3das.com Site Tutorial Question

[architectgraphics]

Hello everybody

I am new to this website and it is my first post so please accept my apologies if I am asking a dumb question. Anyways, my question is I read a tutorial from 3das entitled "Creating Site Plans". In that tutorial, towards the end, they showed how you can apply a terrain compound and split the road and detach it so it follows the contours. But they also said you can detach a spline from the road and apply a loft to create the curbs. This part was not explained very well for me, if anyone can help I would really appreciat it. The tutorial is on their website but I am not allowed to post it here. Thanks for your help.

mazda:p

[architectgraphics]

Thanks for replying and helping. This is the tutorial from 3das.

1. Reset 3ds Max.

2. Import the AutoCAD drawing ContourLines.dwg, ensuring that objects on the same

layer are not grouped together.

3. While referencing the elevation notes in the AutoCAD drawing, carefully move each line

to its proper elevation. This process can quickly get confusing and I recommend

assigning colors to lines you have already moved so that you know which ones still have

to be moved. This process can not be rushed and should take at least 5 minutes.

If you want to start from the 3ds Max scene with the linework already in place, open the file

Contour_Lines.max.

4. After checking to ensure that each line is in place, attach one contour line to all the other

lines, ensuring that the road line is not part of the attachment. The result should be a

single object comprising all of the contour lines.

5. With the contour lines selected, select Create > Geometry > Compound Objects >

Terrain. The lines are transformed into a 3D mesh.

6. In the Simplification rollout, select Interpolate Point * 2.

7. Select the road spline.

8. Extrude the spline 500 feet.

9. Move the road object down 200 feet so that it completely intersects the terrain object, as

described earlier in this tutorial.

10. Select the terrain object.

11. Select Compound Objects > Boolean > Cut > Split.

12. Click the Pick Operand button.

13. Click on the road object in any viewport.

14. Add the Edit Mesh modifier.

15. Go to Face subobject level and detach the road faces from the terrain object.

16. Select the road object and give it a different color from the terrain.

17. To see the completed scene, open the file Contour_Lines2.max.

Once you separate the road object, you can create a spline from the edges of the road, and use

the linework to create a loft representing curbs. You can also delete the road you just detached

and loft a new road in its place from this same linework. The benefit of this would be that you

could use the advanced mapping that lofts give you and place a nice map of a road on the loft

and have the road lines perfectly follow the path of the loft. I just dont understand the last part about create spline from edges of road. I hope someone from 3das replies to this as they promised they would.

[Brian Smith]

not sure where we promised we would help with this. nevertheless, all you need to do is select the road, enter segment suboject mode, click 'Select Open Edges', click 'Create Shape', choose 'Linear' option, and a shape is created that follows the road's outer edges. You can loft along this shape to create curbs. If you want to clean up this shape a little, you can add the Normalize Spline modifier first.

[architectgraphics]

Thank you for your help Brian. First of all, I would like to say, that I have watched your Modules on Architectural Visualizations and Vray and I must say that you are the best teacher I have come across in teaching 3d solutions. I really admire your work and knowledge. I am not trying to say these things to be funny or anything, I really mean them. I also have your book on 3d max. I am very happy to have you answer my question and help me. I hope that one day I can become as good as you are in 3d architectural visuals. Thanks so much for your help and teaching us learn and please continue to give us your tips and tricks, they are very helpful especially for me. The other thing I would like to clarify is that I am sorry if what I said implied any harshness about 3das promising they would. I simply meant that I first emailed my question directly to 3das but I recieved an email stating that i should post my question on cgarchitect so that others can also see and maybe learn. But since I did not hear anything from 3das, I simply meant that I hope that they can help because of the email I recieved from them. I am sorry Brian, if what I said came out rude or directive. Thanks again for your help and others who helped my question.

[Brian Smith]

I'm in Dubai this week so I haven't been looking on the forums too much or checking email, but I suspect that what the person meant when they said go to CGarchitect is our private forum on CGA. Since you bought the book, you have access to the private forum at http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/183-3dats/

 

You will need the password which you can find by going to the books' webpage which is listed several places in the book, such as the 2nd page, the intro, etc. Had you posted the question there, someone would have received an email and known that you had asked. It's not like we check the public CGA forums everyday, so there's no way we would have known.