Editing a terrain as a vertex model? Can it be done? I'm thinking that if I took a terrain I could add different shader domains. That seems like it would be and easy way of adding a path/road though a landscape.
When a terrain is clicked on it just goes to the terrain editor. I want to go to vertex world.

Well, the usual trick is go to the pull-down menu at the top: Edit => Convert to another modelr => Vertex. ;)

I found it. I knew there was a convert to another model function but I was looking for it in the assemble room. Doh! Does this seem like a good plan for putting a road through my land? I made a road (inclosed) before in Vue by makeing two pieces of land (gray scale maps) in Photoshop and giving them different textures in Vue. So I know that way of doing it in Carrara but it doesn't seem as eligent as having different shader domains. Vue 4 didn't have that posability.

If you're going to convert this to a vertex object, you can add your own shader domains and make it easy on yourself. For something like this, I usually use a gray scale map made in Photoshop to drive the terrain height and then assign shading domains from the vertex modeler. Of course, you could do the whole map as a texture if you didn't want to use proceedural shaders. There is actually quite a few ways to do this type of thing...

Nice. I was just toying with those problems myself. Painting in the Terrain room was very slow and the feedback wasn't great. I've painted height maps in PhotoShop before and am okay with doing that. My thought has always been to create roads and paths by judicious painting of an existing generated terrain map. Also tried opening in VM, but even after several decimation steps the terrain was too large to work with. I'll have to explore convert options more closely. Actually, truth told, I just spend a frustrating evening working on landscapes in Carrara, when every few minutes I'd accidentally slide a slider too far to the right -- and have to force-quit Carrara as it went into hour-long calculations of erosion filter or some-such. Looking forward to 6 to see how that runs!

Here's the results of trying to combine land scapes made with gray scale in Photoshop. The road is the exacte negitive of the land. They don't mesh up and a binjo ditch is formed on the edges. I set the heights in the Terrain room to be the same. Close but not there yet.

I just want a winding path across the land.

So what is the best way of combining two terrains?

I was just messing around with some fun stuff like texturing a terrain with rocks, duplicating it, weathering the duplicate and setting it to foliage. Sort of worked! (The edges were too distinct). My feeling on paths is that it really has to be smudged out and flattened and otherwise built specifically in the terrain. Then you could make a copy of the map, select the road, and use that as an alpha channel for the terrain's texture.

Quote - I was just messing around with some fun stuff like texturing a terrain with rocks, duplicating it, weathering the duplicate and setting it to foliage. Sort of worked! (The edges were too distinct). My feeling on paths is that it really has to be smudged out and flattened and otherwise built specifically in the terrain. Then you could make a copy of the map, select the road, and use that as an alpha channel for the terrain's texture.

Hi there. I am trying to do something just like that! Well almost, but I dont have a clue.  Please see:
www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php

What i want to do is add paths, and to the embedded keyboard on the terrain, make it blend in more, make the keys look weathered, add waterfalls to cliffs, and a lake where the basin is, have some ivy, etc.  I am kinda new with Carrara (this is my first piece) but I know photoshop, and it seems it would be easier to pixel paint in later...but hoping for some Carrara tips that might save time? thanks for looking into this for me!!!

I made a road texture and matching roadbed heightmap and used it to make a tiling road terrain for an animation test. I made a couple of duplicate terrains and applied some vegetation mats I made with the help of DGC's EnhanceC.    I used some cellular noise from EnhanceC in an attempt to add random "alligator pavement" cracks that will help make the joint between terrain tiles more seamless. I'm still tweaking shaders as this is just a WIP. Still need to add occasional guardrails, signs, telephone poles etc.

Nice Danamo. :-) NoteFinger, I don't think you really need to combine two terrains here - this can all be done with a single height map. You'll get better terrain-to-path blending.

Okay. Here a piece call "Road Across a Dessert" . I did this morning just using one terrain map and two shader domains. Almost, but the road is too sharp along the edges. It doesn't look real.

Thanks Mark. :-)

Notefinger where do you live that you have knowledge of benjo ditches?

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I went to high school in Japan. Lived there for 2 years.

I went to Elementary school on Okinawa from 63--67.    Gotta love them quonset huts.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms!!