terrainaxe

[super gnu]

Not a lot of opinions about on this plugin.

from what i can see, it has a host of powerful tools, very little documentation, a high cost, and a language barrier to deal with.


what i want to know, is do the tools work reliably as per the little gifs on the site.. are they robust, reasonably tolerant of non-ideal source data? a lot of them seem to work with very minimal/ bad input geometry, but the examples could have been idealised ones.

any regular users care to offer an opinion? the free version is very cut-down, and there is no demo of the full version that ive seen.

im not keen to spend all that cash for a bunch of potentially useless maxscripts!




im researching the best workflow to generate a (very) mountainous, highly sylised landscape diorama, with tons of interlinking roads on different levels, snow, lakes, a river with waterfall, cave, traintrack., cable car, small city, village.... one of those "world in one scene" type things.

ive got one perspective sketch to work from.

my idea is to block out the general landscape form, work out how the road network can function in proper 3d, approximately drape it over rough landscape (terrainaxe might help with that) then rebuild nicer landscape by filling in the spaces between the roads.

maybe then take it into world creator to add some proper landscapey features.. alternatively ill hand it off to a zbrush artist to sculpt after ive roughed it out.

so, apart from opinions on terrainaxe, any other suggestions re. workflow?

[glorybound]

I don't know anyone who uses it, so it isn't setting the world on fire.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

Have you tried SplineLand ? Maybe it will fit your workflow?

[super gnu]

thanks for the replies.. yeah ive looked at splineland a few times, but i wont have any contour splines to work with, so generating contours for my landscape by hand seems a pretty slow way to model it.

[trick]

I have been using the full TerrainAxe version since 1,5 years now, since I needed it for a very complex landscape with dunes, roads, stairs, golf courses,etc. with lots of height differences and believe me there is nothing better for this kind of job...unless you are a professional landscape designer that needs to model accurately on the inch! (There are very expensive ADesk tools for that!) But for viz jobs, this tool is fast and easy. Although you first need to get acquainted...and that may be a bit harder. The developer is very helpful but the language barrier may be the biggest hurdle. I my self didn't ask that many question: the help files/videos do offer enough info and together with some experimenting I got exactly there where I wanted within a few days. The price for this plugin actually is not that expensive since it offers a lot of helpful tools.

I also use Splineland, but that plugin is only helpful if you have all the height splines payed out. But if you need to do a lot of carving it is not the right tool.

From your brief, I expect you don't need the accuracy, so I think this plugin may be right for you. Talk to the dev and ask for a full eval period so you can test yourself if it works for your job. For this job you simply model 2d roads according TerrainAXe specs, pull them to the exact heigths, smooth them, and fill in the fields between them. Easy as that

[super gnu]

brilliant, thats what i wanted to hear. yeah this is more of an artistic job so millimetric accuracy isnt essential. i shall ask the dev for a full evaluation.

one question: a lot of the tools look generally useful for modelling. are there restrictions (specifically, only working on one plane) which limit their use to landscapes.. ?

[trick]

Most tools can be used for more than landscapes, but as a set they are meant for this purpose only.

In short: first you need to make a network of quad-ring paths. You can also use imported paths and apply the cut and select tools to convert these into quad-ring paths. Then you can take parts of the road as platforms, put them on specific heights, and smooth the road parts between them. Then you derive curbs, pavements, uvs,etc (all have specific tools) and place stairs. Finally you fill up the holes with landscape. When I need more accurate heights I create a landscape with height lines and Splineland and then drop the TerrainAxe gridded landscape on that and make it fit and connect to the roads.