probably have to send a DVD ROM via snail mail - but I got a notice through my email that he got it , and that he downloaded it - so I'm thinking that it went over ok). I may have to send him the Open Office .odt file if he wants to edit the User's Manual or anything before deciding if he wants to put it up or not - in that case I might have to send some fonts along also. Either way - if it passes inspection and get's green flagged for posting - I hope everybody enjoys it, and it's been my pleasure putting this stuff together for you guys to use with F.T. Pro. If I decide to move on with doing version 1.0 - this time - I'll probably slap it onto a disk, lol. anyway - best regards to everybody - Bill.

Anoril

Yeahhhh! Marvelouuuus! Formidaaaable!!!

Thanks a lot!!! I hope it will be available soon!!!

Terraformer_Author

Thanks Anoril. Haven't heard a peep from Ralf yet though. It's a big package so I suppose that it will be a while.

Monsen

hmm. 815MB. Sounds like a lot of goodies in there.

Ralf

The package is currently uploading to our servers... takes a while at this size.

Ralf

The Terraformer 0.50 package is now available on your registration page, if you have registered FT Pro. I've reduced the size to (a still whopping) 604Mb.

Anoril

Greaaaaat! Thanks Bill for your impressive work! Thanks Ralph for your efficiency!
I go to conquer the entire galaxyyyy!

Monsen

Wow. This is some incredible work.

I haven't used the package yet, but I've read through the manual, and I am impressed. The manual was a bit too detailed for my needs, but I am sure a lot of people will find those details very helpful when using this. (You don't have to put my names in quotes btw, it is my real (sur)name, not a nickname).

I also had a quick look through the files, and there are a lot of goodies in there. It seems like I am returning to my Sci-Fi campaign as well, after a brief hiatus, so I am really going to use this. Looking forward to it.

Terraformer_Author

Thank you Ralf - thank you guys. AAaaaaahhhh - finished it! (sigh of relief), lol.

JimP

Downloaded.

Now, where did you get those fantastic starships that are in the manual ?

pleeeaaassseeee ! ( my bestest Roger Rabbit later. )

Terraformer_Author

Actually Jim I have a vast collection of ships that I have made myself, and have also collected from numerous sources here and there over the years. I don't remember the exact sites for those - but I can tell you that they are circa about 2007 / 2008. Lol. I can make you a few ships in wings 3d if you want me to, but you'll have to U.V. map them yourself for texturing, unless you just want to slap a generic material onto them in BRYCE (I'm really good at modelling in WINGS3D - but I'm just learning how to U.V. Map in WINGS3D right now,lol). If I make you some - then I hope that you can use either .obj, .3ds, .lwo, .x, or .dae (Carrara) model formats.

JimP

Well, my skills are ... I can vaguely find my way around Pov-ray. Sort of.

I did start out with DKBTrace 1.x around 1988 on my then Amiga A500 computer. Sadly, no longer working.

What I would love to do is, take the 2 dimensional starship drawing on my starship site, and made it 3D.

http://star.drivein-jim.net/articles/14/sketch-of-the-starship edited to show a larger picture

I have made a world with clouds using TerraFormer 0.5

JimP

with a docking bay large enough to put the Starship Enterprise in it, and have room left over.

edit: I downlaoded wings3d, but i have no clue when I'll have time to look at it.

Hmmm... usually after saying such things, I lose sleep over working on it... except this month I have to be at work 2 hours early. Ah well, maybe this weekend.

I think my biggest problem is I can visualize in 3D, but not draw well in 3D.

Hmm. Ah for the scientific breakthrough of being able to get a thinking cap to draw what I visulaize into a computer program.

sigh.

JimP

Here is the world I made following the tutorial.

Terraformer_Author

Is this kinda what you had in mind for the Wanderer Jim? If you want I'll send it along to you in .obj, .3ds, and .lwo if you have an addy - it won't be mapped though. BY the way - the map is beautiful!

