My Procedural Road, *Final* pg. 8

[FrankB]

Hi guys,

haven't had a lot of time lately, but last night I finished a next iteration of my procedural road.
Volker helped me to get me on track with cutting and elevating a road bed based on the terrain. Also the rock and grass textures are his.
Besides that, my road is now following a curved path, builds "bridges" over depressions and cuts nicely into hills.

Because this road isn't based on a simple shape shader or anything like that, the road is infinite around the planet, so no matter at what elevation you have the camera, the road won't suddenly end.

I still have to do some cracks and patches on the road procedurally, and make it rotateable. I guess the latter will require a lot of re-wiring the network.

So summarizing what's procedural in this scene:
1 - the terrain
2 - the road and road paint masks
3 - the rock and grass texures
4 - the tarmac and the paint
5 - the curving of the road

... in other words, absolutely everyhing except the vegetation
I love procedural.

Cheers,
Frank

[Volker Harun]

It was just a simple function, and you made it look very cool
As soon as I have some spare time, I'll do some finetuning ... maybe you are faster than me, though

[Walli]

very nice! I think now there are mainly two problems:
-road surface is to rough
-a road usually wouldn´t go uphill like that, so either you need a procedural tunnel, or the road would have to wind up the hill

[FrankB]

very nice! I think now there are mainly two problems:
-road surface is to rough
-a road usually wouldn´t go uphill like that, so either you need a procedural tunnel, or the road would have to wind up the hill

What... ? This is Monster Truck Land, haven't you realized? They don't care about "details" such as winding uphill roads and tunnels

Of course you're right. I don't think I can make a procedural tunnel, and I am also not sure whether I can procedurally detect a slope and make the road wind up correctly. But it's not too hard to reseed a couple of times to avoid extremes.

As for the road surface: I have done some image research on tarmac. There are so many different tarmacs it's unbelievable. This rough dark one was one of those and I have tried to mimick that. However, I can change the texture for the next render to look like a different type of tarmac.

Cheers,
Frank

[Henry Blewer]

I think the road itself needs a bit more shoulder along the edges. Other than that, this is very cool. This would make a very nice addition to the NWDA selection.

[inkydigit]

the possibilities, like this road, are endless!

great work Frank!

[FrankB]

thanks all. I'll have a new one coming shortly.

[Mor]

Great work!

[fleetwood]

Very nice paving work.

A couple of minor thoughts.
Can't tell if the road has some typical doming or crown elevation built into its center for run off ?

The most common marking on the open road here in Michigan is a single center line of White dashes .
Here, the solid double yellow center would mean there is some reason, (usually very tight curves)  neither lane can pass or cross over the center.
The double yellow would seldom be seen in straight stretches unless an upcoming hill reduces the sight of oncoming traffic.
We sometimes see a solid yellow line on one side and dashes on the other where only
the solid line lane is not permitted to cross the line or pass.

[FrankB]

I think that's pretty international. It was just the easiest way to mark the road and track boundaries. It shouldn't be too complicated to exchange the 2 center lines with a single white dashed line. Most markings where I live are white, too.

For artisitc reasons I just prefered the yellow ones.

The road should have a slight doming from the center. Not sure it's really visible here.

Cheers,
Frank

[FrankB]

a few more views:

[FrankB]

and one more

[Walli]

did you reduce the roughness of the road?
Or is it more a matter of render quality?
Because the render from distant shows a very rough road surface - the two close up renderings though look pretty much perfect. Very nice work!

[FrankB]

thanks! Indeed the roughness is reduced. Previously, the underlying rock layer produced extra roughness, because I forgot to blend it away where the tarmac should be. Glad you like the last two.

Cheers,
Frank

[dandelO]

Wish the council were so gracious about road surfacing here! We get an uneven bloody spewing from the tarmac machine, at best! Procedural potholes, anyone?

Great progress, Frank. You're doing wonderful things as usual.