Digital Art Zone

Whoops, forgot the link.  Here you are:

http://www.mediafire.com/?1ofd08lq27abin5

I have tried .obj exports as well and they produce the same problem.  More and more I think it is my own computer and it’s skimpy 2GB of RAM and outdated Intel Pentium processor, combined with Vista.  Perhaps the lack of power causes the exporting part of the program to collapse… not really sure.  Either way I have a new and more powerful computer.  Hopefully I can carry over my license… especially since it is the free license acquired through that DAZ-3D February giveaway.

Anyway, thanks again.  This should be the final “request” I have haha.

EDIT: Nevermind.

I downloaded the Nolimits trials as a diversion, I was interested in how things were put together, was surprised when using the old Terraformer programme that it had the option to build terrains with hight maps and images, I used the image map from your Icarus file and built one to compare, very similar to the Bryce terrain once the mesh is resized, do you not like to use it?
The sample roller coaster rides in the simulators are great fun,
Only one thing occurred to me is that they were devoid of any human figures, sort of lonely, would there be an opportunity to slip a few in here and there, maybe someone on the Daz Studio Forums here would be interested?

Oh hello there!  I had no idea that Terraformer could import height maps… you know more than I do!  lol Was it the old Terraformer or the one that was bundled with your demo?  It may have been the old one… the older Terraformer actually had more options than the newer one in terms of importing/exporting.

While I would tend to say “yes” to that (it sounds very easy to do compared to our existing issues), the problem is you cannot cut through terrain with tunnels.  You can bury track underneath, but it would leave these terrain collisions inside the tunnel.  Essentially, the terrain is a giant one-sided texture… I could build under/through it, but the entering tunnel would show a collision with the ground.  However, if that is our only option at this point, that is a great idea… especially if it has the same quality of terrain from Bryce.  I can always cover the terrain collisions with black 3D blocker shapes that cover the terrain collision.  It would just look like your were hitting a black face though… not very good looking.

Oh, and if you’re still bored and interested in NoLimits, I can show you how I made my track.  I didn’t actually use the basic NoLimits program to design the track itself… rather I’m using it to render it.  Instead I used the free fan-made third party program Newton 2, which creates tracks in an easy graphical force-vector design environment.  It’s popular in the NoLimits community… it has extreme precision, perfect heartlines, and a nice slew of transition functions.

Here’s if you’re super-super bored and want to see some nerdy stuff.

Newton 2 download: https://nolimits-exchange.com/news/newton-2/20

My Icarus project file (open in Newton 2): http://www.mediafire.com/?03f4ahkou952k7h

Anyway, if you’re done checking out nerd stuff, see if you can export that “track w/terrain” file in a low-res format.  If I still can’t open that, we may have to go with the Terraformer idea you proposed.  Great catch, thanks again!

I got the old terraformer standalone.
 
Yes am interested in how you will cut the tunnels. As this is a Daz forum I have tried in Bryce it can be done but for me too time consuming and awkward, Hexagon will do it I am sure but the mesh “rock” is dense and must be difficult in SU. I would need real explosives on my machine. 
It occours to me that if the track can be exported as a curve or a curve extracted from the mesh. then no problem the cleaned up mesh track that I sent in my pm. is nearly there, also there are plugins for SU. that will convert curves to tubes and the like. Then a boolean operation on the mesh terrain.
What is your procedure?
Have your downloads on the desktop and looking forward to investigating.
Glad the .skp file in my pm. helped.

edit: how about a ghost train??

I am using SketchUp to make the tunnels.  The process I use involves setting up minimum clearances and then building tunnels from there too look like rock.  I use another third party program called the NoLimits Tunnel Maker.  I create a shape for the tunnel, and then I export it onto my track.  This creates a custom 3ds file that contains a bunch of tunnels.  I then import this into SketchUp and trim off the excess tunnels.  The parts that hit the Bryce terrain are rulers in which I use to cut the Bryce terrain with acceptable clearances.

Eventually all the tunnels will be deleted since I want to have rocky insides too, not smooth concrete tunnels.  So I suppose I’m going to try to create rocky terrain inside the tunnel areas.

BEFORE: http://i.imgur.com/l9gFX.png

AFTER: http://i.imgur.com/ZZjnP.png

Then I will use little rocks to cover up the sharp edges, and that’s pretty much it.

AJ
That is exactly what I am talking about

When I saw the No Limits tunnel maker I laughed, I had spent quite a while working out how to get your track mesh from the initial Bryce Icarus file to a neat ,easy to work with state that would work with Sketchup as it was dense and had really too much info for what was required. you asked for a blob and got lovely smooth rails.
What would have been a lot easier would have been to..
Flag your track file as ALL tunnel.
Run it through the tunnel maker with say a simple circle shape or even set it up how you want the tunnels ultimately to be.
Export that as a .3ds file as it will now be a good low poly template for you to model the terrain.
You will be able to use this also to cut your tunnels. Even in Bryce with a few clicks!
PS. I did not realise you were using the pro version of SU. it imports .obj files.

Wait, are you saying I should have done all of the tunnel-digging in Bryce instead of SketchUp?  I suppose I could have done that… I’m not really aware of the benefits though.  Do you think I should do all of my modelling in Bryce?  Buildings and all?

And yes, I used your blob/smooth rails to resize the other Terrain 13 export.  It worked well as it imported to SketchUp this time lol.  I lined up your smooth rails with the Construction Kit model (a direct, NoLimits .3ds track export), which scaled up your terrain as well.  Then I matched your earlier Terrain 13 export with the blob, and deleted the blob.

