World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hello Sk4tOoR,

The road network position is by default locked at (0,0,0). The reason for this is that if that would not the be the case and the road network is accidentally moved it and the scene is saved, it will be a pain to get it back in the original position perfectly aligned with the terrain.

If you really want to do this, then the scripting API has a translate option. ERRoadNetwork.Translate(Vector3 positionChange). And there is ERRoadNetwork.CenterPivotPoints(). These two should provide everything to move road networks and control the final mesh setup.

Or is this all runtime road creation related? In that case the above options are probably not ideal. I would have to look into that, I belief resetting road network positions is editor script related. That would mean that it shouldn't be triggered for runtime road creation.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, how you doing m8?

Im having some problems with V 3.1.1 when smoothing indent area of roads, I keep getting these sharp corners.

Using the smoothen Indent area or Smoothen surrounding area seems to have no effect when clicked.

Any ideas?

Thanks
G.

 

Hi Gus,

I am very well, thank you! And you? Long time ago...

Smoothen Indent affects the area between the indent and the surrounding position. If this area uses a small surrounding value with only one or two terrain point inside then indeed the smooth option will not have much effect. Can you try with a larger global surrounding value or marker specific surrounding value only where this is required?

That said, due to the grid based nature of the unity terrain object, steep edges like in the screenshot are quite hard to get nice and smooth. The demo project includes a mountain road example with terrain mesh overlays using the side object system. That is a more advanced alternative, smooth edges with more texture control as well...



Thanks,
Raoul

 

I'm great thanks Raoul.
Noted, yes I think its due to terrain grid.
Was also thinking of using a mesh and widening road.
Thanks again.
Gus

 

Hi.

I have a question that I do not know if it has a solution at present. Let's see if I can explain myself in English.

The "marks" of each road have a distance between them. If I have the number 2 to 19 m mark of the number 1 and the number 3 mark to 31 m of the mark number 2, the result is that the third mark is 50 m from the mark number 1

I have a road with 200 marks and I need to know the accumulated distance of each of the points. In this way I will know precisely where I have to apply the altitude based on the plans I have.

If the plane tells me that at 150 m the altitude is 32 m and at 210 m is 62 m, I can apply it quickly while now I have to go mark by mark.

Is there any way to export the points or to know in any way the accumulated distance of each of them? It would save me a lot of work.

Thank you.

In spanish

Hola.

Tengo una duda que no sé si tiene solución en la actualidad. A ver si me puedo explicar en inglés.

Las "marcas" de cada carretera tienen una distancia entre ellas. Si tengo la marca número 2 a 19 m del número 1 y la marca número 3 a 31 m de la marca número 2, el resultado es que la tercera marca está a 50 m de la marca número 1

Tengo una carretera con 200 marcas y necesito saber la distancia acumulada de cada uno de los puntos. De esta forma conoceré con precisión en que lugar he de aplicar la altitud en base a los planos que dispongo.

Si el plano me dice que a los 150 m la altitud es de 32 m y a los 210 de 62 m., podré aplicarla rápidamente mientras que ahora tengo que ir marca por marca para saber la distancia acumulada de cada punto.

¿Hay alguna forma de exportar los puntos o de saber de alguna forma la distancia acumulada de cada uno de ellos? Me ahorraría mucho trabajo.

Gracias.

 

Hi Barritico,

Currently the distance per marker is visible in the Inspector. But I assume you need access to this from scripts? This can be added.

The scripting API provides access to all markers positions and spline points, the ERRoad class.

public Vector3[] GetMarkerPositions()
public Vector3[] GetSplinePointsCenter()

So, meanwhile, you could also calculate this using the above data.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes need try at world streamer again because no roads visible when at streaming 50x50 big objects with roads think because roads are bigger.


and at the decals i meant this :
You see how the camera cuts them away also in game same problem!

https://i.gyazo.com/d52de0445a7252c958de0da59290e787.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/d5f4154643f71f87b84d7557645a6579.jpg


regards

 

the best would be to export them to a csv or similar to be able to do the calculations on an excel or similar sheet. This would have the altitude at a specific kilometric point and could apply the data to the design of the road with the necessary corrections.
I will try to do something with the script.

Thank you.

 

After drawing road on terrain, how can I get the markers points to show up again for edit ?
Meaning I've placed a road using SHIFT & made some road, now I want to continue it or edit already placed points, is it possible ?

