Curve on segments

[PN1828]

Hi. We are a 3D simulation departement in a civil engineering company. We just bought RailClone and are very plased to see the possibilities.  We are testing it right now and here is the questions.

I created a road with a loft for a civil engineering project.  For the purpose of this test, I used the same path of that loft for creating the RC road and used only styles from the library ( curb, road railguard, marking ) .
On some part of the spline, the RC objects are following the curve of the spline while not on some other parts. Is there a reason why it stay straight even when the segment is curved ? See attachement.
The look of the marking is far from the look of yours in the images gallery.   I know i can go in the material and tweak it but all the others RC objects look right... see att.
The join at each end of the curb contain 3 straight segments.  Could this be 1 segment only since 3 add no detail to the geometry but a lot on poly count?  Or is there a way to eleminate it in the objects parameters ?
And for the wishlist, a lock button between left & right number box in the Randomness section would be a great.  I'm also very, very pleased to see that you plan to add T-junctions for RC.

Thak you very much

[iToo]

Hi, replying to your questions:

On some part of the spline, the RC objects are following the curve of the spline while not on some other parts.

Yes, we just realized that RailClone is ignoring the parameter 'Optimize' of the spline, creating this problem with some curves. Please, tell me you Max version to send you a patched version. If it works, we will include the fix in the next release.

The look of the marking is far from the look of yours in the images gallery.

We use a Noise map as opacity map, and probably it's not scaling properly in your scene. What units do you use ? Please, post here a test scene for checking.

The join at each end of the curb contain 3 straight segments.  Could this be 1 segment only since 3 add no detail to the geometry but a lot on poly count?

The curbs are segmented because works better for city streets, where curves are sharper. If you want to modify it from an existing RailClone object:

1) Select the segment in the Segments list, and click "Extract" button. This creates an instance of the mesh in the scene.
2) Apply an Edit poly" modifier to the instanced object, an use it to remove the extra edges.
3) Once you get the desired result, the object can be removed safely (RailClone stores internally its own referency).
4) Optionally, to reuse the object in other scenes, save it in your custom RC library.

And for the wishlist, a lock button between left & right number box in the Randomness section would be a great

Usually these values must be different, because they define a range. Why do you need to lock them ?

[PN1828]

Wow, this is fast !

I use max 2008, 64bits. 
The system unit setup is meters.  I included the file.
I'll try the trick for the curbs, thanks
As for the scale, I wanted to scale the with of the road. I jumped the value in both Y of Ramdomness to do it.  I taught I would do the same for sidewalk if I created them.

Thanks again !

Eric

[iToo]

Ok. I've already sent to you the RailClone Pro patched by e-mail.

About the noise map, we created the libraries in Max 9, but the Size parameter is generating different result in Max 2008 and later versions. We will replace it by a texture. Meanwhile, please modify in your scene the Noise Size value for a smaller value, as 0.02.

To scale the segments, you can use the Local Transform->Scale parameters, instead using Randomness.

[PN1828]

All Right !

It work boys !  Patched, the scene opened just fine with all the RC object following my spline.  And the fix of the curb worked out too.

Yeah !


Great Thanks !