[xrk]

Making and texturing a road piece

Using 3DS Max 7 Click any image to see it full size. In the perspective viewpoint, Press Alt+W and then create a plane Length - 10 Width - 20 (press F4 to turn edged faces on) This will end up the correct size in-game for a road piece with a lane each way Length - 2 Width - 4 Convert to editible poly and select ploygon sub-object level or press 4 then select half of the plane and extrude -0.12 You will get some unwanted faces from the extrude, delete those. Get your textures and put them in a folder on your desktop or something, Im using two from Sa, vegaspavement2_256 vegasroad1_256 Now select the pavement and kerb faces and drag the relevent texture from the folder onto the selected faces and go to the modifier list and choose UVW MAp. then in the new parameters panel click Face ...but the textures are wrong and needs to be fliped so check the U Tile flip box. Convert to editible poly, then select the kerb faces and go back to the modifier list and select Unwrap UVW. Now in the parameters panel click on the Edit button to open the edit UVW's window then just move and rotate till it looks right (To see your texture in the background select it from the list in the top right corner of the edit uvw window) for mine I had to rotate 90 degrees clockwise, select the two verts on the right and move them closer lining them up with the kerb on the texture, then flip horizontal and vertical convert to editible poly again and texture the road the same way as the pavement Now select and clone the object, (Ctrl+V or hold left shift and click once on any axis on the move gizmo) then mirror on Y axis and line it up with your original object Attach both objects together using the attach button in the edit geometry menu then go to vertex sub object (press 1), select the center verts and wield Now turn off vertex sub object mode and Go to the top viewpoint (prees T), hold left shift and move on the X axis to create a clone lining it up with the original (as close as possible for when you wield together) and in the box that appears set it to about 50 copies. The amount will depend on the length of road you are making. select any one of the road objects convert to edit poly again the go to edit geometry and click the little box beside Attach select all and attach all the road objects now go to Border sub object (press 3) and press Ctrl+A to select all borders. Right click in the viewpoint and in the menu go to convert to vertex and then wield from the edit vertices panel you now have a long road piece ready and textured

This post has been edited by xrk on Thursday, Jan 11 2007, 12:24

[xrk]

Bending

Go create\shapes\line and draw out your path Clean it up a bit by converting to editible spline, going to vertex mode and using tools like fillet to round of the sharp corners now select the road model again, go to the modifier list and choose path deform pick the spline as your path and deform on the Y axis if you find it doesnt do anything, you may need to right click on the road in the menu select gizmo then rotate the gizmo (the road will move to fit the path as you rotate) and use the percentage spinner in the pathdeform menu to pull an push the road along the set path. You can also give it different levels by moving the spline's verts on the Z axis and using the twist spinner on the pathdeform modifiers controls to do things like...

This post has been edited by xrk on Thursday, Oct 26 2006, 18:29

[xrk]

Creating a T-junction

Line up a road piece with another in the place you want the T-junction If it cant line up with the edges already in your road you could create more by selecting edges and using connect Select and delete the 6 faces shown in the picture below Now select the remaining pavement face and detach it. select the pavement face you just detached and clone it (Ctrl+V). move it -0.12 on Z axis Detach the kerb face and attach it to the top detached pavement face, goto edge sub-object level and select the edges shown in the picture Click the little box beside the connect button and set "connect edge segments" to 3, click ok. come out of edge mode, go to Kam's max scripts (if installed will be in the utilities panel) and run the modeling helper, clicking the Size/Alignment solver button to reset the pivot point. Go back to create and select the Bend modifier from the modifier list set the bend axis to Y and the angle to 75, convert the new corner piece to editible poly. Zoom into it from the top viewpoint, go to vertex sub-object level and select the vertices shown in the picture below and wield them with a threshold of 1.0 While still in top viewpoint, press E to use the rotate gizmo and in the Z axis box at the bottom type -46, you then need to move and scale it to line up with the other pavement sizes. Move the joining road piece lining it up as well. Go to perspective viewpoint Attach the road face below to the corner pave/kerb then clone and mirror it for the opposite side (see pic) Attach the two new corner pieces to the two road pieces, go to border sub-object level, press Ctrl+A to select all borders, right click on the model and select "convert to vertex" from the menu Wield with theshold of 0.1 then go to edge sub-object level selecting the edges shown in the picture Hold left shift and move the edges a bit on the x axis to create two new faces click taget wield from the same place you used wield, click one of the new edges then its opposite edge repeat with other side Stick some textures on the new road faces and there a T-junction Once you've made one corner you can just detach copy, move and re-texture if need be to save making any more also if you want cross roads or extra lanes, it's just a case of detaching, attaching, mirroring and moveing what you already have

[Blackadder.]