 

Also another problem that worked on previous version (from 3 months ago), that I cannot seem to add markers on "Mesh" if I click on mesh, the it adds one markers, then focus is lost to mesh itself.
neglected to mention, I use the Pro version (3.1.1), currently latest version (updated 2 days ago).
It used to work on version pro v3.0.1.

 

Hi GamePyro,

World Steamer is brought up quite frequently in this thread. It has been reported that it works just fine. So please provide exact details which scenario to test if your situation is not standard. Or ideally, please email a link to project download so we can test your situation ourselves.

That type of decal is longer, it simply is an instantiated prefab just above the road. What are your road settings? Do you use random bumpiness / tilting or does the road have slight height differences? This particular decal is more for flat roads, but you could try raising it a little bit further. Also, these decals are part of the HD Roads package made by the NatureManufacture team, they have a specific shader setup. The road itself doesn't seem to be from the HD Roads package? What shader does it use? Is this related to offset differences? You could try lowering the Offsets on the decal shader a little bit in the Inspector.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Barritico,

I am not sure if exporting marker distances to csv or similar should be part of the tool, this is very specific to your needs. But we will add options to the scripting API to quickly get these distances. You can use that in the way you want.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi rafi2017,

Markers show up instantly as blue sphere handles after adding them. Changing the position is a matter of selecting this blue handle and reposition it.

The only situation when marker handles are not displayed is when a crossing prefab is selected or when the cam is too far away. This distance can be controlled in General Settings > Scene Settings.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

You use a mesh terrain instead of a Unity terrain object? The last update includes some Scene View changes, previously it was not possible to select other objects in the Scene when the road network is selected. This is possible now. Only for the unity terrain a double click is required. I just tested this for a mesh terrain and it does actually work the same.

So I am not sure what the problem exactly is here? I just tested this , road can be added, markers can be added, another road can be selected and more markers can be added. Can you give more info about your scene setup and what exactly happens on your end.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul

We have some trouble with the side object at end of the roads. It looks like they dip into the ground.
In the picture above you can see that the guard rail lowers at the end of the road. Because we use the roads splines data for our traffic vehicles to drive over. I can also see the dip in the roads spline vector data.

Could you give us some advice on how we can fix this issues?

 

Hi raoul !

I've created a new project, imported ER3D added a fresh terrain, add a new Road and when trying to add nodes to the scene (with shift + left click) it starts selecting and deselecting the terrain in which I want to add the marker but no new marker appears at all.

I've come back to my old project and it seems to work there, even in new scenes and terrains, so I'm not sure what could be happening. It only stopped working in my new projects.

ER3D v3.1.1
Unity 2018.1.9.f2

 

Hello T_Strijker,

I cannot directly relate this to any currently known issues. Which version are you using? Does this always happen or only in certain situations?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi 40detectives,

So in v3.1.1 this is not a problem in an old project, but it is a problem in a new project? That would be strange. Or does the old project use a different version?

As mentioned a couple of posts above, 3.1.1, does include some changes related to being able to select other objects when the main road network object is selected. If there is an issue like you described, it could be related to these changes. But so far, there is no record of known issues with this and 3.1.1 is already out for a while.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes I've just checked and the info button in the editor says 3.1.1 in both old and newer projects.

Also, what to do when it only selects other objects and you want to actually add markers? I thought you can only do it with the Road Network object is selected. How do I resolve this ambiguity? Double clicking in the Unity terrain is not making any diference

 

The most right tab in the Inspector shows the current version.

It shouldn't do that, when the road network is selected you should be able to add markers. There is no record of issues with that. It would be impossible to work with the tool. The only known "issue" with object / marker selection (fixed in the next update) is that when selecting a marker that is actually behind another object, for example a building, that other object will be selected.

If you can confirm that the other project is using an older version then perhaps this change is causing issues on your end for some reason. In that case this change can be made optional.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

Where still using version 3.0.1. When laying down its the road it is the end part of roads the side object are pulled down. We can reproduces this on all the roads and with all the side objects.

Thanks,
Tjalling

 

So we found a solution to the problem. By selecting yellow sphere of the junction and then selecting blue sphere of the road. And move the yellow sphere to new position and back its regenerates the side objects correctly.

 

Hi Tjalling,

In previous versions there were issues with side objects, especially when the road is connected to a crossing. You could try the latest version 3.1.1, please always backup first.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Another simpler question.

