I want to make wallpapers!

Bryce and Vue d'esprit are the two most used for that type of render as far as I know.. be prepared for a steep learning curve though and won't hurt to have a box with plenty of memory and a fast processor \ vid card...although not neccesary.

WWW Link I've seen Vue Infinite mentioned.....could you check this out ....

WWW Link demos & tutorials

looking forward to seeing what you come up with Philly......

I actually fooled around with vue for a while.. was kinda fun, just not my bag.. however for what your talking about maybe right up your alley.

Good luck bro.  

Wow, just looking at that software made my head sweat. I think I'll try the web search and see what I can come up with.   

Terragen and Genesis are in my opinion the oldest yet easiest landscape and topographical apps on the market. Straight forward and fairly simple to get the hang of. There are freeware versions of both. Most of the landscapes you see in my images have been done in Terragen    

Thanks for the suggestions MountainHawk. I'll take a look at them.   

The best advice on learning I can give is to let yourself go and just play with them and have fun. The more you play the more you learn. Do not be scared of them.....give them stink and take no prisoners....lol  

The truth is though . . it's not the tools; it's teh artist.
Having said that, good tools can help make art easier . . but the best tools can't make an artist that doesn't underdtand light and color and balance, etc. good.  ;D

Well said!  

Beware the 'wow...look at this' - factor which is an issue with 'image generators'.

Ninetynine point nine times out of a hundred what you suddenly discover 'you can do' with such proggies as Bryce and Terragen, etc. has been 'done to death' by countless thousands before.

That chrome torus floating above a rippled water foreground with dolphins rampant over palm trees is actually less rare than rocking-horse poo ...by a long shot....;)

There are sites/examples on the net of amazing results achieved with that lowly MSPaint.....where it is definitely the talent of the artist and NOT the program used.

Think....

1. Experimentation

2. Practise

and

3. MORE practise.

Doing your 'own thing' is what it's all about.  Don't expect the proggy to do it ALL for you.  It won't.

Main thing is to 'JUST HAVE FUN' ....;)

It will if you want a chrome torus floating above a rippled water foreground with dolphins rampant over palm trees.

  

Appreciate the input Jafo. One thing I have is an enormous amount of time.  

In another life, when I was very young, I wanted to be an artist, my father even forked out money for lessons. Unfortunately there wasn't much support after that. I than grew up and found other interests. Doh! So hopefully some talent is left inside my brain!  

I really think this is something I want to try and see what happens.

Hey Zubaz appreciate your reply also.   

Hey MountainHawk you have to know what I got when I search Genesis, a rock (which I grew up on) and the Bible! You wouldn't happen to have a link would you?  

"Practice"?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/practise 

Dagnabit!

Philly, a good tip . . if the softwaer can do it for you . . don't do it. 

  

I look forward to what you can accomplish Philly

Zu ...in the 'real world' of English speakers....we differentiate between 'practice' the noun and 'practise' the verb ...;)

Okay folks I've downloaded Terragen. Now I have to go and get the Users Guide, kind of lost without it. Terragen doesn't look like it's set up with an included help program/menu.

My first impression is, oops, what have I gotten myself into. I'm not in any kind of rush here so I'm going to do this by the tried and true military method, by the numbers. One step at a time, complete it and move on to the next step. Hopefully the quide will walk me through the process in that manner.

At the moment I can't imagine how anyone every manages to take the first step in trying something like this. Atleast the price of the software was good, free.  :NOTSURE: 

Genesis is available from geomantics.com. Terragen homepage has all the info you need plus resource links!    

I suggest you try Vue. It is the best landscape generating software and has software version for both pros and beginners. Here is another link in addition to the one provided in a previous post :http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/

There are many forums and tuts available also at the site if you want to learn in a step by step fashion.

Be sure that your hardware satisfies the requirements as mentioned earlier.

Well I killed a small tree downloading the users quide and a tutorial for Terragen. Just what was I thinking!!   I want to make wallpapers, yeah.

My appreciation for what you folks do out there with skinning has increased greatly.

Thanks again to everyone that has left a reply. I have either gone to or will go to the links provided. I'm going to take another look at Vue. I got scared off when I first went there.

Maybe I should just stick to customizing my desktop....................nah.  

Biggest wall to get over when first starting Philly is the intimidation one.. just whack it aside with a nice chunk of motivation and desire   

Appreciate the words of encouragement vStyler.    I seem to work better when I stick my tongue out.