I got a problem that I need some help with, I watched a video by Alex Sawczuk on lofting using the shape/path/loft trick and while my track looked fine with the line tool as soon as I hit loft and clicked on the shape it seemed my track was way to short for what I was trying to accomplish with the track. Now I'm going to have to start this over but if I run into the problem again is there anyway to add a vertex with a bezier handle so I can smooth it out better or make the track bigger by expanding it. It seems an easy way to make a track but I can't seem to tell how long the track is going to be before doing so, also when lofting can I change the width it makes? I didn't check it but shouldn't widths be around 20-25 meters across, if you just select the whole track and open up the material editor and drag a texture to it will that work or is there another way, since that video did not go into great lengths and stop short of everything else you would need to know it leaves people in the dark..lol. I guess it's trial and error as of right now, the front stretch is 271 meters from this screenshot, I hate meters damn bumbling UK people..lol, it's feet and yards around here but everybody says use meters...lol This way just seems to incredibly easy to make a track layout, almost as easy as Bob's Track Builder. I like freew67's way as well but it will take absolutely forever with all the pieces you would have to make for the track at 50mx20m but at least there is more control of how wide plus if you keep adding up the 50m x 4 sections well there is 100 meters already so the guessing game is not as hard. Maybe drawing out the shape in Photoshop might be another solution and then drawing a line over that if I can get the plane sized correctly first. Man I seem so confused over which way is best, I spent 2-3 days looking at videos, reading some tutorials and still can't seem to get very far..lol, I'd rather do a fictional track right now, if I did any real track it would either be Monza or Zolder and it would be completely dumb to do that when there is already a track that could be converted later on maybe into RF2. ;D It's tough being a noob again and having to learn something tough all over... ARG!! Also, another reason I used 2012 is that the darn loft trick would not work in 2010, click on shape and nothing would happen to the track (path) and yes it was selected..lol, hope I can export a track in 2012 back to 2010 because that is the only version these scripts and plugins work in.. View attachment 703
Yes! The beauty of lofting is that you can go back in and edit your original path, and add/delete/edit the cross-sections as well. Once you create your loft, go into the Modify panel. Click on the '+' icon next to Loft in the modifier stack, then click on 'Path'. You'll see your original path appear just below in the modifier stack. Now you can select that and keep editing it to your heart's content! I've never been 100% comfortable with spline editing in Max, but I believe to add Control Points you click on 'Insert' when in vertex mode. Just make sure that you have "New Vertex Type" set to whatever you desire. Now you see what I meant when I said that you can do things 'almost' as easily in Max as you can with BTB, but with more precision ?
When you have the path spline selected in vertex mode, right click, chose "Refine" and click anywhere on the spline to create a new vertex. When you right click on a vertex you can always change the type of vertex from Corner all the way to Bezier so you don't have to get that right Someone else mentioned it recently: When you're doing corners that should be a constant radius, use the spline circle tool and enter the radius in meters, then delete/refine segments to fit it into your track.
Once again thanks guys, I think my problem is not reading some tutorials that I found on my drive or not reading them all the way, I have 2 tutorials that seem to go over a TON and I need to read them all the way through. Tracktutorial.pfd Track Building Tutorial 2.6 Awesome tutorials and I hope not to be asking for so much help now..lol
http://www.calculateme.com/Length/index.htm Quick, easy, and to the point... like my x-wife. RF works in meters so there is no way of escaping it!!! I woudnt use my FFD way with a road course. I would prob loft it unless the track didnt have a ton of corners. My vids center on ovals because thats just what I make. Ive been messing about in Max since 2005. It seems like you will never stop learning about it.
