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:iconpicogen:

#picogen

free terrain builder+renderer
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what is "picogen"?

picogen is a free terrain synthesizer and renderer, i.e. a piece of software that can be used to create and render terrain scenery.

It is under heavy, ongoing development, so if you don't like it now, maybe you'll like it more in the future -> watch us ;)

You can follow the progress and find previews by watching this group, or via rss/identi.ca/twitter etc. (see [link] ).



Any help and feedback is much appreciated.

New wiki: TikiWiki is a bless

:iconphresnel:

I have serious problems keeping the old MediaWiki clean. Serious problems, in that configuring MediaWiki seems like a full time job, in that fighting spam posts seems like a full time job, in that MediaWiki is mostly open to anonymous by default. And consider that picogen does not have any significant user base, yet.

So I tried out TikiWiki, which is really a full blown content management system with a ton of usefull modules and features.

The one thing I like at most: Central user group management, a banning system, safe settings by default.

I took a good style that was distributed along with the TikiWiki package, and modified it significantly to fit the style to the picogen-mainpage.


Please, what do you think?
-> [link] -> homepage (for style comparison)
-> [link] -> example content of new wiki
-> [link] -> old wiki (the style fits my personal homepage [link])
2 Comments
New wiki: TikiWiki is a bless February 1, 2011 2 Comments No Favourites
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:iconsir-beret:
~Sir-Beret Mar 17, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
How do you make height maps on this?

--
By the power of truth, I while living, have conquered the universe. ~ Faust

I dare do all the may become a man, who dares do more is none ~ Macbeth
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:icondigi-fish:
*Digi-fish Feb 18, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Thank you for providing this program for free. I might try it out.
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:iconmiarath:
*Miarath Jan 3, 2011
Thanks for requesting my desktop screenshot for your gallery. :tighthug: :heart:

--
:love:We love green:love: :silentkitty::pointr:The Shelter Projekt:pointl::silentkitty:
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:iconphresnel:
~phresnel Jan 11, 2011
You are very welcome :)

Especially since yours was the first recorded rendering done with picogen that wasn't made by me personally :)

--
[link] | [link] | (~greenhybrid - ex-dA-account)
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:iconmiarath:
*Miarath Jan 11, 2011
:huggle: :heart:

--
:love:We love green:love: :silentkitty::pointr:The Shelter Projekt:pointl::silentkitty:
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:iconfourpillars:
~Fourpillars Dec 30, 2010
Thanks for this program.
I just tried it and I think is very promising.
Here is something I made with it using a fractal image as a heightmap: [link]

I hope you can find the time and energy to complete this project.
Would it be possible for the program to draw the coloring from an image (e.g. the same image I set as heightmap?)

I think the program also need something like a quick preview pane where we can change the camera position intuitively (by mouse). Seeing a rought outline would be sufficient.
Now it is quite difficult and long process to get to the camera view you want.

Thanks.

--
'Happiness creates'
Supporting NNTR (~NNTR)
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:iconphresnel:
~phresnel Jan 3, 2011
Hi Fourpillars,

I guess you tried out 0.3?

Plans for a realtime preview with mouselook are already there, a precision navigation pane is already there for 0.4, with a kind of compass for setting yaw, pitch, roll. It will also feature some non-realtime forward/backward/strafe functionality :)

Thanks for the encouragement, development goes on :)

--
[link] | [link] | (~greenhybrid - ex-dA-account)
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:iconfourpillars:
~Fourpillars Jan 3, 2011
Thanks for answering.
Yes, used v 0.3

The pipeline sounds good.

How about taking color from the image I used as heightmap?
Now I set the 'material' to some light orange, but that means the entire picture is rendered based on a single color, only giving different shades according to local lightening.

Since I already use a colored bmp image for the heightmap. Why can't the same bmp be used to draw color information on a pixel by pixel basis, rather than using a uniform color for the entire scene?
To take 'material' from a bmp would open a lot new coloring and texturing options.

Thanks.

--
'Happiness creates'
Supporting NNTR (~NNTR)
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:iconphresnel:
~phresnel Jan 3, 2011
Ah, missed this post, sorry :)

You are completely right.

There will be multiple opportunities. Solid, single color is basically just the introductory material for beginners. Later versions will include node-based or layer-based material editing with all combinations you can think of.

I want to make picogen for everyone, from beginners to pro-geeks, so that even I, who is better at programming than at designing, can make cool terrains :D

--
[link] | [link] | (~greenhybrid - ex-dA-account)
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(1 Reply)
:iconlyc:
=lyc Dec 11, 2010
btw i tried 0.3 and got ~70% cpu usage; definite scaling issue!
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