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View Full Version : Best way to add Hills/Valleys to flat landscapes?

MegaPixel
05-09-2005, 02:51 PM
I'm working on large exterior animation of housing subdivision. I have the streets, sidewalks and grass areas defined. I would like to specify areas in my flat grass object to subdivide so I can raise these areas up or down "smoothly" to get nice gradual berms and pond basins. I have tried creating a custom spline base topo map and using the "terrain" modifier but I can't control the resolution of the tesselation very well. I have also tried "shapemerging" the outlines of my berms and pond basins into the flat grass object, then tesselating these areas so that I can push/pull vert.s however triangular tesselation yields very pointy/jagged unsightly results. I'm looking for advice on the best way to add elevation detail to large flat surfaces without having to tesselate/subdivide the entire object?

Thanks in advance for the help - MegaPixel
X96
05-09-2005, 04:11 PM
I'd create a " Height map" and displace the geomatry that way. Then you can use the push pull mod on top of that for cleanup. (if you got max 7)
Leionaaad
05-09-2005, 04:16 PM
yup, displacement map...with NURBS.
go figure. If you have a flat NURBS plane, it will have only a few polys. It will tesselate the plane depending of the complexity. You will need to add many CV-s, from the start...
Maven
05-09-2005, 04:28 PM
You could also make the necessary subdivisions in the area you want to detail then tess. it at 0 to gain more faces, then under the edit poly mod. you can use the paint deformation tool. It's a nice tool for this kind of stuff too.
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