skin modifier for terrain

V-Ray V-Ray Common Off-topic
1

I just discovered a probably great way to create terrain for architectual scenes, using contour lines and a base mesh.
Just as the horrible terrain compound object should do it (if it worked).

In my exitement I created a short video demo:

http://www.marclorenz.com/video-tutorials/skin-terrain.htm

In research for a script I read a comment about the possibility to use splines as bones for skin.
It seems to work great and 100% interactive.

The only thing I have to figure out, is how to control the envelopes properly (i never used skin stuff, so that’s a new world for me)

comments welcome…

2

Very, very smart.

3

You are the Jesus of the week.

4

haha. great technik. :slight_smile:

5

very cool, is the quantify mesh only in 2010? Its not in 2008

6

yes it’s in 2010 only…but in 2008 you can use the subdivide modifier…it works pretty much the same way, but operates on triangles.

7

nice approach.
It will be interesting to see how accurate it is

8

Thanks for sharing. Always nice to learn new way of working.

9

that definitely rocked.

10

This is tits, thanks :slight_smile:

11

You know what would be really cool is if you used actual contour lines. Like lets say you had a set of lines with some Z elevation to them…you could animate the verticies (backwards) so that at frame zero the splines would be flat..no Z elevation and at frame 100 they would be in their original state. You could then apply the skin mod and use the splines as bones at frame 0…adjust the envelopes and then the terrain would animate into place by frame 100 according to the shape of the contours. Keep in mind i haven’t tried this yet…but i think it works conceptually.

Going to have to give this a whirl…thanks for the discovery by the way!

12

Yeah that would be fun…I just tried it and it seems to work…

One problem with the whole thing is that I can’t find a good way to control weights. I would like to have some option like weight/crease with sub-d polys. The skin envelopes are a bit dodgy and complicated.

13

go into poly mode and use the paint weights / paint blend weights option - you’ll see it as a “heat map” that shows how strong the effect of a bone (or spline) is on the various areas of the mesh.

14

I wonder if you could skip the skin and do a cross section modifier and/or surface mod on the animated splines when they are flat. I’m thinking there might be problems with that though.

15

You could use the cross section and surface modifier full stop, I’ve found it a little finicky in some cases though.

16

I’m finding Architectural Desktop’s Drape Mass Element works well for this - select the splines, define the mesh shape and density and go.

Been thinking there must be a way to do this in Max with the cloth system somehow too…

Conceptual_Models_Mass_Element_Drape.png
Conceptual_Models_Mass_Element_Drape.png434×474 8.66 KB

17

How the heck does it figure out elevations outside of the contours ?? Or is that a fake illustration ?

anyways. To create a surface from contour splines what’s wrong with Terrain Object (for lower res stuff), Lofts (for control), CrossSection+Surface or whatever else there is to create meshes from contours?

Regards,
Thorsten

18

Admittedly that’s a pretty basic example - the tool appears to continue and aproximate the surface in the general direction of the edge contours. In practice it only works for a short while beyond the border.

Not tried you’re other suggestions (yet) - could be they work just as well.

19

I personally prefer cross section + surface modifiers to the terrain compound object. Not too sure the skin method would be accurate enough in cases where you do have contour lines…but for improvision it would seem perfect! Thanks for the video!

20

I typically create the crappiliciuos terrain and then create a well subdivided plane then use the contour command to create a drapped mesh over the terrain. Then you can delete the terrain and you have access to your quad and you can model it with more precision.