Mountain creation

Jonas Ronnegard

So i have been tasked with making quite a big mountain terrain, a bit grand canyon like.
but I only got 5 days to do it. what would be the best way to go about this?

any good software or auto generation plugin that i can use? would be nice to get a good base then i can do the rest in zbrush

rube

Terragen might be a good place to start looking. It has a free version that might get you to a good enough starting place to continue in zbrush.

leleuxart

The last I saw of Terragen, it didn't export out the terrain. You could import OBJs and heightmaps from various resources, but most people used World Machine back then. For games, I think it's still the go-to program. The free version has a limit on terrain size, but you can generate the terrain based on macros and do a basic texture pass, then export them out.

If you need help with this method, search on Youtube for 'Wenda terrain'. They're very good tutorials for the process of creating a terrain and importing it into UDK and CE3.

bac9-flcl

I'd recommend Terragen coupled with a sculpting app (Mudbox, Zbrush or other, your choice). Seconding the recommendation about tutorials by wenda111287 (Amir), he did a brilliant series on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/user/wenda111287

Eric Chadwick

We have some resources here
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentTerrain

Oh, and wenda/amir = choco