World Construction Set
The background was rendered in this 3D terrain program. Landscapes contain huge amounts of data that you often need a separate program specialized to deal with. WCS can import and export Lightwave format. Early on in the project, I exported the Lightwave scene to WCS, so that the camera view matches exactly. Then I created a landscape to fit the view that I had. This took a lot of back and forth and trial and error. This is the terrain viewed from the top.
Comments:
The pond and the hills in the background were imported from Leveller. WCS has some great features speacialized for rendering terrains, like using images to populate the orchard and corn field. It even lets you see those images in your 3D view before rendering.
This project took a lot of back and forth between Leveller and WCS to get the hills to look just right from the view we had chosen. More ideally, you could do it all in one program, but it works well, just takes a lot of trial and error.