I Built a Free AI Tool that Automates Terragen (One Click 3D)

Let’s be honest: classic 3D applications like Terragen, Vue, or PlantFactory are incredibly powerful (Terragen was used for Ender’s Game!), but they are slowly fading out because learning the node networks takes forever compared to typing a prompt into an AI generator.
But what if we didn't have to choose?
In this video, I’m sharing a custom Python tool I built over the weekend that connects Google’s Gemini AI directly to Terragen. The concept is simple but powerful: you feed the app a single reference photo, and the AI analyzes it to automatically generate the heightfields, textures, clouds, lighting, and sun position inside Terragen.

It’s about taking that "AI boost" and using it to drive professional-grade 3D software. The best part? Everything I show here is 100% free to use, from the software to the code.

📂 Download the Project Files & Code: https://github.com/GeekatplayStudio/a...

🔗 Links Mentioned:

Download Terragen (Free Version): https://planetside.co.uk/

Google AI Studio (Get API Key): https://aistudio.google.com/

Upcoming Live 3D/AI Course (Jan 2026): https://digital-art-live.mn.co/plans/...

👇 What’s in this video: We are going to walk through how to set up the Python environment, get your free API keys, and run the interface. I'll show you how the script takes a standard 2D image, hallucinates the 3D terrain data, and pushes JSON data straight into Terragen to build a scene in seconds.

00:00 - Why are we letting powerful 3D apps die?
01:21 - Getting the tools (Terragen & Free Code)
02:28 - The Python Project & API Setup
03:30 - Why use Google API vs Local LLMs
05:00 - The Interface: Generating Terrain from a Photo
6:50 - Creating Highfields & Textures with AI
8:50 - Automating Atmosphere, Clouds & Lighting
12:00 - The Result: Sending Data to Terragen
14:45 - The Future: Generating 3D Buildings & Objects

🚀 The Future Roadmap: This is just version 0.1. I'm planning to integrate object generation (like houses or windmills) using APIs like Tripo or Meshy so we can populate the scenes automatically. If you have ideas on what features I should add next, drop a comment below!

#Terragen #3DEnvironment #Python #GenerativeAI #GameDev #VFX #GoogleGemini #3DModeling
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