Horizontal movement (left, right, back, forward): Drag inside the circle to move in a given direction. Some of these controls may be familiar to you if you have experience with other 3D applications. When you click this icon, the tool will expand to show a variety of control options. You can also adjust the camera with the navigation control tool located in the upper-right corner of the 3D Preview pane. If this happens, you'll see a red icon appear below the compass in the 3D Preview pane.) Fine-tune your view using these controls to find a perspective you like. (Note that the camera will pass freely through the terrain, so if you move it down too far, you’ll go through the ground.

You want to get closer to the ground, but make sure you are still well above it. Finally, right-click and drag up to move the camera down into the terrain. Now, still holding Alt, middle-click and drag down to move the camera forward. Hold down the Alt key, left-click, and drag upward in the 3D preview to angle the camera up a bit. Please refer to the Mouse and Key Settings under the Help menu for other options.) You control the camera in the top pane, which is referred to as the 3D Preview pane. (Note that this section of the tutorial will assume you have a 3-button mouse, and are using the default controls. You’re probably curious what this scene looks like outside the current field of view, so let’s move the camera a bit. You have a flat, open plane leading into some mountains. When you start in the terrain layout, you’ll see that Terragen already has default terrain generated. The terrain layout is used to manipulate the topography of your Terragen scene. Layouts in Terragen can be thought of as tabs that contain different sets of tools for working on different aspects of your scene. When you start Terragen, it takes you to the terrain layout by default. If you need further information about any specific function or feature, refer to the appropriate wiki article for more comprehensive instructions. Creating a high-quality final renderingįor this basic overview, techniques and controls such as camera movement will be introduced once when first needed, after which the operation will be referenced without repeating the instruction.Using shaders to give the terrain the appearance of dirt, grass, and snow.Making some modifications to the terrain.The basics of navigating around your scene.It will give you a good grounding in many of the basic tools you will use when creating most scenes in Terragen.Īlthough you can build your scene in any order you choose, this tutorial will guide you through the most typical workflow scenario, which includes: Welcome to Terragen! This guide will walk you through creating and rendering your first scene. 4.1 Adjusting the Colors of the Base Layer.3.1 Modifying the Fractal Terrain 01 Node.2.1.2 The Four Main Panes in a Terragen Layout.2 Navigating in Terragen and Key Concepts.

Fly around in terragen 3