Terragen has been used to create visual effects for many films including The Golden Compass and The Wicker Man, dozens of games and countless TV commercials, but some of the most inspiring creations come from people who use it for fun. You can even download a free non-commercial edition Terragen 2 for personal use, with only a few limitations. *Very* affordable licences are available for Terragen 2, so in our opinion, there's really no point bothering about the free edition for long.

Read on to see why.

Terragen™ 2 is a powerful solution for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. Create entire worlds from your imagination, or import real world terrain datasets and use Terragen 2 to create the most realistic visualisations possible. You control the weather, landscape, rivers, lakes and oceans, suns, moons and stars. With Terragen 2 you have complete control over the shader networks used for terrains, textures, micropolyon displacements, clouds and object distributions. You can reorganise the planetary shading pipeline to suit your goals. Place grass and trees wherever you want, as well as other objects in OBJ format that you can model in third party software.

High quality presets are available here at NWDA, saving you long hours of constructing complex scene elements. Combined with Terragen 2 in your production pipeline, our presets help you meet your goals on time. In the end, who has time to waste?

Terragen has a sophisticated film- and broadcast-quality renderer and procedural modelling tools designed so that you can create the most realistic images possible without taking a photograph. Nor is it a general-purpose 3D program designed to render everything. We have dedicated more than a decade to specialising in algorithms that simulate skies, outdoor lighting, terrain textures, and to render extremely large and detailed terrains. Terragen 2 puts those algorithms in your control. When you need CG environments that don't look CG, Terragen 2 will help you get there. If you want to go beyond reality, Terragen 2 is a toolbox with infinite possibilities.

Terragen 2 makes this possible with the following features and benefits:

• Hybrid micropolygon renderer optimised for large displacements and very large landscapes.
• Render entire planets, sweeping vistas, tiny rock gardens, or anything in between.
• Export high resolution objects from displaced surfaces.
• Import 3D objects for rendering.
• Render millions of plants and other objects using instancing. Billions of virtual polygons are handled with ease.
• Add multiple heightfields, textures and displacement maps to your scene.
• Georeferencing options; automatic georeferencing for properly formatted GeoTIFF files.
• Procedural terrains that can span an entire planet.
• Apply almost "infinite" fractal detail to terrain and other objects.
• Overhanging terrain using procedural displacements, image-based displacements, or imported geometry.

Still not convinced? Then read on...

• 3D painting of colours and masks that can control almost anything in the scene.
• Photorealistic atmosphere and sunlight.
• Volumetric clouds or fast "2.5D" clouds.
• Global illumination, multiple scattering in volumetrics, full light interaction between volumetrics and surfaces.
• Production quality anti-aliasing and motion blur that renders quickly and efficiently.
• High dynamic range output; generate photorealistic environment maps and IBL sources.
• Node graph editor for ultimate control over shaders and textures.
• Flexible planetary shading pipeline.
• Animation of almost any parameter with the optional Animation module.

With the optional Animation module, Terragen 2 becomes a virtual movie camera. Almost every parameter in a Terragen 2 project can be animated over time, not just the camera. This can be used to render dramatic fly-throughs, time-lapse effects and more.

At the heart of Terragen 2 is an advanced hybrid micropolygon renderer. It is capable of rendering surfaces with extreme procedural displacement and produces images and animations with production quality anti-aliasing and motion blur. Motion blur requires the Animation Module or a pre-purchased license for the Animation Module Procedural or image-based shaders can build complex surfaces from simple objects, relying on the renderer's adaptive subdivision algorithms to dynamically adjust to extreme stretching and creasing.

Terragen 2 blurs the distinction between geometry and displacement that is common in most high end production renderers, making it an ideal solution for highly complex natural objects such as terrain. While the emphasis is on rendering procedural surfaces with extremely high detail, image-based textures and imported geometry are also supported, and the resulting surfaces can be exported at various resolutions in popular 3D object formats. Billions of polygons can be rendered through the use of instancing. Import objects and certain types of built-in objects can be instanced using the population tools.

The renderer is multi-threaded to take advantage of multi-core and multi-processor computers. Terragen 2 Deep Edition can be executed from a command line and is designed to render in network rendering environments using third party network render managers.

High dynamic range colour space is used throughout the renderer - Terragen 2 can easily handle even very bright pixels! Output image formats include EXR, BMP, TIF, SGI RGB.

Terragen 2 pricing is a complete bargain for professional 3D artists and studios. Currently at 299 USD for Terragen 2 without animation module, and 399 USD with the animation module. See current prices here. Now you see why we at NWDA believe it's not worth tinkering with the limited free version, and instead get started with the full version straight away, leveraging Terragen's full power.

Here's a personal note from NWDA on the subject: with Terragen 2, the value / $ ratio is simply and truly unmatched. Go get it.