Terragen Climate simulates a planet's atmosphere
Within Terragen 4, the Climate module functions as a dedicated engine for creating complete planetary atmospheres. Instead of modeling each sky element separately, this system processes global climate variables to automatically produce physically credible results. 🪐
Control the weather with high-level parameters
The core of Climate allows manipulation of fundamental atmospheric factors. The artist doesn't design individual clouds, but defines general conditions that the engine interprets and relates to generate a unified scene.
Key parameters you can adjust:- Cloud type and coverage: Defines the density and morphology of cloud formations.
- Air turbidity and humidity: Controls atmospheric clarity and water vapor amount.
- Wind direction and strength: Determines how clouds move and deform, affecting shadows on the ground.
The engine relates the parameters to produce physically credible results. When modifying the wind, the clouds move consistently.
Achieve visual coherence throughout the scene
The main advantage of this approach is integral coherence. The lighting, shadows cast by the clouds, and light scattering respond to the same set of initial conditions. This eliminates the task of manually balancing dozens of separate values so that the sky and terrain appear to belong to the same world.
Advantages of automatic coherence:- Unified lighting: Sunlight and atmospheric fog are calculated based on the same climate data.
- Rapid experimentation: Allows testing extreme or subtle climates with just a few main controls.
- Terrain integration: The generated atmosphere adapts and responds automatically to the landscape's geography.
Considerations when using the automatic system
Although the system saves a lot of time, its automatic nature can generate unexpected results. Sometimes, it can create a sky so perfectly dramatic that a complex terrain looks like a model. Coherence has a price, and sometimes it translates into a surprise, like an apocalyptic desert with an idyllic sunset because a key parameter wasn't locked. It's crucial to understand how the controls interact to direct the outcome and not just rely on automatic generation. 🌤️