Very Nice Tut xrk Clean and Simple, just the way I like it. Have a cookie, and don't forget to put it in the fridge

[jarjar]

Nice tutorial, very easy to follow .

I wonder what happened to updating the Tutorial Archive. It hasn't been updated since June sometime.

[uNi]

Nice job xrk, pretty easy way for doing roads.

[-/TNT\-]

This is way better than mine. Forgive the n00b, I even made 5 topics for it . Good job xrk and hope you make more of these

[dertyjerzian]

QUOTE (xrk @ Oct 27 2006, 05:39)

Go back to create and select the Bend modifier from the modifier list set the bend axis to Y and the angle to 75, convert the new corner piece to editible poly. Zoom into it from the top viewpoint, go to vertex sub-object level and select the vertices shown in the picture below and wield them with a threshold of 1.0

xrk, I'm having problems with this tutorial at this step.

Instead of bending my curb, it does this:



What's going on here and how do I fix this? I've followed this tutorial word for word, trying to learn this better technique, I've done everything exactly as you have.

[xrk]

With the the bend modifier applyed (like it is in your pic ) right click in the viewpoint and you should see "gizmo" in the menu select that and rotate 90 on the z axis

that should fix it

[dertyjerzian]

QUOTE (xrk @ Nov 17 2006, 07:56)

With the the bend modifier applyed (like it is in your pic ) right click in the viewpoint and you should see "gizmo" in the menu select that and rotate 90 on the z axis that should fix it

Thank you xrk

I did it manually (moved 4 verts together, welded, shaped the rounded part by hand, and followed from there), but I also saved it before the manual edits for when you replied and I'll be going back to that file now to learn this new thing

I tried something similar, and what was probably the problem: I used affect pivot only I'll try gizmo next

[MChanna03]

great job XRK, I love how it's easy to go through... I'm going to try this later but thankz for this...

[Jost_Vice]

Xrk, what is wrong if you get a Illegal patch messages when trying to pick the new path for the patchmodifier? Nice tutorial btw

[xrk]

QUOTE

patchmodifier

You need to be using path deform not patch deform

This post has been edited by xrk on Wednesday, Dec 6 2006, 09:40

[-/TNT\-]

I have really got into using this method and my roads look so much better and natural. Again thanks for this tutorial. Roads that took me hours to make are built in minutes now.

[-/TNT\-]

Bumping this tutorial right up. It's one of the most useful tutorials here, in my opinion. I have some skeletons in my closet and I don't know if noone knows it questions to ask about making roads and I wonder if you could help me out.

A]How can I make smooth alititude chanes to my roads? I want them to curve upwards, not to abruptly angle up. I don't think soft selection works with splines either, so I can't use that to my advantage.

B]Which is the best method to attach the surrounding scene to the road?

Which is the easiest way to do it?

[Dansov]

Thanks you xrk. It is easy way for doing roads.

[xrk]

QUOTE (-/TNT\- @ Sep 13 2007, 18:58)

A]How can I make smooth alititude chanes to my roads? I want them to curve upwards, not to abruptly angle up. I don't think soft selection works with splines either, so I can't use that to my advantage.

Use fillet, go to vertex sub-oject mode, click fillet, select your vertices then click on one, hold and drag

QUOTE

B]Which is the best method to attach the surrounding scene to the road?

Target wield?!?
I think this all depends on what your doing .

[-/TNT\-]

Ok, man thanks for helping out, I'll try that method.

[Dem57]

excuse the bump, but can anyone upload the pavement image again?

[-/TNT\-]

Loads fine for me. Anyways: