Just want to share:
I ran over
World Machine. It's free (for non commercial, commercial goes for $40) and fun to play with.
Heightmap generation works somewhat like the renderpipeline in XSI.
Have fun
Jake
That looks very good :D
I think I'll give it a whirl some day.
Yup, very good. I bought it a few years ago,... makes some pretty awesome heightmaps, especially the erosion effects.
The pictures they have posted do look really great. How would you say it compares with Terragen or Mojo World?
WorldMachine has only terrain, no water - but the real-time fly-mode is cool and fast! Terragen has water but no plants. MojoWorld can at least import models. And don't forget Vue D'Espirit if you're after nice world generators:
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/ worldmachine does not really compete with terragen, it works with it.
I use WM to create highly detailed heightmaps with special masks for erosion or whatever, and then take all that back into terragen or 3ds Max for rendering
Thanks Mustang and Pongo.
World Machine sounds interesting enough that I think I'll download it and give it a whirl. (I'm trying to cut down on the amount of programs I download and install for the sake of my operating system :) )