Welcome to Shape Magic Road Maker

New Version as of July 8, 2007: now allows multiple roads and intersection.

This program is used to carve roads into grayscale terrain maps for use in 3D programs like Bryce and Vue. The road will rise and fall with the terrain, with cut and fill just like a real road. After the grayscale map is modified, it can be saved and imported into your 3D program. Road Maker also creates road texture and alpha maps that can be used in 3D programs to provide a road texture that is different from the rest of the terrain.

Road Maker uses grayscale terrain maps. A limitation of this approach is that the terrain is defined by a regular grid of square pixels. While this works well for perfectly horizontal or vertical roads, it is not ideal for curved roads. As a result of the grid, road edges can look jagged in close ups. This is especially true of the road textures. A future commercial release of Road Maker will be based on 3D meshes to overcome these quality limitations.

Road Maker is sponsored by Shape Magic - an easy to use 3D model maker. Free Shape Magic demo available.

Download Road Maker V1.11 (5.4 mb) Updated 2-18-2008 Expires 1-31-2009 See change log

Zip file contains program and associated files. Full tutorial can be found in the help file.

Sorry! Windows only.

Note: As this freeware program is under continuing development, copies of the program have an expiration date. To get an updated copy, revisit this page. To keep track of future developments, check out the Road Maker Blog.

A few example images using maps created by Road Maker:

Before

After