Wanting to do curved road textures.

[mrwallace888]

Hello there.

 

I've been trying to figure out an efficient way to make curved road textures.

 

Say I have a road texture like this. For the thing it's used for, the sidewalks are too wide, so I wanted to replace it with a better/wider texture.

 

It also uses this 90-degree curve texture.

 

If I wanted to make/use another texture instead that's wider, how could I make a 90-degree turn like above? Or, if I've already got a 90-degree turn texture, change the width of the road?

 

I saw a similar thread once recommending Shape3D but I've no idea how to use it, especially to get the results I was looking for.  GridWarp is also quite wonky to use.

[Lemonade]

General Kenobi

One way to do this is using BoltBait's Outline plugin (inside plugin pack):
https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/121343-boltbaits-gpu-accelerated-plugin-pack-for-paintnet-v50-updated-2023-07-28/

 

For straight road:

- use layers for these steps and merge them later, with layers you can always change colors or textures of different elements

- layers order top to bottom: Yellow, Black, White, Grey, Background
- add first layer Yellow: create a yellow line with Line / Curve tool (shortcut O) while holding Shift key to make the line straight
- duplicate layer Yellow, then rename bottom layer Yellow to Black and while it is selected go to Effects > Object > Outline Object (set desired width, color black and anti-aliased on or off)
- duplicate Black layer, rename bottom Black layer to White layer and again apply Outline Object (this time white color, smaller width)
- duplicate White layer, rename bottom White layer to Grey layer and again apply Outline Object (this time grey color)

- you can now use Grey layer as finished road piece.



For curved road:
- it is the same process with layers and their order
- with Shapes tool (shortcut O,O - two times O) select Ellipse / Draw Shape Outline / Brush size (make sure to set the same size used for Curve / Line tool above) and set the color to yellow
- add new layer Yellow, and while holding Shift create a circle, then while it is still active (8 "knobs" around and one in the middle) move to one canvas corner so that the middle knob cross is aligned with corner (you will get a quarter of a circle)
- now, duplicate Yellow layer, rename to Black and select, apply Outline Object, and repeat.

And combine them:

[mrwallace888]

What if I already have an existing road texture and want to curve it, though?

[Lemonade]

There is Image Distortion plugin, select a shape closest to what you need and play with settings:

 

[mrwallace888]

Doesn't seem like any of its settings are providing me with what I need.

[Lemonade]

You are right, although it is a great plugin, it doesn't work well in this case.

I did play around and it is really hard to create what you are asking for without going through a lot of steps.
Maybe there is a plugin suitable for this.

Here is an example with Polar Transformation plugin:

For this you'll need 3 textured layers, one is for horizontal path, one for vertical and last one for corner, which is stretched and looks a bit ugly.

 

Spoiler

1. A path on its own layer
2. Add texture layer below (duplicate twice so you will have 3 texture layers)

3. Run Effects > Polar Transformation - Rectangular to Polar on one texture layer (texture layer 1)
4. Create selection of path (click on a path layer with lasso tool, or Shift + click outside the path, then ignore step 5)
5. Invert Selection

6. Delete

7. Eraser tool, delete everything except the corner

8. Both texture layers are scaled down a bit to match "polar" layer (3), texture layer 3 is rotated, then go through the same process selecting path layer with lasso, invert selection, delete everything except selected area for both texture layers. And with eraser tool erase (for texture layer 2) top area and for texture layer 3 bottom area

9. downside of this process is that texture has to follow the direction of the Polar Transformation

 

A quick update: instead of Polar Transformation, Shape3D plugin gives better results:

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Lemonade
update