I have two roads created. I want to join them, one in final mark and the other in initial mark.

Can it be done and, if possible, how?

Thanks.

 

If the roads are of the same road type with matching sidewalk settings (if sidewalks are involved) there will be a button visible in the Inspector "Join Selected Roads" or Shift + J.

Otherwise an I Connector can be used, "Insert I Connector" near the bottom in the marker section in the Inspector. This can connect different road types.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi again Raoul, have been looking over the demo and the mesh overlays. This is exactly what I need, thanks superb!

OK some questions on this...

I want to use the Terrain Mesh Overlay on the other side of the road, to do this I duplicated this sideobject prefab and change alignment to other side of the road but I think the actual mesh needs to be rotated how can I achieve this?


I have same problem with the Mountain Road, can place it on the other side but its facing wrong direction.

Is there a way to rotate these within ER or do I have to rotate the actual mesh object? If so where is mesh for Terrain Mesh Overlay?

To make the angle steeper on the Terrain Mesh Overlay do I need to edit the mesh once completed?

Also if I wanted to make a ditch along the side of the road, how would be best to do this?

Thanks for all your help.
G.

 

sorry mate, just discovered the shape editor, will mess around and let you know if I have further stupid comments to make .

 

Yes, the shape is defined in the Shape editor window. The shape can be mirrored, or duplicated and mirrored if terrain detail is needed at both sides. You can add nodes for more detail, play with terrain snap weight values, etc. The demo example has a more complex setup using the terrain splatmap and tesselation, but you could also just use a rock texture like in your screenshot.

Let me know if you have further questions questions.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi @raoul, I'm finding that Unity will hang/freeze indefinitely if not outright crash if I enter more than a single digit in the "Road Width" field. When I remember to, I get around the issue by first typing the two-digit number in a text editor, copying it, and then pasting it into the field. But just now I forgot and typed 7.5, and that's all she wrote: It's sat there frozen for ten minutes now and I'll probably have to kill Unity, lose the work and start over.

It's possible this only happens on very long roads, I'm not sure.

Any fixes for this problem you might be aware of?

 

Hi SpencerPDX,

It is probably more related to marker count rather then length. Because road shape changes per marker are possible and roads can have more complex shapes, the road width is more complicated then just a single road width variable. Indeed Unity, specifically the Undo class, does not seem to like this. The more consecutive changes the more Unity seems to slow down. Removing the Undo code results in much faster updates. I just tested typing decimals, I see what you mean.

What is your workflow or what do your scenes look like? Road width changes in general are not recommended in a standard road network environment. Instead it is recommended to work with road types, and if necessary change the width for that road type. Entering decimals and two digit road widths will not be an issue either because the scene will only update after pressing "Update Scene Instances".

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

This particular road and a previous, similar road that gave me similar trouble were both long unbroken roads over huge pieces of terrain. So the marker count was probably the issue. I can see what you mean about changing it in the road type itself. In this case, I'm matching the road to a given width along the entire length and the most immediate response comes from setting the value in the road object. But I'll try to remember to edit the road type in the future.

Thanks!

 

Usually roads are cut by crossings which will break them apart in smaller road sections.If you have very long roads, another way to improve this is to cut these roads in multiple road objects by inserting an I Connector. This option is available near the bottom of the marker section in the Inspector. The shape of the road will remain the same.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi raoul. Sorry to bother you again with this, but I think I found what the issue was.

If you add a secondary Inspector tab to the editor layout (specially if you restart the editor already with this layout) you won't be able to select the markers in a road or add new markers (to new or existing roads).

To fix it, I've had to close one of the Inspector Tabs and then you should do one of this two things:
- Select another GameObject and move it around a little bit. Then select the Road Network object, if the markers are visible again, solved.
- If the before didn't work, restart the Unity Editor with only one Inspector tab in the layout.

I know it's a weird workflow scenario, and probably is more an issue of the Unity Editor than EasyRoads3D, but wanted to share just in case someone else has this issue, because it can't be really hard to guess what's happening.

 

Hi 40detectives,

Having a second Inspector tab open is known to cause Inspector related issues like for example changing a marker position in the Inspector affecting the previously selected marker. Because your issue was related to adding markers, Scene View related, I didn't think of that.

