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Insydium Sneak Peeks - 2022 (Terraform, Mesh tools)


3D-Pangel

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Just noticed that Insydium posted a new sneak peek video 4 days ago on Terraform and before that was a Mesh tools update (see them both here).

 

Not that interested in Mesh tools but Terraform has  made some pretty good enhancements to landscape creation and closing some workflow issues with landscape editing.  The road system is also pretty interesting.

 

The cover image is a bit deceptive though as it shows a lush forest giving the impression that Terraform also has made improvements to its ability for distributing trees across a terrain - but that is not discussed.  Maybe it will be discussed in a future sneak peek video.  We can only hope.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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Excuse Me Reaction GIF by Bounce

Is it just me or there is nothing new ?
Except for the landscape effect tools like hydraulic erosion everything else is very familiar !
TfGrid = FFD
TfPath = Spline Field ----------- want some river tool ? why don't you make a proper river tool with variable width and branching ?
MtInset = Inset Node/MoExtrude with Step Effector
MtRemesh = Remesh
MtSplineSample = MoSpline
MtPolyScale = PolyFX Effector
MtShellGen = Solydify Node/Cloth Generator

Looks like they are trying to implement features from R20+ to R18- users...

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Well...Insydium releases these videos one at a time rather than all at once (maybe this improves their hit count on YouTube or they release them as the features become available).  So I would not judge them yet as I would expect (or hope) there are more to come.

 

But I do agree with you regarding redundancy to C4D native tools. My hope though again (I guess I have a lot of hope for Insydium) is that their versions can do more than their C4D counterparts....if only because their tighter integration with XP.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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The elephant in the room regarding landscapes in DCCs are the small tiles. 

 

It still a lot of work to convincingly fake a vast landscape with a cameraview to the horizon.

 

My very first feature wish would be some sort of streaming engine as seen in games. My PS3 was capable of bigger landscapes than my 2022 PC with C4D 😕

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20 minutes ago, keppn said:

The elephant in the room regarding landscapes in DCCs are the small tiles. 

 

It still a lot of work to convincingly fake a vast landscape with a cameraview to the horizon.

 

My very first feature wish would be some sort of streaming engine as seen in games. My PS3 was capable of bigger landscapes than my 2022 PC with C4D 😕

Agree.  My second wish would be tree instancing and population capability.  Given that Terraform is being developed by Frank Willeke the developer of SurfaceSpread (now owned by Laubwerk), I would hope that capability is forthcoming --- unless Frank is under some non-compete clause from Laubwerk which prevents him from re-developing that code.

 

Changing subjects, when you look at the Insydium team, I noticed that there were NOT as many software engineers as I would have expected and only 1 engineer dedicated to GPU Architecture.  Here is the breakdown:

 

image.png.091e4ea1585b559ae91cb79055917f4e.png

 

So for 27 employees and 3 main applications (4 if you count Cycles --- but it appears that is being dropped) you only have 6 software engineers, 5 designers and 2 quality engineers.  Is that properly sized?  Honestly, it feels a little lean to me but then again software development is something I know little about.  Also, one of those software "engineers" looks to be Dave O'Reilly's son and while I take nothing away from the contributions of his very talented and intelligent son, he does look a little too young to have a software engineering degree.  But, with that said, I would not be surprised if his son was a genius and graduated college at a very young age.

 

Now, conversely, they have 8 people devoted to web development, marketing, customer support and IT.  So a big focus on license server management and marketing.  Is that also properly sized?  Again, I have no idea......

 

....but....

 

Does this show a strategy where more resources are being devoted to growing and marketing a suite of products under a subscription licensing model rather than expanding the features of those same products?  Now I am NOT saying that Insydium is no longer concerned with feature development.  What I am saying is that, from a revenue perspective, attractive subscription programs yield a higher return so that is where the resources are going.

 

Therefore, is it fair to say that just as Maxon is more concerned with Maxon One than they are with Cinema 4D,  so is Insydium more concerned with Fused than they are with XP?

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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1 hour ago, 3D-Pangel said:

you only have 6 software engineers, 5 designers and 2 quality engineers.  Is that properly sized?

 

This doesn't seem right. TerraForm was an independent plugin bought by Insidium. They were supposed to take all developers from Terraform and put them with the rest of the team. How many developers did each team have before the merge?

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51 minutes ago, 3D-Pangel said:

that person being Franke Willeke who now works for Insydium

 

he seems to have a love/hate relation with Maxon, reading his bio he has been developing a lot of plugins. Some were sold to other companies, one was bought by Maxon itself, later he worked for Maxon but left to work solo again before selling Terraform to Insydium and working for them,... well the pattern of what he will do next is obvious.

