Terrain is driving me crazy!

[chrisclocher]

I have been using Max 5.1 for about a year now, so I consider myself a novice. That was until I tryed the Terrain command. I printed out Max's Help about Terrain (which is usually good) but I am still confused. I tried practicing on a "simple" (3 grade changes) topo but cant get the thing to slope, it always remains flat. I dont really understand the operands aspect. I know I am missing a step somewhere, but I am getting realyy frustrated. Does anyone know if there is there a site or previous post that could help me? I cant find anything.

[Brian Cassil]

I remember a pretty lengthy thread that covered the basics of terrain's in max quite a while ago so it may no longer be accessable. Anyway, here's the basic workflow:

 

draw contours - This could be done by taking the lines from a cad drawing, tracing them from a sketched site/topo plan or however you want. The only thing that really matters is that by the time you get them into max, they need to be individual continuous splines, not all grouped together into one object, and not little tiny lines pieced together.

 

Space them apart to proper elevations - In other words, if they are supposed to be 2' apart in the "Z", do that.

 

Add the normalize spline modifier to all contours- This spaces the vertices along the contours to an even increment that you determine in the modifier. I've found that making the vertex spacing the same as the average distance between contours makes for the most even mesh.

 

Click the terrain button - Make sure you have all the splines selected and click terrain under compound objects.

 

Good Luck!

[chrisclocher]

I forgot to move each spline in the Z direction! I knew it had to be something simple. Thanks alot Brian.