Can this be done? Random rubble stone walls

[jonarchuk]

Has anyone or does anyone know if I could effectively create something like this using Railclone Pro? I'm already a user of it, but just mid-way through tutorials.

Help would be awesome!

Thanks all!

[Paul Roberts]

Hi,

Thanks for the interesting question. I've attached a quick example file for you to take a look at.


The node tree looks like this.



To recreate this style:

• Attach a number of stone segments to a Randomise operator
• Attach the Randomise operator to a new Material operator, set the range to suit a multi/sub object material with a number of varied stone textures
• Attach the Material Node to a Transform operator and introduce some transform randomisation using the Properties > Transform > Random settings
  
  
• Right click on the transform node and export the Fixed Z Y paramaters. Create a new Arithmetic operator and attach it to the exported parameters.
• Enter the expression 100-(SegmentYCounter*4) this will subtract a value from the scale percentage for each additional row, creating the reduction in size in each course seen in your reference photo
• Attach the Transform operator to the Default input of an A2S generator
• For the top, wire the material node into a second transform operator and set the Fixed Rotation Z to 90.
• Scale the segments down using Fixed Scale and add some randomisation. If necessary, adjust the padding to close up excessive gaps and set the Y Alignment to Bottom
  
• Finally, wire this into the top input slot.

I hope that helps,

Let me know if you have an further questions.

Thanks,

Paul

[Paul Roberts]

Just to add that I have turned off bend and slice for the all segments. To get a clean edge just turn it back on again from Properties > Deform > Slice.

I've also attached a revised and slightly more advanced version to this post that adds some height variation to each course.



Cheers,

Paul

[jonarchuk]

Paul,

I don't know what to say, I've never been so pleased by a single response. Thank you so very much.

I'll have a go with it and see if I can get my head around it....I have to say though it looks phenomenal. I have three questions if that's okay...well that and a suggestion!

- I see there were some actual sand stone textures/mats used in your example. Where can I acquire those?
- How did you generate the stone geometry in the first place?
- What if I wanted it more regular with mortar between the gaps, such as



In this example would a decent texture of the wall, displaced, with just random cock and hen coping be the answer?

- And for my suggestion, it would be cool to see some of these (like the one you made for me) in the RC library.

Thanks again, it looks truly amazing!

[Paul Roberts]

Paul,

I don't know what to say, I've never been so pleased by a single response. Thank you so very much.

I'll have a go with it and see if I can get my head around it....I have to say though it looks phenomenal. I have three questions if that's okay...well that and a suggestion!

No problem at all, Glad it helps out. I'll try to answer your questions.

- I see there were some actual sand stone textures/mats used in your example. Where can I acquire those?

The textures are something I'm using for to build a Forest Pack library at the moment but they're meant for gravel so the resolution is probably too low for this use. If you're also a Forest Pack user, they'll be available in the next release. Alternatively you can probably find some good textures from CGTextures or other texture sites.

- How did you generate the stone geometry in the first place?

I cheated . I used the Debris Maker 2 script by Aaron Dabelow, it's great for making procedural rocks and other things. I recommend it.

- What if I wanted it more regular with mortar between the gaps. In this example would a decent texture of the wall, displaced, with just random cock and hen coping be the answer?

I think that would work. You could combine this style with a second generator that creates slightly narrower wall/mortar geometry so that the rocks protrude through the surface. I haven't tried it but I can imagine that would work well.

- And for my suggestion, it would be cool to see some of these (like the one you made for me) in the RC library.

That's a good idea. I'll add them to our list.

Thanks!

Paul

[jonarchuk]

Hey Paul,

Thanks for all your help so far. On my mission to make this wall more realistic, I made a displacement map and wish to displace the wall (obviously!) The issue is, how can I separate the top array from the bottom?

Ultimately I want the stones and the white mortar on the top to remain just textures (no displacement) and the wall underneath to take the displacement. I've tried displacement to the wall overall and you can see that it messes up the stones on the top as they just use the same material as the wall itself. Any ideas? Thanks.

[Paul Roberts]

Hi Jon,

Unfortunately isn't possible to use displacement with native instances or proxies in VRay or Mental Ray. This is a limitation of the render engine. The possible solutions are, disable native instancing by turning off Use Geometry Shader from the Display rollout (though this could increase memory usage), or use pre-displaced geometry as segments. You can use the Displace Mesh Modifier to get this latter effect, please see the 3dsmax documentation here.

You could also use a hybrid technique where the main wall, which is relatively low-poly, is one RailClone object with Use Geometry Shader switched off to allow for displacement and the top is a second RailClone object driven by the same spline that uses the geometry shader as normal.

I hope that helps,

Thanks,

Paul

[QM3423]

This is wonderful. I learn alot about your plugins by analyzing your samples so thank you. 

This might be an easy question but how can i adjust the overall height of the wall? Or likewise, how can I add more rows on stones (to establish the overall height of the wall)?

[QM3423]

Nevermind, I figured it out! Right there in front of me.