Paint lines on top of terrain (make road)

[Jon Berntsen]

Hi dudes and dudettes!

 

I'm looking for the best way to create nice roads following the terrain in max.

Anyone know of anything?

 

I actually heard that there is a plugin that enables me to draw lines on top of a terrain, and makes it follow the height, but I can't find anything on the net.

[postite]

Hi,

 

There is a tool in max that merge a spline into a mesh: Shape Merge.

 

1/ Draw your splines in top view

2/ Select your mesh

3/ Create/ Compound object/ ShapeMerge

4/ Click the "Pick shape" button

 

There is also a free script called "Glue" that project spline to a mesh:

 

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/scripted-glue

 

 

Hope it helps

Edited March 1, 2011 by postite

[dande]

If you are using Max design 2011 and are on subscription have a look at the civil extension. It allows you to easily create roads from splines. As postite said have a look at the glue plugin from itosoftware. It slao available from http://www.itoosoft.com/freeplugins/glue.php.

 

You can draw the splines use glue to place them on your terrain and then use the civil extension to create the roads & road markings

[Jonathan Chambers]

maybe this is it....

http://www.itoosoft.com/freeplugins/glue.php

[Jon Berntsen]

Thanks!

 

Tho, I was hoping for an easy solution for cutting away terrain and adding slopes as well, but I guess I have to use modelling for that. I have also looked into the conform function under compound, but somehow I was not comfortable using that.

 

I will try the Glue plugin. Btw these Itoo guys has some other interesting stuff too.

 

For other interested people reading this thread about roads through terrain, I found this tut interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YBIK6Kbjaw. There's an ocean of plugins and script doing this and that, but what I'm looking for is a road plugin or script that does what it should do, and not one thousand other things.

[sdds]

Hi John, personally Im fond of imprinting shapes into a mesh with probolean. seems to be the most accurate way to deal with it. when it comes to sorting out complex levels you will find it easier to poly model them in a fill in the gaps fashion.