contoured site

[mike_sul]

Hi guys ..

 

I am working on a resort project ( 4.6 acres ) which has a lot of contours as well as structure & terracing .. on it .. I was wondering how I could achieve accurate flowing landscape as per contours with proper abuutings against terraces and pathways and roads etc. I personally do not approve the terrain tool, which though cool, is not accurate and clean enough for my purpose. pls go wild on this and let us come up with some solution that all of us can benefit from. adios

 

P.S. : Well. I currently use 3dsmax.. and we dont need to restrict our discussion to it .. any solution any software any technique that can help.. lets do some lateral thinking .. i am sure we can get a nice technique that will make this job smooth as butter .. He he

 

[ August 24, 2003, 08:25 AM: Message edited by: mike_sul ]

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

i am not verse in 3dmax yet, but formz has a great tool for generating terrain. you draw your contours, then you can either set them to their proper height, or tell the tool to stagger them every 1', 5' or whatever you need for your site. it gives you the option to generate a stepped mass model, a triangulated model, or a smooth mesh. i have always had good luck using it. to make water, you just insert a plane where the terrain dips down. the model is solid object, so it can be chopped up for inserting roads, sidewalks, and buildings.

 

the only problem i run into is the difficulty in modifying the site contours at a later date. more than likely i would end up rebuilding the site, so that can be time consuming. whenever i create a set of contours, i always position them to the height i want, then save a copy either on a separate layer, or in a separate model. just in case.

[mike_sul]

homeless: thats a gr8 idea .. but obviously in a production environment, the client may come up with changes also .. and as professionals we should be able to cater to their needs .. i think we should find a technique that will create a clean uniform mesh which can be easily edited parametrically or at a mesh level ..

 

the search goes on ..