The first proper animation I did has a whole page to itself, not because it's that amazing or anything, just that I'd already written the page and I don't want it to go to waste. Anyway, this is the link to the Clouds animation. All the following movies are going to be at 160 by 100, because at higher resolutions the rendering times are just too much for me. The Bink files require the Bink player, available from Rad Game Tools, and the QuickTime file(s) require QuickTime 3, available from Apple.
Following problems with downloaded Bink files not playing, I'm only putting the zipped versions of the movies on the page. Zipping seems to solve the problem of a few K being added to the end of the files when downloaded by Netscape. Hopefully. Apparantly though this doesn't happen with Internet Explorer, but I don't know what flavours.
First is this 'Mars rover' flight, available as a 739K zipped Bink file, a 766K QuickTime 3 Sorenson MOV, and as a 1329K zipped Cinepak AVI. I saved rendering time here by using the second best detail level, as I realised that for Martian landscapes at this size the quality difference is neglible. That's why the Bink file is so big; this format is generally best for the highest detail only.
Here's a river valley flight, available as a 147K zipped Bink file and a 400K zipped Cinepak AVI. Sorenson encoded QuickTime MOVs lost too much quality when approaching even the 300K filesize.
This animation has a bit of odd beginning. I had decided to have a go at the latest TerraCon, but after setting Terragen up with the details I realised that competitions are not for me, to put it mildly. However, I did notice some lovely small lake formations that would look great in an animation, and this is the result. Available as always as a 232Kb zipped Bink file and a 765Kb (zipped) Cinepak AVI. Credit for the terrain goes to Sauro L'Alieno Pasquini's wife Orna, who has her own gallery here.
This is the first animation I've created using Sean O'Malley's Camera Path Editor v1.10, and it's come out quite well. Available as a 4% compressed 764Kb zipped Bink file and a 1526Kb zipped Cinepak AVI. Note that this is a 320x200 animation, cos now Terragen is 20% faster I can do larger movies! Yippie!
I decided on a change of planet and moved to the Moon for this movie. It's exactly the same flight path etc as the Plains movie, but done to look like the Moon. Just thought I'd try it and see what comes out. I used John McLusky's guide to moonscapes for this. Available as a 4% compressed 760Kb zipped Bink file and a 1070Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
This movie was originally a 160x100, but I noticed when watching it that something had gone wrong with the clouds. Windoze had crashed when I was rendering, and I thought I had used the same cloud settings when I resumed Terragen - but I hadn't. So I've redone it as a 320x200! It's a simple ocean flyover, using the Camera Path Editor to spin around the view point. Available as a 4% compressed 754Kb zipped Bink file and a 1377Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
This is just a simple barrel roll that I did just to test how well a complete turn worked. It wasn't as easy to create as you would think, since for some reason the view did a 390ish degree roll at first. Available as a 4% compressed 176Kb zipped Bink file and a 419Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
Not too sure what my next movie is going to be, as I've found out for definite now that getting clouds at eye level is impossible (at least for the moment). I had hoped to do a movie similar to the opening credits of early Quantum Leap where you zoom through clouds like a jet aircraft. Oh well. I think it might be some sort of 'through a canyon' nearly crashing into the edges type thingy. Or something. Maybe if I figure out how to use the data files available from NASA's recent Mars survey, it will be a 'real' Martian movie.
And to tell a complete lie, here's my next movie which has nothing to do with the above. It's a zoom around a deserty type place. I think I'll come back to this terrain, because there are some interesting features in it. Available as a 4% compressed 155Kb zipped Bink file and a 334Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
I just happened to find this movie lying around in a different folder on the webpage. I can't remember when I did it, but seeing as it's another 'sun rise' it must have been a while ago. Available as a 4% compressed 84Kb zipped Bink file and a 159Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
This is something that I just knocked up. The colours etc are kinda like the swamp tileset from Warcraft II and/or the Narn Homeworld from Babylon 5. If that means nothing to you, the first is a computer game and the second is a TV series. Available as a 4% compressed 231Kb zipped Bink file and a 530Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
I went back to the deserty type place terrain, and messed about with the surface colours and atmosphere. I think I like the sand colour better in this one, but I'm not too sure about the atmosphere - it seems too golden. This world might actually get me started on rendering single images again rather than movies! Available as a 4% compressed 291Kb zipped Bink file and a 666Kb zipped Cinepak AVI.
On a completely un-Terragen-related point, a long while ago I created a Stick Figure Death Theatre animation that you can view here. It's called Shot Down.
Go back to the index
