He's set me up to be prepared for something I've wanted to do for a while and it's making pretty good progress. Screenshot below:
These are some custom normal-mapped 1024x1024 roads which can be used on the fly to simply *DRAW* a road. A lot of the models I have for roads are from TGC's city pack which, while useful, is a total bastard to work with in terms of making roads. You're constantly struggling with the problem of snapping them together, making them seamless, getting elevations consistent - not to mention the terrain issue of 'rolling hills' makes them impossible for use.
There's other, probably better, products on the store - namely from "Valuable Assets" but I don't want to shell out 8 dollars for something I can whip out on my own. Once I verify all the licensing and final texture usages I'll put something up at a lowish price (4-6 dollars?).
I've basically got as of current a series of 'muddy splotchy grass' which looks good with vegetation on it:
Now these are textures I've gotten from the web, built normals for, tweaked, etc. But I need to verify if they're cool to drop on the store or if I need to find more license-friendly ones first. For now, personal use will do. After that, I intend to build some simple 'road line' decals for putting lines on the road.
Simple solution to a simple problem, right?
As you can see, a simple asphalt road runs off through some trees, up a valley to the top of a hill. It has a gentle slope and looks true enough. This is simply not something you can easily do with a hard model of a road. I literally threw this scene together in less than five minutes, so with some touching up it could really be something good!
