Go Back   AC3D Forums > General > AC3D General
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 14th October 2015, 04:30 PM   #1
Hans_Petter
Member
Advanced member
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Norway
Posts: 45
Default How to keep the water flat?

Here's a scenery enhancement issue,

I've got an object that's composed of some water surfaces and their surrounding scenery. The water surfaces start out as perfectly flat horizontal surfaces until I start to make the shorelines. However, as soon as I create surfaces that connect them to the adjacent terrain the water table starts to bend and twist, even though I'm not moving any of its vertices. Obviously, there's some kind of "averaging out" that affects surfaces that are next to the ones being edited. Then I thought that surface --> flatten would set things straight but even this doesn't quite work. So, what will I do to keep a surface (water in this case) _absolutely_ flat and horizontal even when I create surfaces next to it that connect it to a not-so-flat terrain?.

In general terms, I want the connecting, new surfaces to adapt to the original surfaces rather than having the original surfaces adapt to being connected.

Added: I found a work-around. I cut the water table loose as a separate object. This made most of the wrinkles go away. Then I used the "snap to first vertex" function to make the shoreline surface line up with the now flat water table. I'm not going to merge the objects again. I'm quite sure that the water table will bend and twist if I do. But then, if there's a way to give one surface / object absolute priority so that it's not being attenuated by what we hook up to it I may merge it all once more.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	curving_water.jpg
Views:	110
Size:	56.4 KB
ID:	3310  


Last edited by Hans_Petter; 15th October 2015 at 08:08 AM. Reason: added new info
Hans_Petter is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th October 2015, 09:45 AM   #2
Andy
Administrator
Professional user
 
Andy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 4,563
Default Re: How to keep the water flat?

You may have been seeing effects of normals being calculated with adjacent surfaces. Keeping the object separate, like you've done, is probably best.

To quickly flatten a selection, simply resize the selection box down to zero height.
Andy is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:07 AM.


AC3D Forum
(C) Inivis Limited 2020