"The Road Goes Ever On" and other "Old Walking Songs"

So, my question is - at first blush - a relatively simple one. It is "What did the fo..." No, no. I'm only kidding.

Background: I am trying to build some wending paths onto my level. This has proven to be mysteriously difficult for reasons uknown. Simply dropping a texture on top of another texture does not produce the desired effect.

So, as a result, I launched myself into a flurried frenzy of Google-bound activity. The best resource I found (dismissing things like EasyRoad3D and its ilk because I am of the übermensch and wish to create it myself.). Also, I dismiss things like "splining" because I don't need that much firepower for the simple effects I want.

The best result I found that was pretty much what I was looking for was right HERE. (As an aside, they're a neat studio and their games are pretty sweet.).

Now, somewhere betwixt halfway and three-quarters of the way down he hits my mark. He says

Followed by this super-smexy image of drizzling hot road smexiness.



Now, can someone please explain how this effect was achieved? I'm missing something vital (but likely super noobly basic). Near as I can tell, he's suggesting that the default terrain texture be the road texture and then you just raise up the other terrain around it. However, I can't do that for various reasons (I imported my stuff from L3DT, I have other smexy textures nicely placed, etc).

Any ideas, oh ye spirits of the Unity Engine?

PS: That whole post is a goldmine, btw. Pretty neat information. I advise ye lowly noobs such as myself to bookmark the crap outta that site.

 

I see I've managed (given the current time) to stump all of Europe and Asia. Let's see if the Western hemisphere does any better!

 

Hmm..no one?

 

I'm confused about what your question is specifically? Are you asking how to paint onto the terrain with separate textures and make a sort of "elder scrolls" looking path? As far as I know it's as simple as messing with the blending settings and adding a couple textures to the terrain tool. To get it perfect means lots of texture tweaking, and making sure those settings work for your situation.

Hope that gets you started!

 

Well, the original author (as stated above) said that you "paint a specific height and assign a road texture to the terrain."

What does this mean and how is it done? What you suggested? I tired dropping a texture on and then messing with the opacity and so forth but that really didn't cut it.

 

Hmmm personally I haven't tried a path like that, but maybe instead of using terrain (the unity built in terrain tools) you might model your terrain in a 3d modeling tool, and separate the mesh for the path itself from the surrounding terrain, then just use texture tweaking (by that I mean make the texture blend exactly as you like between the two objects) to get the look, using separate textures.

If you really want to use the built in terrain stuff, there must be someone on the forums who will come by and have done something similar and can share some wisdom. I unfortunately haven't got much experience with the terrains, sorry!

 

Yea, aside from using splines or other tools that seems like a decent option. Thank you!

 

"paint a specific height" means to use the height tool to select a height, and then paint that height. It's the second tool:



Sample a height (using shift+click), and then grab an appropriately sized brush and draw the road bed. Once it's done, select the texture painter, and paint the road texture over it.

Or better yet, just get Easyroads3d:

http://www.unityterraintools.com

 

Thank you for your reply! As stated above, I am trying to avoid the use of tools such as EasyRoads. And as far as the height thing...I gave that a go. It may very well be my simple lack of adroitness or skill, but I couldn't get that technique to work and thus thought I was doing it wrong by interpreting it so literally. However, since you have confirmed that part of it, I will give it another go and see if that produces any fruit. Thank you for taking the time to explain!

 

Western hemisphere ftw! (Just guessing)

Thanks for the unknown link gloomshroud. Very nice.

 

My pleasure.