A model of K2

[iGeek]

I need to build a model of K2 for a 9th grade science project. My teacher has authorized me to build it A:M rather than papier maché. I've attached a rough image I made from a topo map. It's not the final image for the displacement map, just a stand in while I finish it. I was wondering how I can apply the displacement to the model's geometry. I need to model some stuff to top of the mountain to make it look like a national park. How can I do this? I have the latest 10.5 release under OS 9 and Beta 7 under OS X. I know I should post this in the newbies forum, but I see this as a work in progress. Thanks to anyone who can help! PS. This project is due Monday!!!

[zacktaich]

Make a grid, however big or small you want, it doesn't matter, and apply it as a 'decal' now go into the image properties and change it to a 'displacement map'.

 

Hope this helps. Do you want more detail?

 

(I can't believe they're making you do this just before summer break! )

[iGeek]

Thanks. The problem is that I need to make the mountain part of the grid's geometry. If you have the Siggraph 2000 training tapes, look at Brian Prince's landscape tutorial. He has a grid that has been modeled into a set of cliffs. The splines are physically (?) shaped to make the cliffs. i need this because I need to model things like buildings and a tube running up the mountain. That will also allow me to do a realtime flyby for my class. Isn't there some kind of plugin for this? Here's the project. Use the above image as the displacement map.

K2.prj

[mtpeak2]

Do you have the terrain plug-in from toonnation? You can load the image into the plug-in and generate a mesh. I beleive there is a mac version.

[mtpeak2]

Don't know how tall or big to make the mountain. but the plug-in works.

[iGeek]

Wow, cool! It's a bit taller that I want. In this image I applied the above displacement map at 3000%. However, as you can see, it didn't modify my mesh. Can someone talk me through installing and using the plugin? I can take it from there. If anyone has some free time, though I don't suppose you do, I'm paleozev on AIM/iChat. You could talk me through it in real time. Thank you all so much for the help! I'll tell you what i get for a grade some time next week, after the final.

[mtpeak2]

http://members.lycos.co.uk/toonnation/

 

This is the link to the plug-in. Install it in the hxt folder under the version of am you are using.

[iGeek]

What do I do then? I can't find it in any contextual menu or anything. I don't know much about plugins.

[mtpeak2]

Right click in an empty space in the modeling window. click plug-ins/wizard/terrain. That will open the plug-in, then there is a load button. you can load the image there.

[mtpeak2]

Does anyone know how to use the terrain plug-in for mac?

[iGeek]

Mtpeak2 helped me create a mesh with the terrain plugin on his PC. I'll post my grade when I get it. Thanks, all!

[mtpeak2]

He wasn't supposed to tell anyone I help him with his homework. Didn't know how to bring up the plug-in on a mac. Thought it would have been the same.

[iGeek]

Sorry

[mtpeak2]

Just hope your teacher doesn't find out.

[iGeek]

Here's an interesting one. I've got the mountain scaled to be authentically sized. It's supposed to be 8611 meters tall. I created a guide at 8611m, and it displayed at 861.1m. I moved it to 86110m, and it displayed at 8611m as in the screen grab. The reference spline that I added to measure measures at 85121.3. Is this a bug?

[rickh]

Here's an interesting one. I've got the mountain scaled to be authentically sized. It's supposed to be 8611 meters tall. I created a guide at 8611m, and it displayed at 861.1m. I moved it to 86110m, and it displayed at 8611m as in the screen grab. The reference spline that I added to measure measures at 85121.3. Is this a bug?

 

Probably not. A:M uses Single precision floating point, which means it is not great at modelling things at a huge scale. Normally, single precision will not cause an error in the 4th signifigant digit (5th or 6th digit is more likely), but it is quite possible.

 

More importantly, if you want to animate, say, some climbers up near the peak, it is very important that you move the whole mountain so that the region where the climbers are are is close to the A:M origin.

 

If you wanted a scene where the climbers falls off a gigantic cliff, move the mountain up rather then the climbers down (so the climber still stay near the origin.

 

Basically, due to the effect of rounding errors with the single precision, you wouldn't want characters you are animating to ever get more than a couple of kilometers from the origin - the closer the better.

 

Should Hash have used Double precision which would allow to animate (in real-size) a trip from the Earth to the Moon without rounding error problems? They could, but it would almost double the RAM requirements and possibly halve the rendering speed. With the current hardware, Single precision is an excellent compromise.

 

Richard.

[iGeek]

Here's a problem. I have a non-rendering spline running from my base camp to my summit lodge, passing through two other lodges. I've actually gone in and created correctly scaled building mock-ups. I was wondering if there was a way to take this tube I've created and repeat it a few hundred times, following the curve of the spline? Otherwise, how can make that spline render as a tube about 3 meters in diameter? I can get it to render as a hairline only. PS sorry about all the images!

[iGeek]

Update: I took rickh's advice and scaled the mountain to a few meters tall. Now a spline rendering as lines appears plenty big. I may keep this, instead of the tube in the last post, just to keep spline count down. When colored with a light blue, it looks similar to glass. I'll be doing a realtime flyby in class anyway, so low patch count is a good thing.

 

-Zev

[iGeek]

Hello again! I presented the project in class today on my PowerBook. We got an 80 on the whole project, mostly because my partners and I had not had time to rehearse. However, the "model" section got 100!!! Thanks once again to all who helped me. And I don't care about grades anyway. I went to a Waldorf school last year. No grades and no stress! Woohoo!

 

-Zev