Basic Track Creation Tutorial
Part 2 Good job, you now have the track shape you want. Our next half will be putting the track together; a surface we can drive on.
Now we are going to create the banking. Create a spline, this time a straight line. Make it whatever angle you want, preferably like above. Also, try and keep it in proportions of the track. This is the shape.
Select the track path
Create > Geometry > Compound Objects > Loft.
With the path selected, "Get Path" then "Get Shape" and click on the line you just made.
Use these settings:
And you'll get something like this:
It won't look exactly like mine, of course. You'll probably have to rotate and translate its position like I did, to place it over the center grid center point.
Now lets add a texture. Select the track, and then press "M". It'll prompt the material editor.
Check diffuse color, then bitmap. Locate the texture file you want to use.
After you have the texture loaded, press "Assign Material to Selection" then "Show Map in Viewport". This adds the texture to the track, and allows you to see it in the perspective view. You might have to adjust the rotation on the texture, 90 or 180 degrees.
You'll notice the texture stretches across the track. To combat this, bump the tiling setting (basically a repeating pattern over and over). Depending on your texture, and size of track, you may have a different setting. Set it high or low as you see fit.
At this point you can delete the 2 splines you made earlier, unless you'd like to keep them for future use.
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Now we'll add some infield grass. Select the track.
Edit > Clone.
Name it whatever you want, doesn't really matter.
Press "H" to bring up the select list, and select the track. Then right mouse click, properties.
It'll bring up the properties dialog, check the hide option.
Now you will only have the grass (well, it will be grass soon) showing.
Using the same process as above, select the "grass" and assign it's own texture in the next material slot.
With the grass still selected, Modify > Edit Mesh > Sub-Object: Edge.
This part isn't hard, just tricky to explain. Try and follow.
Select all of the edges in the Front view port.
You want to have them select like this (just the bottom). To do this, select them all then press ALT+Mouse and drag out anything above the bottom edges. With Edit Mesh still intact, right mouse click and "Extrude > Edge" pull it up so that it looks something similar to this:
Now, grab the scale tool and shrink the edges down so they come together like so:
Now switch to Sub-Object > Vertex and then Weld all of the vertices together, to bring them together. This is a really cheap way to do it, and quite high on poly use, but for simplicity we'll do it like this for the tutorial.
Move the center vertices down so they are level with the bottom of the track, then select the top vertices and delete. You'll get a shape like above.
With the grass still selected, Modify > UVW Map > Planar. With some material editor adjustments or gizmo translations, your grass will then look something like this:
If you unhide the track mesh, you'll get a view similar to this:
Now we'll add some walls.
Clone the track mesh again, and hide everything except your new clone.
Select the edges on the top, using the same technique you did with the grass on the bottom edges. Extrude the edge and you'll get a basic wall like above.
Extrude it again 2 times and you should have some pretty thick walls like below.
Now, you'll have to UVW Map these and apply a texture. With a little vertex work, you'll get a finished product like this.
That's essentially all there is to it. There are a ton more techniques to building tracks, and keeping polygon count low to improve FPS. You will eventually get into a pattern and be able to pump these guys out in a matter of minutes. Just use your head and it'll all come through.