Terragen

Terragen is a landscape generation tool.  That really sounds bland for what Terragen can accomplish for you in just minutes. You have seen all those beautiful landscape photos. You know, the ones that cost a ton of money.  You pay for them because you need them for your project. Well, with Terragen, for the most part, you won't need photos for landscapes anymore. 

You can create beautiful landscapes with mountains, lakes, oceans, plains, valleys, sunrise, sunset, midday, early morning, late evening, and more with Terragen.  You can use them as is or import them into your favorite graphics editor and edit them however you want.

Above is the main interface with an image already set and preview rendered. Each element is set separately to give you complete control over how your landscape is finished. As you can see down the left side of the interface are self explanatory buttons that allow you to set up the different elements the way you want.

This screen is open on the interface when you start Terragen up. You can set your view point here, generate your terrain, and even change the landscape features.

Once you have made your choices for the sky, water, terrain, etc., you only have to hit the render preview button to see your new landscape. You can render preview in several different settings to speed up editing with the detail slider.  You can also change the perspective of you camera shot on this screen. Once your render preview looks the way you want, you can set the size of the final render and click on the render image button.  Your image will be final rendered and you can save it. You can also animate your image, but you need an extra file for that and there is a link for it on the Terragen site.

Terragen is extremely easy to use and I was hooked the first time I opened it.

Now I bet you're thinking, "I wonder how much this great software is going to set me back?"  Well, not to worry, Terragen is absolutely free. I couldn't believe it myself. Terragen is extremely valuable to anyone who needs to have landscapes for their graphics work, or anyone who appreciates looking at terrific landscapes. Run on over and pick up your free copy of Terragen right now!

Terragen is evolving and as such it is upgraded regularly with new features added. Keep on eye on that site for new features regularly.  And, while you're there, check out what is coming for new features in Terragen. It looks like vegetation is on it's way.

System Requirements

Windows 95, 98, NT
Pentium system
Minimum of 16Mb of RAM (Pentium II with 48 Mb RAM recommended)
**I ran Terragen on a Pentium 166 with 64 Mb RAM and it worked great for me)

Price:  Free! (how can you beat that?)

Copyright Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved