Terrain from contour lines

[komyali]

Found simmilar stuff on forum but it is old and I cant find pictures and direct explaination

I have contour lines of terrain in auto cad 1 meter is high beetween lines, also they are moved in 3D autocad. Created terrain with plugin link whitch is scripted by forum member Marc Lorenz. Plugin is excelent and you can create terrain if splines arent closed.

I dont like plugins (this one is excelent ) and I want to create black and white displace map in from this topografic contour lines, once I done that in photoshop but I didnt done it very well . Second option is terrain option in max but splines need to be closed an I have more than 100 and that would be pain in the a... So does anybody know to do displacement map in photoshop or some other way to create terrain and share that with us

[salvador]

Max terrain does not necessarily requires closed splines. Besides you have the option of color by height so you can create your displacement map and then use it to displace a "regular" mesh made out of quads.

 

You can also use Populate: Terrain as you did and render a Z-Depth pass out of a Top view and you get a displacement map. Why would you want a displacement map if you already have your topography mesh?

 

When you say you don't like plugins I guess you mean 3rd party ones, because all Max tools (or many at least) are actually plugins; native ones.

 

Good luck!

[komyali]

Max terrain does not necessarily requires closed splines. Besides you have the option of color by height so you can create your displacement map and then use it to displace a "regular" mesh made out of quads.

 

You can also use Populate: Terrain as you did and render a Z-Depth pass out of a Top view and you get a displacement map. Why would you want a displacement map if you already have your topography mesh?

 

When you say you don't like plugins I guess you mean 3rd party ones, because all Max tools (or many at least) are actually plugins; native ones.

 

Good luck!

 

ok I am not skilled in photoshop how to create perfect displacement map from contour lines that is the main question ? I dont want to use plugin that is the main reason and displacement is much realistic because you have pixels and here you are limited with mesh

[Scott Schroeder]

You don't like plug-ins? Oh, well I guess you hate to use http://populate3d.com/products/terrain/. Simply make your topo from your lines and turn that dirty triangulated mesh into a nice clean quad contour surface.

 

There are so many helpful tools and plug-ins out there that it's detrimental to be a max purist. You'll waste your time trying to displace terrain, unless it's a really small patch and you have minor elevation changes.

[komyali]

Download populate panels

soon I will have more plugins than regular tools in max I think max have almoust everything and that we dont need plugins and we can do everything just need a little creativity but enough about plugins I think that displace is still more precise than populate terrain if you have very nice displace map, my bigest problem is transfer contour lines in displace map

[Matt McDonald]

I'm not sure how you figure that displace is more precise than using the object. The resolution of the displacement map is limited to the 255 shades of gray of a B&W image where as using geometry you have infinite resolution.

 

I think maybe you are ok to use displacement (a memory hog) to add fine detail if you like but I think you're ignoring some good advice when it comes to the creation of the ground object.

[Nic H]

no more help for komy