Winding roads on hill/mountainsides..
WsCG
Posts: 391
Hello,
So, forgive me if this is discussed, or linked elsewhere. I tried searching/googling, and wasn't able to find an answer or anything.
Basically, I'm wondering if there's a way to create an effect of a road winding around a hill, or mountainside, following the contours of the slope, etc..but maintaining a flat, road-like angle?
I've tried experimenting with this myself, painting over an existing heightmap using a small brush size, and very low strength setting, but it doesn't seem to do the trick. The road inevitably ends up either elevated way up higher than the surrounding terrain, or sunken down into the ground, neither of which is what I'm after.
I'm guessing if there's a way to do it, some of the folks are here are bound to know how :p. Might also just be that a third party program is necessary, but I thought I'd ask here before looking elsewhere.
Thanks!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
roadmaker
it's creator RGcincy, who also made shapemagic is a frequent forum user too
http://www.shapemagic.com/roadmaker/
Oh neat! I'd somehow never seen that program, though I'm frequently looking to see what new apps or such are out there.
Cool, thanks!
Well, I gave it a try and it doesn't seem to work very well.
Trying to open an image exported from Bryce results in a black window, or a colorful grid pattern. And if I use 'new from pasted image', it doesn't paste the heightmap at the correct size, but a tiny little thumbnail of it instead. So that doesn't seem like it's going to do the trick.
Does make me wonder if there are other options out there now, though.
WorldCreator has post filters that allow to draw roads (and rivers) on a hight map. The one I have is from Cloddy and Cloddy doesn't exist anymore. It took over GeoControl at the time. ByteTheBytes is developing a new version of WorldCreator but it appears to be node based and I'm not sure it still has post filters since it doesn't work on CPU anymore, just GPU. It is not yet available.
Not sure what you are looking for --- maybe this tutorial by David will help
http://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials/roads-on-a-terrain.html
This render is my attempt at it.
yeah I am not a Bryce user Roadmagic works on Carrara greyscale terrain exports and other softwares like Earth Sculptor I use, only used it a couple times myself truth be told.
So you don't actually want to use the terrain/road in Bryce, you want to then export it to another program?
Chohole - exporting terrains from the TE makes sense to submit it to additional filtering and then importing back for use in Bryce. I do such at times.
Mitovo - Bryce exports terrains as 16-bit integer greyscale TIFF or as mesh. If you export as TIFF, make sure your application can read 16-bit greyscale (unsigned integer) TIFF, not many can.
I have my own way to make roads alone with Bryce.
My English is very bad, I hope you understand me anyway.
Step 1:
Create a new terrain in resolution 1024, click New and then Invert to get a white area. The brush should be defined as in the picture:
Step 2:
Draw a path like you want to have it and click on smoothing
Step 3:
Go to Export Image and save it as PNG.
Step 4:
Now create a terrain like you want it, then go to Picture and click on Load in the middle window. There you load your drawn path as PNG.
Blend, you can adjust how clearly the path is to be seen.
If you are satisfied, click on Apply and the path is shown in your terrain
Step 5:
Now you have a way in the terrain. If you give the terrain a texture, it will only look bad.
Step 6:
To give the path a different texture, duplicate the terrain and move it over the Y axis by 0.001.
Then go to the Mat Lab and give this terrain a texture as it should have your road.
Activate bay D with transparency.
Then load the PNG image of your way in the Picture Editor.
Load it in the left image and in the middle, while you invert it in the middle once (click on the black and white ball).
Now click on Blend Transpareny in the Mat-Lab and turn off cast shadows of the second terrains.
Now you see a path in your terrain.
I hope this helps you.
Drachenlord - that's so cool, will give it a try Thanks
Correct. I'm experimenting with using heightmaps generated in Bryce and bringing them into a game engine (Torque3D), complete with generated diffuse/color map (since you can set that to be the same size as the height map itself).
I'd like to get a flat-ish road 'baked' into the heightmap, winding around the mountains, down by the water, etc. Doing so with T3D's terrain editor is awful, and the results are messy, so that's out. I do have L3DT which has the ability to create road-surfaces via its 'bulldozer' tool.. So I might try that approach. Not as intuitive or 'smooth' as something based on a spline or something like that, but it'll do the trick.
What's great, is that Bryce exports 16bpp heightmaps, which is critical to getting a smooth looking terrain in the game engine, as opposed to a blocky, MineCraft-ish looking result if you use a 8bpp heightmap.
I included a screenshot of a landscape set up in T3D from a heightmap made in Bryce (and the one I want to add roads on to)... It's a 4096x4096 heightmap, and so the terrain is basically 4k x 4k. This is a shot looking from one corner toward the other. Doesn't necessary convey in the shot, but it's HUGE, and takes quite a while to get from one end to the other. If I were to place the character over on the slope of that middle peak, you wouldn't be able to see them at all from where I am in that screenshot.
I also included the heightmap it's generated from, for reference.