Working with Plateaus

[keyboardman]

I am having difficulty working with the plateaus withing this model. I am try to make the walk and
the garage and the concrete slap / walk area 3 feet lower than the Den, Deck and main house.
The terrain should not slope but drop about 3 feet. How am I to achieve this?
I have messed around with this for a hours and can figure it out. Thank you in advance.
I'm using TurboFloorPlan version 16. See the attached file.

[Allan Chesney]

Terrains are nearly always built up as multiple layers. To get a Plateau with a vertical edge on one side for example, you could do as I have - drawn multiple plateaus fanning out on 3 sides but over the top of each other on the vertical edge. The shorter (lower) you make each plateau, the more vertical an edge you will get (where they are stacked over each other on the one side) and the wider you draw them on the other sides, the more graduated the slope will be (see the plan view below - 6 plateaus each 6" high).
If you set the Contour Lines setting (in Settings / Program Settings / Terrain) to 6" (or even 3"), you will see the graduation you get. The actual Plateau line however is not the Contour Line as displayed but is between the Contour Lines - you must draw the mouse over where they are, to see the Plateau lines if you want to select any to adjust if necessary.

You can cut a vertical hole in the Terrain using the Pad Tool (set it not to Hug the Terrain). This is what I have done in the rendered images - drawn a Pad on one side to cut the multiple Plateaus vertically. You can make the Pad sink into the Terrain by giving it a negative Thickness or stand up above the Terrain by giving it a positive Thickness. For example, if you wanted the building on a vertical plateau 3' high as you have drawn your plateau, then draw a Pad to 3' thick. I doubt this is what you want though or you would have to build steps on all sides. Unfortunately when rendering the pad will not necessarily render correctly if you set it to Grass but works well if the Pad section is a driveway or similar. The Driveway tool can also be set to cut the Terrain vertically.

I hope this helps you to understand how Plateaus work (and Pads too)

Allan

[keyboardman]

Okay I've tried to get a Plateau with a vertical edge over and over but I still have the slop in the front,
what am I doing wrong? I'm still having problems lining everything up in the front. see the attached file.

[keyboardman]

Here's a short video of my attempt here http://youtu.be/88ZEadMU3y8

[Allan Chesney]

You are not going to a get a totally vertical edge using the Plateau tool. It is intended to be the ground and normally you would not have the ground cut vertically without a retaining wall. Does your project not have a retaining wall?

In the image below I have used a retaining wall and filled the steeply sloping gap between the Terrain and wall using the Surface tool. Set to the same grass as the Terrain - it will render OK. Actually I found that the Pad also renders correctly with grass on it - I had another setting wrong which made it dark before. As mentioned previously, the Pad tool will cut the Terrain vertically.

Allan

[keyboardman]

Thank you once again Allan for you expert advice. After following you instructions and working with the
plateaus a little more here's what I came up with. Thanks again

[Allan Chesney]

Looks good!

Amazing how it changes the appearance with a flat roof! 

Allan

[Doug.S]

An alternate solution.....but a bit harder to construct and make changes....

Create a 3D object for the terrain  (could use TFP or any other 3D program such as Blender or SketchUp or...) place it just slightly above the TFP terrain to hide the TFP terrain (unless you want to use that level for something) and build the house to fit the terrain.
The terrain can be of any shape and you can apply textures as one for the whole terrain or create shading domains and create different textures in different locations.
To have even more control....you can make the terrain in pieces.

If you already have the house designed, you can build the terrain to fit the existing house and place it like any other object to get the size and positions correct.

Doug.S