Hi all, I am having an issue with the drape tool. I am trying to use it to create a foot path over 3d terrain and for some reason when I drape the shape over the terrain it does not create a separate face for selection/coloring. The object appears to be closed and has a face, and I have had success using the drape tool in the past so I am not sure why this time is different.
How about sharing the SKP file so we can see what you’re working with?
It is too large to upload otherwise I would. Is there another way to share it? It is the north portion of a golf course.
Copy out that part of the model and paste it into a new file. Or upload the file to Drop Box and share the link.
Where’s the terrain you’re trying to drape it onto?
You turn on hidden geometry and then select the region of the terrain around where this path should get draped and copy that.
I don’t know how to do that, I am a super-beginner here so I apologize.
I can only select the entire terrain or none of it.
That worked.
So here’s what you get with Drape.
The Drape tool drapes the edges of the you path onto the terrain surface and divides the surface you you can apply a separate material to the path.
If you don’t want the path to be part of the terrain geometry, you could extrude the shape of the path through the terrain (make sure the terrain is grouped, first) and use Intersect Faces>With Model.
Then erase everything but the intersection edges. You won’t have surfaces to paint though. There are ways of dealing with that but not knowing exactly what you do want, I won’t go into those details now. I don’t want to make your head explode.
Thank you for that, I do need to be able to paint it though.
Why doesn’t Drape work for you? It’ll let you paint the path separately from the terrain.
When i use drape it doesn’t isolate the draped outline from the rest of the terrain so I am unable to color the path without coloring everything else.
Hmmmm… It does for me. Are you opening the terrain group/component for editing before applying the materials?
Component_5 (Terrain).skp (2.5 MB)
Did you open the terrain group/component for editing before applying the grass material? Or did you just paint the group/component container?
I am not sure what that means. I used the same process to create the sand traps, green a fairway in the background with no issues. If I double click the terrain it isolates the terrain from other objects which is what I assume you are talking about. Still unable to select only the path.
Did you look at the SKP file I uploaded?
It sounds like you would benefit from working on a much simpler project to get the hang of working with groups/components and materials.
When you open the terrain group/component for editing, you should be able to select the surface of the path separately from the rest of the terrain surface. If you can’t you need to look for gaps in the edges of the pathway and fill them in with the Line tool. I didn’t have any problem making this work with the terrain and path you uploaded, though.
If you apply textures to group/component containers instead of to the faces inside, the material will appear to cover all faces. Since the edges are inside the group or component, they have no control over the material application.
The second paragraph is where I am lost, I don’t understand why it works for you but not me. I do not see any visible gaps in the boundaries of the path, I am just unable to select it despite being in the group editor mode.
Unfortunately I do not have the convenience of working on another project as this is what is on my plate now. I have watched through several tutorials to get myself acquainted with the tools and functions and have had no other issues with the drape tool at all.
I figured it out, there are a bunch of nearly microscopic holes in the terrain resulting from the drape function, maybe from complex geometry? Either way, I am patching them now.
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