Flattening land using shaders

Started by Abyssinian02, January 06, 2015, 08:12:31 PM

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Abyssinian02

Hey,

I have a, hopefully, rather easy question. I made a terrain of mountains, and I now wanna have a road go through it. I've already painted the road using a shader, but now my question is what is the best way to flatten the terrain towards a height of my choosing (and possibly have the terrain next to it adjust smoothly to it).

Right now I have this, but as you can see the roads go over quite steep mountains. I'd love to push that down a little at those points. It doesn't need to be totally flat, but just flat enough. I'll need to do the same for the fences that'll be added later.

bobbystahr

Quote from: Abyssinian02 on January 06, 2015, 08:12:31 PM
Hey,

I have a, hopefully, rather easy question. I made a terrain of mountains, and I now wanna have a road go through it. I've already painted the road using a shader, but now my question is what is the best way to flatten the terrain towards a height of my choosing (and possibly have the terrain next to it adjust smoothly to it).

Right now I have this, but as you can see the roads go over quite steep mountains. I'd love to push that down a little at those points. It doesn't need to be totally flat, but just flat enough. I'll need to do the same for the fences that'll be added later.

Dune shared a technique for cutting a road into a mountainside which may be helpful. Do a search for mountain road Subject and Dune as the member.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Dune

A more sophisticated method can be found at NWDA.

N-drju

Hey Abyssinian,

Check out the "On the road" tutorial by Old Blaggard here:

http://planetside.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Terragen_2/3_Tutorials#Making_of_.22On_the_Road.22

It gives a nice overview on how to make a road that would cut through uneven terrain and make the transition between the road and land smooth. I remember that it can be done with color adjust shader, but it needs some tweaking to get the values right. I tried this method once. It's not bad actually.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Abyssinian02

After watching both the on the road tutorial and Dune's scene on how to make a road, I think I got the right anwser, but for some reason it's not working. Would anyone have any idea as to what I did wrong? I added the scene to this post.

bobbystahr

Well I doubt we can help as the terrain is displaced by a map and it's not there, still in your computer. All the many maps you use don't show up in fact. Best bet would be to gather the project, then zip/rar the folder and file share that, It'll be too large to upload but I use either DropBox or sendSpace free file sharing.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Abyssinian02

Ah sorry, I hadn't thought of that. :-[ Goes to show you how much of a rookie I still am. Anyway, here are the files gathered.

bobbystahr

Quote from: Abyssinian02 on January 07, 2015, 09:47:16 PM
Ah sorry, I hadn't thought of that. :-[ Goes to show you how much of a rookie I still am. Anyway, here are the files gathered.

Heh heh, happens to the best of us time to time. Thanks, I'll have a look tomorrow, near the end of a looooong day here.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

bobbystahr

#8
Well this is as good as I can do. Can't figure a way to adapt Dune's set up to image maps but that would likely work. I think you need a Wizard like Dune  :D  in your corner on this. This is the Blue to Scalar in the displace tab slightly displaced(1 m. I think). The Green to Scalar on the mountain side seriously needs Dune's input to solve I think.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist