Terranim8or v5.3                

What is Terranim8or?

Terranim8or is intended to be an extension of Anim8or for terrain generation and different effects. 
Terrain generation and animation program: 
It allows a controllable-random generation of terrain, mountains, ocean and clouds, as single meshes or sequences, directly in Anim8or file format. A sequence is a series of meshes where each member differs slightly from the previous one. This makes possible a frame-by-frame animation with substitution. The user is released from doing that tedious job, Terranim8or generating the .an8 file with the animated scene optionally included.
As an option, the program generates cycles, i.e. closed sequences for looping animations without repeating frames and continuous transition between the last and the first frame. Terranim8or can generate sequences with the patterns moving also in space, handy when animating running water or clouds. There is an option for repeating the sequences in animation. The terrain is almost seamlessly tileable, helping the creation of large-scale scenery with high level of detail. 
Terranim8or uses an own implementation of Ken PerlinÆs fractal noise algorithm. Accordingly, the meshes are random-generated, the user being in control over the main characteristics of the generated terrain.
For any specific terrain shape, there is a ôdesign modeö, allowing a rough modeling of the mesh. Terranim8or does the rest of the job, smoothing and superimposing a random displacement.  
Special effects:
An animated Material Editor makes possible the simulation of animated materials for terrains, backgrounds and imported Anim8or objects. Every parameter is animatable: factors, percents, textures (as image sequences). 
Terranim8or can perform morphing, interpolating between two imported key objects. Morphing can be combined with animated materials.
Imported Anim8or objects (not parametric ones) can be distorted with the a "noise modifier".
Terranim8or generates also simple particle effects (stars, rain, snowfall) and animated backgrounds to be included into Anim8or projects.

Using the program

The menu commands are the usual for Windows, excepting the program-specific ones. Terrain contains the sub-menus Design and Build. The Build menu brings up the Terrain Editor window, where you set the parameters and generate the terrain. The result is visible as a wire frame. Usually you have to do a few generations (adjusting the parameters) to obtain the desired pattern.

If you arenÆt satisfied with the random-generated shapes, access the Design sub-menu to block-model the terrain. With the left mouse button drag-select an area, with the right button drag up, or down the selected area. Repeat until you get the desired rough shape. Now, do Terrain->Build again and Terranim8or will cover the rough shape with a smooth skin with random displacement. The Design sub-menu performs its action on the currently selected terrain. Switching back, the Build sub-menu will process again and again the last designed terrain until a new design, or a Clear All command. This behavior allows combining different terrain types in one terrain, for example: make a low level Regular terrain (see below the terrain types), switch to Design, do nothing and switch back to Build! Now the shape is established; change the type to Fractal and cover the terrain with small bumps (levels = -3, see below the meaning of the parameters).

The Edit menu is available in Design mode. Clear All flattens the terrain.

Load Terrain from File menu loads an existing terrain file for further modification. This command expects a Terranim8or v3.0+ generated terrain, otherwise fails!

When you are contented with the terrain, save it as Anim8or file. By default, Terranim8or assigns a global (file) material, named "Terrain", to each object of a sequence. It is also possible to apply animated materials on terrains with Apply Animated Material submenu. This comes handy for making oceans, where a different bump map for each frame is necessary. For low polygon count models (16x16, 32x32), it is a good idea to apply subdivision. Unwanted creases can be eliminated  also by setting the smooth angle to a higher  value, 65 - 100. The options for "subdivision" and "smooth angle" are included in Terranim8or to avoid doing that in Anim8or tens of times for long sequences.

Object menu allows importing, applying animated materials or noise modifier, performing morphing and exporting of Anim8or objects. First, export the desired object from Anim8or in .an8 format, then import it in Terranim8or. If importing from an Anim8or project file containing more objects, by default Terranim8or will import the first one. Only single objects are allowed (meshes, subdivisions, or parametric objects). If a composite object (more distinct components, or groups) is tried to be imported, only the first component object will receive the animated material. A successful importing is announced by a message and relevant submenus become enabled. Further importing replaces the previous object. The imported object is not displayed in Terranim8or's workspace. In order to do morphing, first import the start object. Now you can apply animated material (optionally). Then use Morph object... submenu specifying the target object, start/end frames for the animation and the file for saving the morphing project (may be an existing Anim8or file, or a new one). Very important: the target object must have the same number of vertices as the start object for a correct operation and should be derived from the start object! 

Add To Project menu allows inserting in an Anim8or file (new, or already existing) of animated background, (animated) terrain, a previously imported object, rain or snowing animation. If adding several times in the same Anim8or project file, it's the user's responsibility to assign unique names for the inserted objects (different from the already existing names in the file). 

For changing the default position and orientation of the objects in a frame-by-frame animation (animated terrain, or animated background), in scene mode drag-select all the objects of a sequence in wire frame view and reposition them as you like. You can do that only in wire frame view, when Anim8or displays all the objects even if they are key-framed as non visible in that specific frame!

Terrain Editor parameters

• Terrain Size radio button group selects the size (vertices along a side) of the generated terrain
• Terrain Type group sets the surface's displacement type. Regular spreads equally sized bumps over the terrain. Fractal combines several levels of detail. Turbulent is also fractal, but has discontinuities in gradient. At low resolutions (low terrain sizes) the difference between Fractal and Turbulent isn't noticeable.
• Terrain Generation group controls the way successive terrain patterns are obtained. 
  Random - each time will be obtained a new pattern. Use this until you are contented with the pattern.
  Same As Previous - repeats the previous pattern with the present parameters. Use this if you are contented with the overall shape and you want to fine-tune the surface.
  Seeded - allows you to enter a seed value for the random number generator to obtain a specific pattern. Each terrain pattern has an associated seed value, so you can re-obtain a shape if you know its seed. The seed is an integer between 0 and 4,294,967,295.
• Height sets the vertical extension of the terrain (but is neither the average height, nor the vertical distance between the highest and lowest points). Range:0 to 10,000
• Smoothness sets how smooth or creased are the peaks of the surface. Range: 0 to 1. The value 0  means no smoothing at all.
• Step sets the step between successive levels of detail, beginning with the overall shape, down to the point level. Range: 1 to 3. Low values give rocky surfaces, high values produce smooth terrain. Regular type ignores this parameter.
• Levels -For Fractal and Turbulent types, sets the number of levels of detail. The range of entered values is ▒1 à 8, but the maximum value is applicable only for the largest terrain. For 64x64 the effective maximum number of levels is 7, and so on. The program will do only the maximum possible levels even if the user enters a higher value. A negative value means the specified number of levels is added beginning with the smallest one, otherwise with the largest level. Ex: Let's say (metaphorically) the levels of detail are: mountain, hill, hillock, ... , rock, pebble, sand. Now, levels = 3 means the terrain will be composed of mountain, hills and hillocks. For levels = -2 the terrain will have pebbles and sand. For a Regular terrain, this parameter sets the size of the bumps (low value - large bumps, high value - small size bumps).
• Iterations - number of iterations. Increasing it, the pattern becomes richer and rougher. Range: 1 to 100.

File Output options

Starry Background Editor settings

Precipitation Editor settings

Animated Material Editor settings