This is an article about how to model terrain landscape,hope you like it.
Main thread of modeling terrain landscape
Facing a terrain project,where should we begin ? Although it is a puzzling question, there is one thing we can confirm :all works of terrain modeling are base on a net of roads.If a part of road is modified,all things connected with that road will have to be adjusted.For example,if you first make the curbs of a road and then change the elevation of the road,previous work will be wasted.So,the most logical principles should be :First build a road as accuratly as possible ,then think about how to add new faces to connect the between road and the terrain.
In general,three issues are focused by 3D modeling artists:good topology,the presentation of slopes and rolling roads , the connecting if the road with the terrain.
First of all,we talk about the question paid most attention to by 3D modeling artists :how to connect the road and terrain
In this article,Plugin mentioned is TerrainAxe
1 The connection of roads and terrains
There are two main ways to connect roads and terrains:
1.For terrain that already exists,such as a terrain built from contour lines or DEM data,you can first delete the faces covered by the roads,then stitch their boundary together
This task can be usually done by creating a big polygon with its borders,then using StitchVerts to cut the new polygon to get reasonable topology.StitchVerts is the most efficient way to connect vertices,as it can quickly stitch different polygons together.If you are using the Lite version ,advConnectVts is an alternative.
Use StitchVerts connect roads and terrains
2.For those areas enclosed or semi-enclosed by roads,maybe the original terrain is missing or un-useful,new terrain need to be re-created. Thus you can cap these areas to create a new polygon,then use Slice to cut and get grid-like topology,then relax them or paint desired appearance with 3dsmax’s brush tools
Create terrain with Slice
the way is also suit for first situation.If you don’t like the topology created with contour lines,you can use MoveVerts to conform vertices of the grid-like faces to original terrain.So,you need not to stitch them.
Use MoveVerts re-construct terrain
2 Topologizing
To express sloped landscape and ups ans downs of road, topologizing or re-topologizing is necessary.There are some requirements for topologizing:A road should be made up of continuous quad polygons as much as possible,as shown below in left picture;Some ground pavement need some cutting operations to make the polygon topology more reasonable;Narrow and long triangles should be avoided as much as possible. The more reasonable topology, the better the effect at render time, as shown below in the right picture.
( to be continued)
