NWDA Procedural Road and Tarmac Pack out NOW

Started by FrankB, January 24, 2012, 01:32:51 PM

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FrankB

Dear NWDA friends,

I'm glad to announce that the procedural Road and Tarmac pack, as introduced in this thread, is now generally available.

I would like to thank everybody for their continued interest in this project, and for all the encouragement that let me to finishing this as a product on NWDA.

Here is the link to the product page: http://www.nwdanet.com/buy/7-preset-packs/79-road-and-tarmac-pack

Best regards,
Frank

Gannaingh

Nice! I'll have to save up some money to buy this  :)

Walli


FrankB

Quote from: darthvader1 on January 24, 2012, 11:32:30 PM
Nice! I'll have to save up some money to buy this  :)

Hi darthvader1,

Thanks!
You have probably looked at the commercial use price. If you pick private use only, it's 6.99 Euro, which currently is about 9 USD.
Cheers,
Frank

rcallicotte

Frank, the examples look great.  But, how much do we need to worry about terrain being uneven when applying the roads?  Not to worry - I'm still interested; just wondering how much work a bumpy terrain would be to cover, etc.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

FrankB

Hi Rob,

the road will be not bumpy at all, unless you change the setting to have the road inherit more of the roughness of the main terrain.
By default, the road will "cut" a valley into your main terrain along the road path, and run through it mostly flat.
I chose this as the default approach, as otherwise it would have been next to impossible to make it work on any terrain. Now it's easy to use and it's really cool how many possibilities for new, interesting scenes come up once you have a procedural road at your disposal :)

Cheers,
Frank

rcallicotte

Thank you, Frank, for the explanation and making this as you did.  I can't wait to get it.  Sometime soon...



Quote from: FrankB on January 25, 2012, 08:52:38 AM
Hi Rob,

the road will be not bumpy at all, unless you change the setting to have the road inherit more of the roughness of the main terrain.
By default, the road will "cut" a valley into your main terrain along the road path, and run through it mostly flat.
I chose this as the default approach, as otherwise it would have been next to impossible to make it work on any terrain. Now it's easy to use and it's really cool how many possibilities for new, interesting scenes come up once you have a procedural road at your disposal :)

Cheers,
Frank
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

TheBadger

Hi again.

That first image in the examples you put up on your website is gorgeous! The road looks great and the terrain is beautiful. TEACH ME! lol ;) No really, this one would make a great tutorial. Perhaps using tutorials as a method to sell products might be a good way to go. Videocopilot.net does it that way. You buy a product and it comes with a few tutorials on how to use the product in a creative way.

Sorry for talking so much, but this new stuff is getting me excited ;D
It has been eaten.

FrankB

I wish I could do all that, but I'm lacking the time to follow up on every possibility :)

Seriously, If I were to make a tutorial on how I created that scene from scratch, it would take probably days. A lot of hours went into making this.
Anyway, thanks for the kind words.

Frank

Henry Blewer

I bought this, and it's really cool. I am having a little difficulty with the tgc file. I don't know what to connect where.

I was able to use the soft sides (?) mask to map out the terrain fractal and color on the shaders. That was about as far as I could go.

The road position and road width are simple enough. I get lost after that.
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T

FrankB

Quote from: njeneb on January 27, 2012, 07:37:20 AM
I bought this, and it's really cool. I am having a little difficulty with the tgc file. I don't know what to connect where.

I was able to use the soft sides (?) mask to map out the terrain fractal and color on the shaders. That was about as far as I could go.

The road position and road width are simple enough. I get lost after that.

There should be an example project that essentially shows how to connect the tgc, have you tried that yet?

Henry Blewer

#11
Yes, but that really got me lost. We have very different procedures on terrain and shader construction. I was unable to alter the terrain except through the adjust altitude for the heightfield.


Edit: Kick me. I disabled the height field. Added a power fractal where the 'replace me' node was. Works great. 8)
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T

FrankB

Quote from: njeneb on January 27, 2012, 07:42:23 AM
Yes, but that really got me lost. We have very different procedures on terrain and shader construction. I was unable to alter the terrain except through the adjust altitude for the heightfield.

Just go to the heigtfield shader and click position centre and then generate a terrain. Or alternatively reposition the road to run over your terrain, using the z value of the "position road" node.

This will give you a road that's kind of painted onto your terrain. If you need the road to run through your terrain smooth and flat, you need to consult the full project tgd. That's were it gets more complicated though. Check out the Terrain Group and see what's going on there.

Frank

FrankB

Quote from: njeneb on January 27, 2012, 07:42:23 AM
Edit: Kick me. I disabled the height field. Added a power fractal where the 'replace me' node was. Works great. 8)

haha, happens to all of us.

Henry, what do you think about the yellow sticky notes in the full project?

Henry Blewer

They are good. I can see beginners having trouble using them. Maybe a project file with the major nodes that build the road collapsed would be less confusing.

A note of what the different masks are, and possible uses and where to connect them would be helpful.

A pdf file explaining the various connections would be a good idea. Perhaps someone wants a path, or a river. Knowing what to disconnect or re-connect and where to add new shaders would be helpful. I believe experienced users can figure this out.
http://flickr.com/photos/njeneb/
Forget Tuesday; It's just Monday spelled with a T