Thank you for the feedback, glad to hear you got that resolved and good to know!

Raoul

 

Its Road Fix 1 and 2


And shader is Easyroads3D ER Road Transparency


No road and terrain are flat !!


But can that work also at mountain etc roads ?



Also where can set bumpiness and / tiling for whole scene or only at Road Type ?

 

Hi,

Could having a lot of roads on a quite huge world be the source of this problem?
https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-is-painfully-slow-to-open-and-save.570133

I can't really "finalize" the roads since I'm still doing changes.

 

Hi GamePyro,

If your roads are 100% flat then this must be material related. What are the offset values on the decal material, have you tried lowering these values, so the offset becomes stronger? Have you changes settings in the Side Object Manager, like the alignment of the decal relative to the roa?

As mentioned, it is hard to comment on this without being able to look at it myself.

Random bumpiness and / titling is a road type setting and afterwards adjustable per individual road and road marker.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi marcrem,

In general there is no record of long loading times directly related to massive road networks.

But something similar was reported recently by email regarding the full demo package. Unity seemed to freeze after opening the project. Eventually Unity does open after 3 - 5 minutes. We traced that back to being Unity 2018.3 beta related. All is fine in all other Unity versions, so for now we will just keep an eye on this and check new updates up to the final Unity 2018.3 release.

But you wrote that you are using 2018.2.9f1. Is this project start up related, or scene start up? The strange thing is that it is load time only. Once the scene is open all works fine. Have these load times become longer during building the road network? Have you tried pulling the scene apart in a backup just to see if it is directly related to road network size?

Have you tried finalizing the road network in a backup project, just as a test?

If you want you can email us a link to the project download so we can look at it.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi,

If I duplicate my scene and finalize the road network in that scene, will it affect both the original and the duplicated scene?

I'm still unsure if the slowdown has something to do with ER3D or not. I updated to 2018.2.12, didn't fix it. I am waiting for the official 2018.3 before trying it, my project became quite big and I don't want to risk going for betas.

It looks like it's on scene startup, because same huge lag happens when I'm saving that scene.

Will try on an empty scene and see what happens.

Cheers and thanks !

 

Hi Macrem,

The finalize process only involves removing EasyRoads3D script components in that specific scene. So in theory testing this in a duplicated scene should also work.

However, for a duplicated scene, the terrains will reference the same terrain assets in the project folder as the real scene. I don't know your terrain setup and if there is potentially something to consider here? I mean, if the road network is in Edit Mode in both scenes, and you switch to Build Mode in the duplicated scene and then finalize the road network, there is no way to restore the terrains. Since the terrains in the original scene point to the same terrain objects, they will still be deformed like in Build mode while that road network is actually in Edit mode.

That is why I suggested a project backup, to be completely save.

The issue I mentioned is entirely Unity 2018.3 beta related. So I think it is unrelated to your situation in Unity 2018.2.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

Finally getting a chance to try these connection methods. To start I laid down a few instances of what seem like a pretty basic road type, NM_Asphalt_Dotted. Then I dragged them together, saw the blue circle, and they snapped together with a T-junction. Pretty nice! But one problem is the T-junction has sidewalks while the road does not. In an earlier attempt I found I was able to somehow delete the sidewalks after the T-junction appeared, but can't see how to do that now. Is it the case I should be able to delete sidewalks or should I stick to option #1, above? Or is there a way to auto-join them from the start that doesn't include sidewalks?

 

Hi SpencerPDX,

These road types and sidewalks are HD Roads package related, this package was created by the NatureManufacture team. Sidewalks are added as side objects instead of through the integrated sidewalk system and X, T, Y Roundabout crossings are all separate prefabs, whereas for the built-in crossings system at least X, T crossings and sidewalks can be controlled from a single prefab. This makes the snapping system less ideal for the HD Roads assets as you cannot easily swap between prefabs once a prefab is automatically inserted between roads.

In your case, deleting the sidewalk is an option, it is a child object of the crossing prefab itself in the hierarchy. But for the HD Roads package indeed option 1 and 2 are probably more efficient.

If it is primarily about prefabs with sidewalks that are selected and you do not need sidewalks at all, you could also temporarily move the prefabs with sidewalks outside "/Assets/EasyRoads3D/Resources/custom prefabs/" to a different folder. They will no longer be selected.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi @raoul

I bought EasyRoads, grabbed the demo and bought the EasyRoads3D Por Add On - HD Roads pack, thinking this combination would give us the most power and flexibility and good looks. But it sounds like the add-on is lacking in some functionality?

