Interior vs static shape question for creating roads

#1 Hi mate,

I'm no expert on the matter, but since it's the first post, and I've thought a little about this myself, I'll give it a go :-) Bear in mind these are thoughts rather than advice...

Firstly, one thing to think about is the 'shape' of your road. I haven't spent enough time with Quark or Worldcraft to fully explore the modelling options - I know it's very easy to create mainly square interiors, but when it comes to curves etc. I'm not too sure. Another problem with shape is elevation - will the road be completely flat, or will it's elevation change? If you want to 'twist' a section of road, for example to make a banked curve, I think you would need to use a real modeller such as MAX or Milkshape - I don't believe Quark/Worldcraft support geometry deformation in that way, though I could be wrong.

I never really came up with a solution for this - I wanted to use MAX to create roads, since it would allow precise manipulation of the road's shape, and also it's texture mapping co-ords. If you were to create a straight section of road in MAX, texture it and twist/bend it, you would have a 90 degree corner in no time.

However, for some reason I had reservations about filling a map with lots of DTS objects that would also be involved in collision. Admittedly, the roads would be fairly simple shapes, but would this affect performance more than having a mission full of DIF roads?

Sorry Thomas, I've added my own question to the end there :-D

#2 Hehe - thx for your thoughts. My own thoughts besides modelling in Max are to manipulate the engine itself.

It should be possible to draw a invisible "path" on the ground where you want the road, and then let the engine paste a texture on top of the path following the terrain.

I have no clue on the size of a project like this, what it involves or if it gives better fps than placing lots of dts objects into the world.

Thus I've stuck to the "create road segments" idea until now. And I want a simple solution to this, as I'm alone on the project + I want a simple no-frills game.

#3 Yes, I thought about the terrain path approach - you could actually modify the Terrain editor to use road-shaped brushes - short and long straights, bending around 90 degrees etc. The Terrain brushes are made from 'square sections', but if you use a soft brush it should do the trick. So, you could stamp the track down by lowering the terrain height slightly under the road brush. I think you can then set the texture on the terrain according to it's height, which would be a nice way of applying the texture to the road at the end.

I don't suppose it would take too long to modify the terrain editor to use different shaped brushes?

#4 Problem afaik is that the terrain editor blends the "tarmac/road" texture with the surrounding terrain texture, no?

So your road edges would look like *beeep*

#5 That's a good point, it would cause a problem wouldn't it? Maybe you could change the amount of blending done by the terrain editor? I suppose the effect would work best for a rally game, or something similar - it doesn't always matter if the two blend together, as the track edge is rough anyway.

Do you want much detail in the shape of the track?

#6 Nah - not much detail on the track. Just your basic white lines and some tarmac.

I'll try making a few small sections of track and then place them ingame. Lets see if its even possible to "stich" them together without weird effects at the ends - or fps dropping to 4 :-)

#7 That sounds like a good plan. Let me know how you get on :-) You can post here again, I've checked the Notify box.

Best of luck,

Darren.

#8 Hi Thomas,

you should use DIFs for your streets. DTS have some disadvantages, like the separate Collision Box you need.
DIFs have better shadow support, place the Player on a DTS and you doesn't get a shadow on your street. On a DIF Street the player have a correct shadow.
And there are some more disadvantages.

following a example street of some DIF streets from Jens "Bossy" Schneider. He is just working on a DIF Street Pack for Tork's P:C.A. and for sales as content pack (more Info's => www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=4595)

#9 There are advantages to using either .dif or painting the terrain. .dts might be a bit expensive on engine resources.

The major advantage to .dif is that you are able to make the center dashes look right. Terrain painting tends to put the texture in a single direction (I've heard it's theoretically possible to change the TGE terrain Blender to be able to rotate textures before placing, but no one has yet come up with this resource AFAIK).

The major advantage(s) to painting are more realistic roads (not quite so smooth), nice blending between road, shoulder, and ground, and not rigid--like a .dif interior would be. I would also imagine it's not any more expensive engine-wise.

I made a nice gravel road by digging slightly into the terrain, and painting it by hand. An asphault would probably look pretty nice, too, only sans lines.

Good Luck!
EricF

#10 If you wanta road,i will give you a road in.obj format.just make it .dts and your reay to go.
email me at,jameshawn@netzero.com and ill send it to you.

#11 Look,i have a editer that will make a like real road on a hightmap and export the road with the terrain.will this work????

#12 I f you want the road,when you mail me just tell me ,dts road and ill know what to give you.

#13 This is probably worth taking a look.