Related to the Roman road, I am looking for a way to bend a (soft) line at specific areas, thus forming a zigzagging line, with kind of soft corners. Implementing curves would be the ultimate, but for now I am hoping for another solution. Yesterday I spent a short time on trying to bend a simple shape by warp, redirect, vector displacement and a distance shader, but couldn't get it to work. But probably didn't do my best :P
Using the painted shader is not really an option, as it is hard to draw a straight line (unless something like in Photoshop can be implemented; hold shift and click elsewhere). External mask is, but more cumbersome.
So, any ideas or solutions would be terrific. New challenge guys!
I have all sorts of functions but no Zigzags. I am trying some warps and the like but so far this alludes me.
I need not any zigzag, but manually shaped, to make it more complicated ;)
Well, you said Zigzagging lines so i assumed a Zigzag. I must have misread something at some point. All i can think of is using a soft circle to distort a road using some warper shader. Perhaps i have no idea what i am talking about though.
zigzaaaaag, or ziiiiigzagziiigzaaaaaaag, etc ;)
Here's what I got so far; you can make a line bend (not easy, but I found three methods), but it works only as a child, not as mask, and the reason eludes me. And I can't get any displacement to convert to scalar either. I certainly hope a simple solution is possible, or else I'll deposit a feature request. It would be very handy to manually add locations where a line should bend or go to next.
What shader are you using for area for bend? If it is a Simple Shape shader, would not softening it a bit smooth the sharp corners of the road?
Is this for your roman road following your river?
Can you show a reference pic? I'm not sure what you are asking for.
Hey Jon, good to see you here. Yes, but I'm not certain yet (some emails have been sent) if these border roads were indeed straight in parts or curving along with the river. It's mainly that I want to find a way to make sharper angles in a road, if necessary.
EDIT: I just found a way to influence the warping by adding a SSS, but it's not perfect, as it narrows the (SSS) line.
Since you are using many nodes anyway, why not combining SSS straights instead
of warping them to get the angles? You could have sharp angles that way and a
constant width.
Good call Jochen, was about to suggest just that.
Have to agree with Jochen and Bobby. You could probably try and warp the SSS with an off center function. But it will be painful to work out and quite honestly take a long time to figure out.
I'd paint in/out the sharp edges of multiple SSSs.
From that image you posted, I'd have thought the Romans would have built a straight road straight through the marsh land rather than followed the river edge. It's what they're famous for, unheard of for the time civil/military engineering projects.
Also, didn't they cobble and camber these roads with drainage ditches either side?
It's a cracking image/project btw.
Just made a cobble pattern that might be useful...
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,21128.msg211449.html#msg211449
Terragen needs a procedural B-Spline drawing tool for making Roads and Rivers.
Quote from: Chris on February 06, 2016, 06:32:35 PM
Terragen needs a procedural B-Spline drawing tool for making Roads and Rivers.
Would be useful that, something that gives me x,z outputs would be extra useful, ie spline space coordinates. :)
Problem with that is, 90 degree tangents off the spline to give a fake x on a z spline will cause overlapping. There could be clever ways of dealing with it by sampling several z tangents though. Hrmm.
Thanks for thinking along, but a set of straight lines will give too sharp angles, and if I then have to paint those rounded areas at every corner, it will be a mess. Then it's lots easier to make a topdown render, and draw a Photoshop mask. I still think warping by some straight greyscale area would work, somehow, but you're right, Chris, that's what we really need. Or an easy way to connect two locations by a painted line in the painted shader, like I described.
@Jon; I've just sent some mails to guys who should know if these roads (in the Netherlands) were also straight. I know they have a very mathematical way of making city/town roads, but along te Rhine? The point along this border was to keep an eye on the river, and report/counter any invaders from the north, so the road should be close to it, I'd say, only cutting off little areas of bog. Which I've just inserted, btw; small creek and bridge.
I figured everyone else has a B-Spline tool it seems so why not, at least some day eventually.
Well, I'm in no hurry (at the moment), as I just learned that our Roman roads along the Rhine weren't particularly straight, but followed the highest places in the terrain, here and there crossing marshy bits by 'logroad' or bridge. So I'm saved for the present.
But some clever idea would still be very welcome ::)
Glad to hear about the "following the terrain". This seems more sensible to me from a results for effort aspect. Seems like no matter how good the engineering a straight road would need to defy flooding or be rebuilt time and again. Following the terrain would use the built up areas with whatever natural protection there is and would need less rebuilding.
Plus a curved road makes for a better composition to my eye.
Well that's good news, I as well prefer the artistry in the follow the river scenario....but what about cobbles...hee hee ee
Cobbles probably only in and near towns. I think even the castella (fortresses) had mainly sandy ground.
Quote from: Dune on February 08, 2016, 03:47:11 AM
Cobbles probably only in and near towns. I think even the castella (fortresses) had mainly sandy ground.
check