Probably I need flexibility and functionality more than looks, so let me ask you this: I'm about to follow along with this tutorial:

...Because I badly need to customize connections in order to match a real-world location. Like some intersections need to flare out to very wide connections, others are anything but a right angle. Would you say I'm better off avoiding the NM_ road types in that case?

I suspect I am because I'm looking at the NM_ prefab for the roads I added to my terrain and not seeing any of the "connection width" sliders like I'm seeing in the video.

 

Hi Raoul,

Thanks for your perfect support throughout my multiple demands.

Turns out vegetation studio pro beta was causing a memory leak, I helped the developer find it and it's now fixed.

The scene is still very slow to open and save, but other scenes are not, so I'm guessing it's just something I gotta get used to when working with large scenes. At least I haven't had a crash so far.

Thanks again!

 

Hi Spencer,

The HD Roads package includes advanced shaders based on custom "ready to use" prefabs / meshes with vertex color info. The custom prefab system is one part of the tool, it allows building customized road networks based on imported meshes.

The video in your post shows the other, built-in crossing system including sidewalks, this is indeed not how sidewalks work for the HD Roads package.

The idea is to integrate the mesh setup of the HD Roads crossing prefabs in the v3.2 crossings update. In theory you could currently already use these road types with the built-in system by changing "Sub Segments" from 2 to 1 in the road type settings. But with this setup they will no longer work with the HD Roads crossing prefabs.

Indeed, as mentioned the HD Roads prefabs are based on imported meshes. None of the built-in controls are available.

As for editing built-in crossings,like the width. It is currently recommended to work with road types and assign road types to connections. The width will auto adjust to the road type width. And if in a later state you want to change that width, this can be done on the road type width itself. All scene instances can be updated automatically that way.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Macrem,

Glad to hear you are making progress on this. Also with regard to the finalized scene test, please let us know if it does actually turn out that EasyRoads3D is involved here!

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi,
I am new the easyroad and am still trying to figure out its many quirks. i am seeing missing triangles with different setups.
one is using bridge simple, another is using simple left and right barriers.

is there a known fix for this?

Thanks

 

Hi Pheck,

That is the bridge example from the demo package. Which version are you using? This was a problem in a previous version but should be resolved in the latest package. It hasn't been reported for a while.

It was related to the side object setup in the Side Object Manager. This side object uses start / end segments for which start / end offsets need to be defined. This is done in the Mesh Editor Window (the "Open Mesh Editor Window" button). Somehow the source mesh got rotated 180 degrees on the Y axis resulting in a slight mismatch of the current start / end offsets. This is what is causing these gaps in your image.

The below image is from the bridge tutorial. Ignore the two blue middle handles with the yellow arrows. This is about the four corner handles


To fix this, using the mousewheel and dragging the stage you can zoom in to the four blue circles either on the left or right side so you can clearly see the vertex positions / triangle edge connections. The blue line between the left and right side represents the offset. The blue transparent surfaces represent the start / end sections. The middle section in between is what will be repeated along the track.

So start / end offsets need to be set there where the source mesh should be cut, this should be set exactly on triangle edges that crosses the full width of the mesh. This is what is slightly off.

To fix that, left click, hold the mouse button down and drag the blue handles to that specific edge until it snaps to to it. Repeat this for the other offset. Afterwards press the "Apply" button. This should also instantly update scene instances of this bridge.

The same can be done for the other side objects you mentioned.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I just bought the tool yesterday and downloaded the tool & demo project and related files from the store. is there a way for me to see which version i am on?

Thanks for the quick response.

 

Hi Pheck,

The EasyRoads3D version is displayed in the most right tab of the Inspector toolbar. But this is demo package related, the demo package version is in the readme in the EasyRoads3D root directory.

If you downloaded yesterday it should be the latest version unless perhaps if you are still using an older Unity 5 version.

We will check the demo package again. This is strange, the 180 degree rotation issue on some prefabs was for sure looked at and fixed in the latest 1.2 build.

Did you try the offset fix for this? The side object system is a framework that can be used with your own assets / prefabs, so it is a way to get more familiar with this aspect, side object source prefabs with start / end sections, as well.

Thanks,
Raoul