How would you model this landscape?

[andrewrae]

Hi everyone!

 

Just looking for any tips on how you would go about modelling this kind of environment?

 

Best tools, tips, workflows or seen any tutorials similar?

 

I have a rough idea how I would approach it using splines but may be quite time consuming!

 

Also I would be using 3ds Max if that makes a difference haha

[Justin Hunt]

Max's terrain modifier would do this quite easily, just bring in your contour lines at their correct heights add the terrain using "layers" and your done (almost)

 

jhv

[Chris MacDonald]

It depends, do you want to show the actual stepped contours like your example, or do you want to create a smooth (more realistic) surface?

[andrewrae]

Thanks Justin nice idea! I've never noticed the terrain compound modifier! Just had a play around with it and think that could work! Would be faster than individually extruding each spline once made.

 

Chris, I was initially thinking just how to show the stepped contours, I quite like the stylized look it gives!

 

If i was to make it more smooth and realistic, I would make the splines for the heights then compound conform a relatively high poly plane to the splines, maybe add a noise modifier. I think this would maybe be even easier than having so many stepped contours because it could be done with about 5-10 splines instead the stepped one has about 40 levels!