Building Roads 101?

Bug Reports
#1

Is there a step-by-step tutorial for building roads here or anywhere? I’m new to World Machine and I can’t get instructions I’ve found here to work. Placing lines in the Layout View creates giant features that I can’t figure out how to edit. Pretty confused.

Can someone give me a quick road-building tutorial that doesn’t make any assumptions about my skill level? I just need to create a road that winds down a crater… cutting into the crater wall at some places, and existing on built-up land in other places. I’ve loaded in my height map and have a nice crater ready to go.

#2

roads built with layout generator tend to be equally elevated at every point, could you post a screenshot of your terrain, so i can figure what kind of road you want??? btw check my post earlier from wip thread… if this is what you want, then i can guide you for it easily…

#3

Stephen has given a rough description of the process here http://forum.world-machine.com/index.php?topic=2071.msg9503#msg9503. Note that you can modify the falloff shape of the curve by selecting the line in the layout view, opening the shape properties (click the pen) and click Ëdit"next to Falloff Profile Curve. There are three presets, two of them for roads, but you can modify the curve any way you want.

#4

is “drop curve to surface” a new feature to wm 2.3 ???.. i don’t seem to have it in 2.2 :frowning:

#5

Hey, thanks everybody. Going through your links now… @WFab: Here’s what I’m trying to do… I have a portion of the moon, and I need to create a road that goes from outside of a crater rim and down into the crater, making a number of switchbacks along the way. Here you can see the topology I have, and a path I’ve created as a shape in a Layout:

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I’m stuck about how to proceed from here.

#6

then if you have wm 2.3, then you need to right click on the curve path, and select “drop curve to surface”… you should have your road…

for the edges, on the left part of layout view, there is curve properties button as highlighted in the attachment… click it to edit the curve falloff etc…

p.s. you may have to select your shape after you click that button, for the properties to display…

#7

So here is what’s happening… I go to Layout 0 in the Layout View, select my curve, then choose “Drop curve to surface of selected device” from the contextual menu. But then I hit “Select” in the Layout View and I can see my road added to the terrain, but all at a high elevation. It appears to still be flat:

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So my curve doesn’t appear to be dropping to my terrain. What am I missing here?

Edit: Using World Machine Standard 64 bit 2.3.5.1

#8

in the properties, bring your first slider (height) down… this way the height would be reduced…

but still it won’t look like a road, so my next question is… what kind of road do you want, a rough forest style path, or a hard man-made road???

#9

Thanks WFab. Just so I understand, if dropping the curve to the terrain puts my curve at the height of the terrain, then why should I need to manually adjust the height?

what kind of road do you want, a rough forest style path, or a hard man-made road?

I’ll take either, but I’d prefer hard man-made road.

Edit: Here is my World Machine file and heightmap, if that is helpful.

#10

can you post the file as attachment… i’m having a problem with external links

#11

hell! i wouldn’t be able to open it anyway… i’m on wm 2.2 so i don’t have that option, downloaded the basic version just to check how it works

#12

Hi there,

a quick clarification: If you want to drop your curve to the heights of your imported moon terrain, make sure you select the file input on the left side toolbar before attempting to drop the curve.

#13

thanks for the clarification stephen… i was about to call on someone with experience on 2.3 drop curve option, and voila!!! the maker himself is here!!! :o

#14

as for the hard road, you would be better of building it as a polygon rather than a curve… then reduce the falloff to as low as possible before dropping to surface

#15
can you post the file as attachment... i'm having a problem with external links

Sure! I didn’t realize I could do that…

#16

Bah. None of this is working. I can’t even build the mesh with a road in it. The the build process stalls out at 50%. I’m afraid I may just have to put this road in by hand in Max. Thanks for all the help, fellas.

#17

the stall seems to be the result of too much detail in your curve… better idea would be to build in max, if you know how to visualize displacement in your viewport accurately

#18

So after closer inspection there appears to be a bug – I’ve been trying to track down an intermittent report of drop to curve not working and it appears you inadvertently presented me with the perfect bug reproduction case :stuck_out_tongue:

The problem stems from the file input device – specifically when dropping a curve against a file input where you specified a custom elevation range. you will find that dropping a curve works fine against other WM devices not depending on file input. I’ve been tracking this one down for a long time, and have just finished the fix; it will appear soon!

Cheers,

#19

hi stephen…
so i tried to replicate the problem in 2.3.5.1 basic, but using a different file for input as well as low detail curve… seems to be working fine, just not in moiremusic’s file

#20

ok i get it!!! “custom elevation”… i used natural range in mine