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4 hours ago, keppn said:

The elephant in the room regarding landscapes in DCCs are the small tiles. 

 

It still a lot of work to convincingly fake a vast landscape with a cameraview to the horizon.

 

My very first feature wish would be some sort of streaming engine as seen in games. My PS3 was capable of bigger landscapes than my 2022 PC with C4D 😕

 

I am still looking for a theoretical, generalized solution for this issue that could be poured in code at all. (And which doesn't rely on fakes like brackground cards.)

 

If you have only one location (all camera standpoints "close together" relative to the surroundings) then you could work with distance-depending tesselation, simply reducing the detail as it recedes to the background. However, is that compatible with the algorithms that generate the terrain in the first place?

 

If your camera flies across the landscape, at least the areas close to the camera path need to be hi-res, which can lead to extreme poly counts (considering that the distant areas also require a higher mesh resolution than with the first case.

 

You can work with dynamic tiles but you'd still need to blend between hi-res and lo-res tiles in a way that is not visible.

 

The way games work seems to be a dynamic resolution where the landscape is created on the fly by procedural means (maybe with some maps as guides). That too requires hiding the artifacts of increasing/decreasing poly resolution, or keeping the dynamic blendover in the subpixel range.

 

I just don't know what would actually work for a potentially endless terrain. Or if, in praxis, that is even needed.

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9 minutes ago, Cairyn said:

 

I am still looking for a theoretical, generalized solution for this issue that could be poured in code at all. (And which doesn't rely on fakes like brackground cards.)

 

If you have only one location (all camera standpoints "close together" relative to the surroundings) then you could work with distance-depending tesselation, simply reducing the detail as it recedes to the background. However, is that compatible with the algorithms that generate the terrain in the first place?

 

If your camera flies across the landscape, at least the areas close to the camera path need to be hi-res, which can lead to extreme poly counts (considering that the distant areas also require a higher mesh resolution than with the first case.

 

You can work with dynamic tiles but you'd still need to blend between hi-res and lo-res tiles in a way that is not visible.

 

The way games work seems to be a dynamic resolution where the landscape is created on the fly by procedural means (maybe with some maps as guides). That too requires hiding the artifacts of increasing/decreasing poly resolution, or keeping the dynamic blendover in the subpixel range.

 

I just don't know what would actually work for a potentially endless terrain. Or if, in praxis, that is even needed.

I think Vue has that capability and is one of the options in terrain generation.  Here is some detail from their web-site:

 

Quote

Terrains are available in two versions: heightfield, which uses a fixed resolution, and procedural, which adds infinite fractal detail the closer the camera is. Both terrain types can be driven by a node graph, imported greyscale heightmaps, and 2D or 3D hand-sculpted shapes. Mix and match each of these approaches as needed.

 

Now, I have to say that Vue is beginning to become attractive again from a feature perspective.  There is also a big push on Redshift integration, import/export of all elements (including clouds), render optimization and I have always loved their lighting models.

 

The big downside is their subscription model which ONLY comes with the bundling of Vue and Plant Factory.  And personally, I am not too thrilled with Plant Factory.  Honestly, it just seems like too much effort to master to only make a tree.  I would rather just pay less to get Vue and import trees from Forester.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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4 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

I have to say that Vue is beginning to become attractive again from a feature perspective.

 

I think it will soon start to loose ground again to GAEA and World Machine. As far as I know Vue still does not support erosion maps (to export) and still uses a sculpting environment with some elements of procedural terrain generation. The node and presets system GAEA and World Machine support, makes them superior to Vue as far as terrain generation is concerned.

As for Plant Factory I think it's on the same level with SpeedTree.

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6 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

I think Vue has that capability and is one of the options in terrain generation.  Here is some detail from their web-site:

 

 

Now, I have to say that Vue is beginning to become attractive again from a feature perspective.  There is also a big push on Redshift integration, import/export of all elements (including clouds), render optimization and I have always loved their lighting models.

 

The big downside is their subscription model which ONLY comes with the bundling of Vue and Plant Factory.  And personally, I am not too thrilled with Plant Factory.  Honestly, it just seems like too much effort to master to only make a tree.  I would rather just pay less to get Vue and import trees from Forester.

 

Dave

 

Interesting. The wording "infinite" suggests that it is not a polygonal subdivision but some rendertime effect? It'd be interesting to see a camera movement and zoom to judge how seamless the added detail is blended. Of course, the simulation to shape the terrain would still be discrete...

 

On the other hand, I had quite some bad experiences with Vue and C4D some years back, with massive and frequent crashes, and even after I had given up on Vue I heard from others that these issues persisted. Not sure whether I would pick that up again. (Also, only subscription? Then I'd stay away from it anyway.)

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