Organic landscape modeling ideas

[ktulu]

Hey guys,

I'd like to ask you for a hint how to approach modeling of big-scale organic landscapes. Working for a landscape architecture practice I quite often get 2D CAD files that need to be recreated in 3D. More often than not, they don't contain any contour lines, just a general layout of how the design could look like.

Working in Max, my current approach is to create a coarsely subdivided plane and project imported CAD lines onto it via ShapeMerge. This way I get a 1-to-1 reflection of the CAD file, but a fairly messy mesh. In order to tessellate it locally to increase resolution (i.e. for push-pull operations) quite a lot of manual stitching is required, though.

Do you know of a better way of tackling this problem?
Thanks,

[PROH]

Hi. I think this could help you: http://populate3d.com/products/terrain/

[CiroC]

Populate Terrain can help you a lot, but it doesn't like complex geometry. For example, if two vertices aren't merged you may have some issues.

My workflow so far is using the Section tool found under the Splines tab to create as many contour lines as needed. Select them all and create a terrain using the Terrain tool (Compound Objects) and finally use the Populate Terrain. It sounds a lot of work, but the result is by far better.

[Paul Jones]

Also have a look at mcg conform mesh

[ktulu]

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

Populate terrain seems to indeed do a good job with simple geometry but struggles with messy CAD lines I am dealing with here. (see attachments)

CiroC, I'm not sure I got your workflow right, but I guess I'd need to have a 3D surface in the first place in order to slice it and create contour lines from it. Unfortunately I only have some 2D lines without elevation information.

Paul Jones: conform mesh for Max Creation Graph? Where do I find it? A quick google search didn't help much...

[CiroC]

Yes, you need a 3D surface in order to work. Perhaps your best solution is using the Conform Mesh as suggested by Paul Jones.

[Adi]

I work with similar workflow as in this tutorial :

Maybe you'll find it useful.

[ktulu]

Thanks a lot for your help.

While doing some more research I stumbled upon this thread on the Polycount forum:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127161&highlight=track+terrain

They suggest a workflow including AntStitching different meshes together followed by some manual mesh adjustments.
It seems to be quite a time-consuming, yet robust approach.

I'll keep looking for more automated solutions.

[telemix]

SplineLand

http://rendering.ru/ru_en/plugins/splineland.html?___from_store=ru_ru

[CiroC]

SplineLand looks a good alternative. The only downside is that they have no demo to try and see if it works. Things always work smoothly on a promotional video.

[ktulu]

Yeah, it would be nice to have an option to try SplineLand before purchasing it. Especially given the quite steep price tag.