Terrain Conformer

12 votes
Version: 
1.1
Date Updated: 
12/04/2012

This script conforms a terrain surface to a road in just a few click. It's very easy to use.

Additional Info: 

1- Create a road and a terrain as an editable_poly.
The objects must not have any thikness. (Very important!)
To conform smoothly, the terrain must have enough subdivision.
Also, you will get a better result if you build the road near the terrain
otherwise it can produce some distortion on the topology.

2- Launch the script, pick the road, pick the terrain,
choose the distance of the blending (smoothness of the slope),
click the button "Conform terrain" and wait a few seconds...

3- If you don't the result, click "undo conform",
then move, rotate or scale what you want and click again "Conform terrain"...

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The road does not change at all.
Only the terrain is conformed right under the road
but, outside the road, it keeps the original relief.

The terrain is conformed to the road only on the Z-axis,
it's not doing anything along the other axis X or Y.

A important thing :
The original objects are not deleted, just hidden.

Version 1.1:
Correction of an offset that appeared in certain cases.
The script works now in world coordinate system and respects
the initial position of the objects.
The spinner indicates the actual system units.

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If you have any suggestions, feel free to post comments !

Look at the video demo on youtube ! (there is no sound)

Version Requirement: 
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013
Video URL: 
AttachmentSize
terrain_conformer.mse3.75 KB
terrain_conformer1.1.mse4.59 KB

Comments

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trixian's picture

Strange offset problem

Ok. Not a bug but a feature :)

How do you do this manual adjustment?
It seems to offset no matter where the terrain or road is placed (in Z). It seems quite hard to manually adjust, as the road object is offset upwards (2.6168 meters in this case), and the terrain is offset down (7.2393 meters in this case), and then the areas under the road projected up. Why would the road object move up while the terrain moves down?
Surely these large numbers aren't correct. Your own examples don't show any visible offsets.
Do you want a file to see what I'm experiencing?

LittleLordPotala's picture

Std. English version only

@fred3317:
The script doesn't support localised versions. This is due to the fact it uses references to the UI that are translated. I'm also french and I've never used the french version because, in my opinion, the localisations are just a source of problems. (Désolé et merci pour ton commentaire.)

@tprompt3d:
I'm glad you like it. Thanks.

@trixian:
This is not a bug. The script performs average of distances, so it needs somtimes to be adjusted manually. I will have a look one day if I can improve this behavior.

trixian's picture

Strange offset problem

When I use the script, the conformed terrain is moved down quite a bit (variable amount from varying the falloff spinner value), while the areas included in the falloff range are conformed up to the road. Sometimes the new road is offset down a bit too. Happens in meters and cm scene unit scale, and when all objects have had their transforms reset.
3dsmaxdesign2012, Win7 64.

tprompt3d's picture

Very useful,thank you for

Very useful,thank you for sharing.

fred3317's picture

Hi !Iam very interesed by

Hi !

Iam very interesed by your script but i've also an error message "--unknown property: "falloff in undefined"

I don't understand what's going wrong. I tried with your example file and the result is the same :"--unknown property: "falloff in undefined"

Edit : I have some more informations...

" -- Erreur dans CTerr.pressed() ; nom de fichier : D:\Programmes\3ds Max 2012\Scripts\terrain_conformer.mse ; position : 2758; ligne: 11
-- Définition dans le script codé
>> MAXScript Réf. pann. déroulant Exception:
-- Propriété inconnue: "falloff" dans undefined << "

Only a flat copy of the road and the plane are created...

I've got 3Dmax 2012

I just don't no what to do :s

In any case, thanks for your work !

Edit : Hum ok, i found :p i was using 3Ds Max 2012 French...

Your script is Awsome !

curmeiste's picture

Thank fantastic script

Thank fantastic script

48design's picture

Really cool

Awesome! I wanted to script something like this myself but now I don't have to do that. ;o)

LittleLordPotala's picture

About compatibility with Max 2010

I didn't test myself the script on Max 2010.
(Read the previous post of "luisllamas")
I can only give an example file from Max 2012,
eventually saved with the compatiblity 2011 and 2010.

I never had any error message.
Just a suggestion : have you installed all the updates available
for your version ?

AttachmentSize
terrainconform_example.max 3.09 MB
guiboy's picture

Hi!Very excited about this

Hi!

Very excited about this script but it did'nt work for me..
It says: "--unknown property: "falloff in undefined".
In 3dsmax 2010.
I followed all the prerequisites to make the terrain and road objects.
An example file would be useful to identify if the problem comes from my objects.

Thanx!

LittleLordPotala's picture

Thank you for your feedback

Thank you for your feedback and your test.
I updated the "version requirement info"
and added a comment about the necessity to build objects
without thickness, in the "Additional Info" section.

Do you think that I need to create a start-up tutorial ?

Best regards.

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