Hi everyone, Just a quick question. With the Autodromo di Mores track in particular, I see that there is a rather huge surrounding are of terrain included. How does one save that area? Is it from Google earth or another source? I would like to do the same with my Lakeside track to give the horizon a more authentic look. Thanks in advance for any tips etc. Mike
Hi, Mores surrounding has been made using DEM models, from the region site who has a dedicated GIS resources database. Depends on your place to model, DEM files are available almost for every place in the planet. You don't need any crazy resolution, everything using a grid of x10mt, x30mt, x50mt, is good enough. For Mores, surrounding has been split into sort of concentric patches of terrain, with "higher" res just around the track area, and lower resolutions for the very far ring of hills. A DEM then needs to be converted into a mesh for max, and then optimized to look good but using a very low poly game mesh. You can use the pro optimized in Max to convert the regular grid mesh into a optimized TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network). Another quicker way is to use some commercial plugin, as WestRacing TERRAIN 3ds max plugin, which connect straight to Google Earth database and import exactly the area you need with some nice procedural parameters you can tweak to change the mesh attributes. With that plugin you get both terrain and sat map, at max res available. There are several methods to do the same thing, just remember to optimize those mesh as much as possible to reduce the impact on GPU.
if you get a geotiff image could be a fast solution. Create a dense plane and apply the displacement modifier and set the tiff image. As Tuttle said apply a optimizer tool to final mesh to reduce polys. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks for the "DEM" tip! I've requested the data from our goverment. Some times you just need to ask.
Glad it helped.. This looks like a good DSM grid based on aerial laser scan. Pretty good reference! Have fun!