Your smooth rails/blob was completely out of scale, as with anything from Bryce upon SketchUp import.  But now I have everything covered in terms of scale and detail.  I suppose I will continue to cut through the terrain as I am right now… hopefully I won’t run into any major issues!

Hi AJ

I do not know how fast SU reacts on your machine with those big meshes, on mine it lags so much and makes the program unusable.

The original track you gave me was dense and messy and would not load into SU as you found out.

After fiddling with it for a bit I took out all the frame work and some inner polys with Meshlab then using Hexagon average welded all the sections together which was time consuming. (although I enjoyed It)

All this was a sort of waste of time, because…

When you told me about the tunnel maker afterwards, I saw the potential to use it to help the process from the start.

So I was suggesting that if there was a simple mesh file exported using the tunnel maker in the first place ie: turn the track file into one complete tunnel then export it so we were left with a tube or pipe or even box sections, it would have much less polys and still be the correct shape to model the terrain around and better to work with in SU,
A good template!
You can then, if you wanted, use it to cut the tunnels in Bryce or any programme using boolean subtraction. maybe the tunnel maker. is underestimated.

Well hey, if you want to do that, it may be a better option.  The current method I’m employing is kinda messy (at the edges of the terrain cuts, especially).  I’ll give you the tunnel shape that I want you to use, and maybe you can do your boolean subtraction with the tunnels, combined with some optimization magic lol.

And yes, the Tunnel Maker does exactly what you said.  It sees where you have tunnels flagged on your NoLimits track, and then creates a 3D object in any shape you want to replace those tunnels, and places them in the correct spots in a giant model.  I used that .3ds export in the SketchUp model to carve out the tunnel openings for minimum clearances.

All roller coasters have clearance requirements (so that people with long arms, legs, etc cannot hit anything surrounding the coaster track and car).  In the NoLimits community, most people define that as the space the tunnel provides.  The term the community likes to call it is “tunnel testing”, and if anything pops inside the tunnel frame (track, scenery, supports, another tunnel), then that is declared as a “collision” and something must be done to restore the proper clearances, such as moving scenery away from the track area.

Anyway, the tunnel shape that I created is that exact clearance zone.  When I import that into SU and start trimming, it is the closest the rock/scenery can get to the track.  That way the ride is very exciting, but safe.  Now, I have the 3ds tunnel export… I can give that to you if you want to do some magic on your end.  I would be grateful.  Do note that it IS to scale in NoLimits, so you will have to match your track with it.

—————————-

That is the problem though.  Your models are not to scale, and the only way to make them to scale is to match your track/rails with the raw track export I provided.  And you can’t load the raw track into SU… only I was able to.  If I give you the tunnel file, it will be much too large for your model (your model was very tiny).  And you won’t know what size to make your model.  So… I’m not really sure how to let you do the tunnel thing.

Is there anything you think I can do on my end?

Hi AJ

Your models are not to scale, and the only way to make them to scale is to match your track/rails with the raw track export I provided.  And you can’t load the raw track into SU

That is what I am trying to help with, with the method I set out in my last post there would be no need of the raw track at all, just a tunnel version to model the terrain around. keeping things simple and easy to work with.

If you would send me your exported “all tunnel” .3ds file from the tunnel maker I will test some ideas. Make sure it is one complete tunnel and not just the sections to be cut.
If you could send me a Bryce file with the new all tunnel file added in to the original Bryce Icarus file ‘don’t delete anything’ that would be a help but no matter if it is too much messing around.
A full scale .skp file maybe of use.
I think I may have a good method to make the entrance to the tunnels appear realistic as well.

Hope its not to much.

Here is a zip file that contains the SketchUp model (to scale), the full tunnel exports (to scale), and the original Bryce file that I had.  I have to go, so I didn’t import them all into Bryce… sorry lol.  Anyway, see what you can make of this.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?khaz5q34sw55zrl

Do note though that I may want to turn the tunnels into rocky cave areas.  I do not plan to keep them as boring concrete burrows, although I may use some of the concrete to make trenches.  Which brings me to my next point: if you see a tunnel collide with land even when the track isn’t “underground”, remove that terrain.  This will create a sidecut or trench into the rock, and it will look cool.  Also, that needs to happen for the ride to be safe.  If a tiny corner hits a tunnel, see if you can pull it away and keep that little corner without deleting it, if you want.  Either way the entrance to the tunnels aren’t of utmost importance if I’m going to do cave entrances.  BTW, if you want to go ahead and create caves in the tunnels, be my guest! 

Oh, another thing to note: some of the tunnels may cross with other tunnels.  This is intentional… eventually I want one of the cave areas to be open and include both parts of the track crossing over in one space.  Also: there are some parts where the terrain dips really really low in a sharp crevice… so low that it often hits the tunnels.  Do not move this up.  Instead, cut it so that it will leave a hole.  I want light to streak through those gaps as that will create an interesting look.

This may be a lot to process…. just e-mail me if you have any questions lol.  I have to go though, good luck!

AJ

The Icarus tunnels .3ds file in the zip is useless, please open and check it before you send this really the file that is important.
Do you understand when I ask for the complete track to be exported as ALL tunnel?

Yeah sorry lol.  I was running late.  Here is the fully tunneled 3d file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?122lk5u9w22e99v

Hey have you made any progress?  If not I will continue this on my own (I think I got it from this point on), but if you could let me know that would be great haha.