Trail Map

[markf]

This was an ACAD site plan which included an aerial mapping survey. I stripped all of the schwag out of the site file and imported it into Max. I turned the aerial survey major contour lines into a terrain object. Referencing the underlying ACAD site info, I added the red building footprint and cut in the road. Then I got a satellite photo, painted out the shadows on it and mapped it onto the terrain. I tried to help out the texture stretching on the vertical areas by using Unwrap UVW with relax. My experience with Unwrap UVW is limited and so I'm not sure if I've got as much improvement as possible with it.

 

I'm going to add some line work in Photoshop that will represent the trail system that is going to extend around this resort hotel. The trails are not included in the site file so will be drawn in by hand. There will be some symbols or numbers that reference a simple legend. Things like Trail head and viewpoints and the hotel etc. will be called out.

 

Below are links to the rendered scene and the satellite photo. Any ideas on how I might improve this are much appreciated.

 

http://www.openrangeimaging.com/test-posts/TrailMap01.jpg

http://www.openrangeimaging.com/test-posts/TrailMap_Sat_Photo05.jpg

 

Thanks!

[Clanger]

I think it's looking very good as is but if you want to try something I'd add a little fog to give it some aerial perspective at the moment with the far distance just as saturated as the foreground it looks a bit like a small scale model although there's nothing wrong with looking like a small scale model!

[markf]

Raymond,

 

Thanks for your reply. Those cloud looking things are some volume fog I set up. I think I may go for a more slid, less blotchy, fog and see how that look.

 

Thnaks for your suggestion!

[Clanger]

I think the critical part is getting the far distance more blue and more grey.

[Tommy L]

I think you need a displacement map to add some small, sharp detail shadows. Just on the rocky outcrops, it will help counteract the map stretching out a little on the steep parts.

I think it looks great though.

And Im not sure if you are seeing far enough toward the horizon to have a noticable degradation of color to a blue tone you get with distance.

[markf]

Thank you all for your valuable comments. I'm going to experiment some more with the fog and I'll try making a displacement map that only affects the rocky areas. I'm using Vray, so I'll use the Vray displacement modifier.

 

Client thinks we need to change the view angle to capture more of the trails. I'll see how that goes.

 

Thanks again!

[Tommy L]

Compositionally, it would look much better with a foreground and a distant horizon. But that is throwing 1000% more work in there.

Maybe the camera could be standing on the road, to guide the viewer into the scene?

[Ernest Burden III]

I agree with the comments so far. I would add that when you overlay the hiking trails and lookout points, it might be good to also add topo lines in a light gray multiplied over the ground image. So you end up with a blend of a photographic image and a typical trial map, but in your 3D view.

[markf]

Compositionally, it would look much better with a foreground and a distant horizon. But that is throwing 1000% more work in there.

Maybe the camera could be standing on the road, to guide the viewer into the scene?

 

Tommy - I'm not sure how to create a better foreground. It seems the foreground is what it is, but I'm interested in any ideas you have. I'm going to try incorporating a USGS DEM file of the surrounding area to get a distant horizon. I don't think I can lower the camera and still see all of the trails, that will be more understandable when you see the trail overlay.

 

Ernest - Adding topo lines had been discussed. I'm going to give it a try. The aerial survey contour lines that I used to make the terrain are problematic to work with. I only used the major 10' lines but it's still a very complex and computer resource intensive object. There are a whole lot of lines and they have gaps and are screwy in spots as is typical in my experieince for these kind of survey CAD files. Ideally I would use only every 4th or 5th line as the entire set seems too dense of an overlay.

 

I'll post an update when I get it ready. Thank you all for your helpful comments!

[Ernest Burden III]

The aerial survey contour lines that I used to make the terrain are problematic to work with...

 

They always are. However, to overlay them on the plan-view photo you can open the lines in CAD and print to PDF with a large papersize. Then open this in Photoshop and you will get a raster image that can be re-sized to overlay on the ground photo. Just be sure you have some identifying marks that will allow an accurate placement.

 

Then, there's another way: Set a new material to go on top of your ground object, with the projection being 'flat' from one side--like an elevation. Put a repeating line shader on it, sized so that the spacing is something you want like one foot, ten feet, whatever. Make sure the origin of the material mapping is set at an even foot height (meaning a line meant to hit at the 1000' point actually does). Now you have topo lines on the surface, generated by the ups and downs of your surface mesh. Any flat areas will stretch the lines, so you may want to render a plan view and use spline drawing in Illustrator or Photoshop to trace them, then add to the ground photo as a multiply layer.

[markf]

I did some more work on the Trail Map.

 

I tried using displacement modifier. To make a displacement map I tried painting with a rough edge brush on a layer over the base map. I also tried de-saturating and brightness contrast on the base map. Neither seemed to have very much effect except to significantly increase render times. Perhaps I wasn't creating a good enough map, but I gave up on it.

 

I tried merging in a DEM file of the surrounding terrain. I'm not sure why, but the DEM seemed to be so far away from the rest of the stuff that I could not get it to even appear in a viewport with all the other objects. I moved all of the existing objects and lights and camera and etc to a point very near 0,0,0. then I used the transform type in to move the DEM to 0,0,0. Still could not see the DEM and the other objects together. Weird and kind of a frustrating time sink.

 

I ended up using a plane to represent the distant terrain. I used a noise modifier and some bump. Then I painted a bit on the sat photo that I'm using on the Terrain and mapped that to the plane. Messed around with Max fog for quite a while and you can see the result below.

 

Also I included a version with topo lines. I opened the aerial mapping 10' contour Max file that I made the terrain out. In the front view I deleted 3 out of every 4 lines to make a 40' interval contour. I merged this into my scene. I gave the contour lines a thickness (pretty thick like 3') and assigned a Vray light material. Turned off cast shadows. I saved the terrain and contours as a separate file. Used Vray properties to make the terrain a matte object. This allowed me to render just the contour lines. The terrain with the matte property kept the rendering from showing the lines that should be hidden behind the various terrain. Applied the rendered contours as a layer in Photoshop. After all that I don't think I like the added contours. Had to try it to know (can I charge for that time?).

 

Overlaid trails in Photoshop

 

http://www.openrangeimaging.com/test-posts/TrailMap02.jpg

http://www.openrangeimaging.com/test-posts/TrailMap02_contours.jpg

 

Hope this isn't too long of post. Thnaks to all who have commented. Any other comments much appreciated.

Edited July 15, 2009 by markf

[Cynthia Hansen]

Hi Mark, definitely looking better but I noticed some things that to me seem to make it not working as well as it could be. I've attached a rough revision for you to view as sometimes I think it's easier to show it in a pic. I know you were trying to get some distance with the fog but it's still looking like a model to me. Part of the issue is that in the real world, distance doesn't just cause things to seem faded but also changes the hue (spectrum) and this needs to be carried into the sky as well as the land. I think you might be better off playing with those aspects in photoshop with a sky map and some gradients as I did here. ( I apologize for tweaking your pic if you don't like that sort of thing).

[markf]

Sweet! I'm definately going to incorporate something like that. I was using a vray sun and skysystem for the first time and so left off the Photoshop work on a sky. Client is asking for some other stuff to be incorporated and I will make a better sly whith the next version.

 

Thanks!

[Cynthia Hansen]

You're welcome! Look forward to the revision.