QUESTION After some more help with my first track

[Larry Tudor]

Hi everyone,
I'm slowly making progress on my first track, BayPark Raceway that used to exist in NZ. I created the basic terrain, track mesh and track layout using a combination of georeferenced aerial imagery in QGIS and some surveying software to add some elevations to the terrain. From the surveying software I exported a 3D dxf of the track and terrain mesh. My idea was that I would then import the dxf into 3ds max 2018 to continue with the rest.

This has worked fine with a few glitches along the way and I've got a driveable track to which I'm adding further details. I'm very much a beginner with 3dsmax and I'm learning as I go. What I'm trying to do now at a sub-object level is to modify the terrain mesh to add extra banks beside the track and add some elevation changes to the track. My problem is that when I try to modify the mesh the triangles aren't 'glued' together and move independently of each other. See link to a short video in my dropbox;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d9qjw9jrae7fyyq/BayPark Mesh.mp4?dl=0

I've tried the 'weld' and 'weld vertices' modifiers to try and fix the problem and I'm not sure if I've got the settings correct as I haven't been able to join the triangles together.

I'm hoping that someone can provide some advice as to how I can fix my problem using 3ds max 2018? Thanks

Cheers
Larry

 

[Gunnar333]

Looks like double faces. Try to find those and delete them.
Try to convert the mesh to poly (right click menue on "Editable Mesh") and try to weld the vertices again.

 

[EKO Sim-Racing]

Hi everyone,
I'm slowly making progress on my first track, BayPark Raceway that used to exist in NZ. I created the basic terrain, track mesh and track layout using a combination of georeferenced aerial imagery in QGIS and some surveying software to add some elevations to the terrain. From the surveying software I exported a 3D dxf of the track and terrain mesh. My idea was that I would then import the dxf into 3ds max 2018 to continue with the rest.

This has worked fine with a few glitches along the way and I've got a driveable track to which I'm adding further details. I'm very much a beginner with 3dsmax and I'm learning as I go. What I'm trying to do now at a sub-object level is to modify the terrain mesh to add extra banks beside the track and add some elevation changes to the track. My problem is that when I try to modify the mesh the triangles aren't 'glued' together and move independently of each other. See link to a short video in my dropbox;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d9qjw9jrae7fyyq/BayPark Mesh.mp4?dl=0

I've tried the 'weld' and 'weld vertices' modifiers to try and fix the problem and I'm not sure if I've got the settings correct as I haven't been able to join the triangles together.

I'm hoping that someone can provide some advice as to how I can fix my problem using 3ds max 2018? Thanks

Cheers
Larry

Did it work? I’m a 3ds max user so I might be able to help you

 

[Larry Tudor]

Hi Nericksenna,
yes it mainly worked by welding all the vertices. I say mainly as there are still the weird double faces but I've been deleting them as I have been modifying the terrain. I've currently left the terrain alone and have started trying to add some super-elevation around the track corners as currently the track is totally flat. However I haven't quite worked out any easy way to do this. I combined my terrain editable poly to my road editable poly into a single object as I was unable to select the common edges both at the same time so I could move them together. Once I've added the super-elevation around the corners I'll separate them back into road and grass objects. Is there any easier way to do this?

Then I'm finding it a rather tedious process to add the super-elevation by lifting the outside edge and centre edges of the track polys in a z direction in small sections so it is progressively changing to no super-elevation at the curve start to maximum at the curve centre and reducing to zero at the end of the curve. I'd really appreciate some advice about an easier workflow for adding super-elevation with 3ds max,

Cheers
Larry

 

[Gunnar333]

Here are a few of my methods for terrain/road modelling

For aligning the terrain object border to the road I do snap the vertexes by hand (enable 3D Snap Settings: Vertex) or I use this script:
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/snap-verts
and then weld the freshly snapped and still selected vertexes.

For rebuilding a messed up terrain mesh (with overlapping faces, etc... ) you can try to use "create compound object: terrain
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-DD179DF1-D38A-4AD9-A2C1-5B68A6718E48-htm.html
you don't need to have these contour lines you can use any spline object for this.
So: select all edges of your messed up terrain mesh and "create shape from selection".
This will give you a pile of splines you can use for the compound object to build your clean terrain object.

Hope this will help.

 

[EKO Sim-Racing]

Can you give some screenshots please? Just for the general idea Please.
I’m not at home this week so I can’t open your files yet.

 

[Larry Tudor]

Hi,
here are some links to screenshots in my dropbox. I think part of the problem could be is that when I created the road and terrain using the surveying software it created it as a lot of digital terrain model triangles that I'm now finding hard to manipulate with 3ds max or perhaps I just don't know how to use 3dsmax properly yet. Here's a screenshot of the mesh for the main hairpin;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i9byobhqmozf5oc/Hairpin corner detail.JPG?dl=0

and here are a couple of screenshots of the third corner that I hope will illustrate what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to drop the inside edge of the track to add some crossfall across the track corner. It should be at the maximum at the center of the corner and progressively get less to zero at the start and finish of the corner.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vxsoeumc4ksy3dw/Third corner detail.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vlos6c2mnnnil32/Third corner detail no grass.JPG?dl=0

Finally here's a video showing a lap of the track showing my progress so far. It's pretty basic I know but you can see at the moment the corners are all totally flat and I know they weren't like that in real life from videos I watched and from memories of the track in the 70's as a 10 year old kid. The terrain is also very angular but the basic shape is about right;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cfdzs7yziftb79d/BayPark Raceway So Far.mp4?dl=0

Cheers Larry

 

[EKO Sim-Racing]

Ahh but hang on, what I see as an issue is that you’ve got triangle polys all over the place. First thing, select your track mesh and turn them to quads, that’ll simplify your life a bit

 

[EKO Sim-Racing]

Once I get back home in around a week and a half I’ll take a look at your track and see how I can help you out. If you can just save your scene as a 3dsmax 2017 that would be great as I’m a little late on the versions

 

[EKO Sim-Racing]

For your progressive dip, there’s a trick you can check out on YouTube a thing used in 3dsmax called Soft Selection, it’s pretty cool and might help you out

 

[fughettaboutit]

thing is, ksEditor stores it all as tri's in the kn5
(i might be wrong)

 

[EKO Sim-Racing]

Yeah that’s true, but that’s not an issue if you get it back into 3dsmax