Itoo Software Forum

Author Topic: Cobbled street  (Read 6875 times)

Hayes Davidson

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 16
Cobbled street
« on: July 31, 2014, 04:46:55 PM »
Hi

I'm having problems creating a cobbled street using railclone.  The alignment of the cobbles need to follow the twists of the street and the cobbles themselves should be arranged using a running bond alignment.  I've got the first part sorted (see attached images) but it's the second part that's causing problems.

The railclone is set up as an array using a spline for the X and then a Y Size, with the Y Mode set to free.  The X Spline defines the path of the street and the Y mode allows the cobbles to offset from this as it turns.  I've then created a full length cobble and a half length cobble to create the running bond as shown in the parquet floor tutorial.  The trouble is that the cobbles need to run lengthways along the Y axis, not the X axis as shown in the tutorial, and railclone doesn't seem to be able to close the gaps generated between the half size and full size cobbles.  Again this is shown in the attached images.

Ultimately we'd like to get lots of random length cobbles to run this way, but got stalled at this simpler version.

Can anyone help?  Are we approaching this in the wrong way?

Thanks

Rokas

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3324
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2014, 07:19:04 PM »
Good question! I struggle making this style too, my best attempt:

Rokas

Paul Roberts

  • iToo Software
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2991
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2014, 08:52:58 PM »
Hi,

Do you have an illustration or photo of how this would work in real life? Though it is possible to offset alternate columns as is Rokas' example, as soon as Y mode is set to free, each row's length is calculated independently and the columns would become out of alignment. But if the cobbles are always of a fixed dimension I can't see a way this wouldn't also happen in the real world. I tried looking up this scenario up online but I couldn't find any good reference.

Thanks,

Paul
Paul Roberts
iToo Software

TL1895

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 396
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2014, 06:26:18 PM »
Also would like to know this method.  I know from having installed such cobbles with curves, that Rokas's example looks correct, except the stones should not stretch/grow around the corners.  Usually the cobbles would have almost identical dimensions, with cut stones (with a diamond saw blade) taking place as needed to make the radius.

TL1895

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 396
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #4 on: August 01, 2014, 07:09:56 PM »

Hayes Davidson

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 16
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2014, 12:05:03 PM »
Thanks for the replies everyone.

The reference uploaded by TL1895 is the kind of thing we're aiming for.  As mentioned each cobble is uniquely shape by the stone mason when building the road but there is still a degree of commonality between the various sizes.  The hope was that railcone could produce a surface using the same cobble as reference and then tweaking the random scale, transform and angle values would give the variation.

Paul, are you suggesting that this isn't currently something railclone could do?

Thanks

Paul Roberts

  • iToo Software
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2991
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2014, 12:52:31 PM »
Hi,

The issue that I can't resolve at the moment is how to keep the rows independant so that they flow around the corner without overly stretching the cobbles, whilst maintaining the running bond. RailClone's 2d array doesn't allow us to add extra infil stones needed to keep columns inline and compensate for the larger radius as the rows get further from the corner. My best attempt is somewhat Like Rokas' and includes some randomisation of segment cobble sizes.



In case it is of use I've attached this file so you can see how it was constructed.

If I can think of another way of doing this I'll post it here.

Thanks,

Paul
Paul Roberts
iToo Software

Hayes Davidson

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 16
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2014, 01:40:12 PM »
Thanks for all the help Paul.  We'll take a look at your file and will let you know if we have any further thoughts.  Based on the screen grab though your effort certainly looks better than ours!

TL1895

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 396
Re: Cobbled street
« Reply #8 on: August 05, 2014, 03:37:39 PM »
Paul, that does look quite good, loads better than any on my attempts, so thank you for posting your results.