Terrain model question

[Chad Warner]

I would like to recreate this type of a site plan with Viz:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=560

 

(courtesy of Crazy Homeless Guy)

 

I know how to create the terrain, but does anyone have suggestions as to cutting in the roads? I tried to boolean out a section of the roadway, and the whole terrain object became all triangulated and nasty.

 

Thanks!

 

Chad

[skogskalle]

It looks like the roads are just painted on... like in PS or something.

not sure though...

 

its a nice pic btw...

[Chad Warner]

In my case, I can't just paint the roads on because there are a few spots where I have to create retaining walls where they are digging the roads out.

[David Barbarash]

I'm pretty sure that there have been a few threads in the past for this problem.

 

I usually just shapemerge the linework (being sure to optimize the lines first, less vertexes make a cleaner mesh in this case, though it also means less points to edit later which can be both good and bad) and then detatch them from the original mesh. This isn't totally necessary as you can just assign them a seperate map channel, but I find having seperate objects easier. If this doesn't help, seach the site and I'm sure you'll dig up some more in depth threads.

[Chad Warner]

I would use shapemerge, but the problem is the stepping in the terrain....I want to have the terrain stepped, but the roadways smooth, similar to the example image.

 

-Chad

[Brian Cassil]

Here's what I would do:

 

Model two terrain objects based on the same splines/contours, one smooth and the other stepped. The smooth one together with extruded road shapes using boolean intersection (don't forget to convert to editable mesh/poly) or the above shape merge technique. Then use the same extruded road shapes to boolean subtract the roads form the stepped terrain.

 

Good luck man!