For those of you interested in creating a very nice scenic background for any graphic or web use whatsoever, but do not have the time or equipment to take beautiful pictures, you should check out Terragen.

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

I came across it when I was looking for a background picture to a tetris game I was making. The results are amazing in my opinion, they look like real photos. The process is simple, but the interface is a little complicated; however there are guides out there.

- First, generate a random landscape
- Second, apply a texture to it
- Third, shape the landscape if you'd like
- Fourth, set the camera position, angle, etc.
- Last, render the image.

Try it out, even just for fun if you are bored and have the harddrive space for it. You can create some great looking pictures.

Terragen .9.x is a great application either free or for the low cost of $70. Terragen 2 is looking real impressive with it's ablities and I can't wait for the application to come out of ALpha testing. (Some of its new core was used to create the planets in Star Trek: Nemesis.

Still I just don't hope it comes in at the price tag of several hundred dollars...

I do a lot of 3d modeling and animation using Blender3D. Terragen is a very useful tool in the 3d community. What I've seen most people use terragen for, though, is not necessarily use it for an animation or model, but to use it for generating random terrain for a game they develop using Blender's built-in game engine. It's a very handy tool to be added to one's arsenal if you ever think about getting into 3d modeling.

This just came to mind, but you might be interested in the free Caustic Generator app. http://www.lysator.liu.se/~kand/caustics/
Window's only at the moment, but I'm hoping someone will do a Linux or Mac port. It can be great for making animated caustic textures for any sort of underwater animation.