Using DEM data to create realistic topography

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to create a stepped topographic terrain in Maya that closely resembles a real-world landmark. I figured I could use DEM data to solve this problem, but I'm not sure how to impliment this in Maya.

I've read around and it seems to be easy to do this using tools such as Revit, but I'd like to use Maya because I intend to do a lot of additional modeling after this process is complete. I'm doing this for a landscape for a simplistic RPG game I need to design for class. I intend to export the final product into Unity after modeling some greenery, paths and buildings.

Here are a couple examples of the terrain I'd like to make:

[damaggio]

Yes , a DEM will have way too much realistic information for your needs, I would recommend a 16 bit greyscale map done manually in Photoshop 8 k or 16 k although unity might have a problem with that , you might need to split into 4 k maps .. Convert the displacement in Maya to polygons and save an fbx for unity.

its possible to use the photoshop file straight into unity and also perhaps do it in Illustrator , import into Maya as an illustrator file , extrude and loft I believe to create a poly terrain, I don't have the full workflow because is not my kinda work but I'm giving you some tips to search tutorials .

Also using curves in Maya and lofting might work... Let's see if other people bringing other ideas.

Good luck Jbs.

[Anonymous]

I didn't even think about using curves to create the planes! Thank you so much I think I have an idea of how I can make this work now. I'll definitely post some results after I've got something that resembles my end product.

Hoping others will bring more ideas to the table but I think I've got this now!