Terraformer_Author

Here's your world as done in BRYCE Jim - I would get the basic, no frills version of BRYCE 7 at around $30.00 Jim because applying planet maps to any sphere is a lot simpler in Bryce than U.V. mapping them from scratch in another program - BUT - I am learning U.V. mapping in WINGS right now - and it's not really seeming to be all that tough to me really - just a matter of getting used to it. Both of these images are your property Jimmy. Your designs - your deal my friend. I love the stuff on your website!

By the way - did you export your map at 4096 resolution as opposed to 1024? Just wondering.I think I may need to re-adjust some settings in Bryce. Lately I've been having some issues with pixelation which might be due to either my NVIDIA card, or some of the settings in BRYCE that I've been tinkering with.

Joachim de Ravenbel

Here is the same using POV-RAY. Output resolution : 500x500 AA0.3

#camera {
location <-1000,1000,-1000> look_at 0
right x
up y
}

background{rgb 0}

light_source {<-1000,1000,-1000> color rgb 1}

sphere{
0,500
texture{
pigment{image_map{png "jimworld.png" map_type 1}} // map_type 1 for spherical wrapping
finish{ambient 0.5 diffuse 0.3}
}
}

Btw, I use UVMapper (http://www.uvmapper.com/) when creating textures for WINGS...

Anoril

Hi all,

In the manual, you can read that some cloud maps have strange artifact at the "poles" (nadir and zenith of the sphere).

To easilly correct this, you can make use of some free tools available on the net (if you don't find them, I can share links) that quikly convert a map (equirectangular image) into a six faced cube that is more easy to edit (you get 6 square images)!
You can then quickly copy/paste clouds or edit the poles to get a clean image and make use of the tools to get an equirectangular image back.

Tools are : PanoTools (Win, Mac, Linux), Pano2Cube and Cube2Pano (DOS), and KRPano tools (not free, place watermarks over the images, either, it is about $90, a bit high if you only use it as converter... )

See you all!

And thanks to you Bill!

JimP

Yes, at 4096, imported into Irfanview, shrank it to for the forum. Saved as png.

The pedestals are 2.5 miles high, with the disks 2 miles thick, 5 miles in diameter. So the pedestals are only slightly taller than the disks. The central tube is the most massive.

I have some internal ideas for the ship. Say... a lost cavern area with cave paintings on the walls... maybe put there by Cro-Magnons ? A story idea i am developing.

Have to run to work. Later.

Simon Rogers

This is just brilliant, thank you.

Jay_NOLA

Thanks,
Idownloaded 0.5 yesterday and love the updated version. I'll be playing around with it in the next few days as time permits.

JimP

I've been thinking, with TerraFormer and FTPro, we can create worlds, and then add them into CC3/Cosmo and create solar systems. Not just single planets to map.

Veldehar

Higgly Piggly my man!

I've just started tinkering with new version and am loving it!

Above and beyond Mr. Roach!

Lee

Highland_Piper

Fantastic. I've got a project I want to do about pre-Cambrian coastlines and this should help!

And thanks for adding my pictures to the pdf!

Ron_L

I downloaded it and started to use it...until I found that it is missing the sub-folder "T050_Cloud_Maps"...can't do anything else with clouds for now without it I guess.

Ralf

This is weird. I've just double-checked the zip file and it does contain the Cloud_Maps folder. If you unzip the file somewhere else, does the folder show up there?

Gold

The Image Climates were extremely helpful to me. I am able to give my FT3 world a really cool texture that is sort-of like Gaia shader, but customized for the amount of foliage I want.

Being able to set the Sea depth colors, then change the land colors with Image Climates, is a really neat and easy technique learned from Terraformer manual. Thanks so much for this.

I see this thread is from 2010 but I wish to say "Thank you" upon discovering and learning the Terraformer addition to Fractal Terrains 3 in 2013.