cloning objects along a spline with orientations based on surface normal

[mahdi.winter]

hi everyone, i've been researching about this and almost found nothing other than some approaches with MCG, i'm trying to clone/array objects along a spline path with some kind of a road underneath it but struggling with unwanted rotation issues along the path and need to have the objects stick to the road following the surface normal, is there any native max approach less complex than making a tool in somewhere like MCG or is there any way we could transfer the normal values of the surface to the spline or have the spline use some specific normals? any help would be much appreciated! 

[RobH2]

This won't be perfect but it might be good enough:

1. Raise your arrows up a little bit so they don't touch the road

2. Go to Itoosoft (the Forest Pack people) and get their free "Glue" script. Install it (it's safe, I've used it for years)

3. Select all the arrows top or bottoms. You might be able to figure out a clever way to do that so you don't have to click then one-by-one. 

4. Convert the selection to Edges and get just the perimeter/border and then do a 'Create Shape' to the get the edge shape of each arrow. 

5. Use 'Glue' to project those edges to the road. Each will perfectly align to the mesh under it. 

6. Extrude those extruded lines up as needed. 

[leeminardi]

Perhaps the following approach may yield what you need for the end result.

1. Create an arrow as a closed line.
2. Add an array and a path deform modifier. referencing the spline.  The spline does not need to lie on the surface.
3. Use Shape Merge to project the arrow to the surface.
4. Convert the object to an editable poly
5. Choose the Polygon subobject and then the extrude option in the Edit Geometry options.  While your at it change the ID of the extrude polygons to 2.
6. These arrows are on the surface.  If you want them above the surface you can detach them from the surface at this point and move them up and use an unedited surface under it.
7. Add a multi-subobject material.

[mahdi.winter · Accepted solution]

THANKS 

 leeminardi AND

 RobH2

 , i had tried different ways including that glue plugin which didn't really give me what i wanted, i finally found the solution by chance using the new array modifier with pick surface option, does the job very well, the trick is to just increase the orientation value there to use surface's normal, the name in my humble thought seem to be really confusing, i wish MAX's dev team use some kind of a name that better conveys that it is practically using NORMALS, not just an orientation word which sounds unclear about its core usage!