World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

I tried with bumpiness and / tiling and so on but not helps see:





before build terrain:




After:





Dont know how fix it tried now weeks no fix no setting help


terrain is 4097 heightresolution



Also terrain is not flatten right you see:







shadow under road where holes bumps whatever





Can you send settings or what done wrong do fix it or need add any terrain blending road Raise also 0,02 an 0 and more tested but then road fly in air

 

I have a completed road and I want to constrain the FPS character controller to the road. I've looked at using a navmesh and was able to create one that is tied to the road, but the controller does not move, instead it shakes badly and is stuck. Is there a tutorial on how to do this? It seems like this would be a common application. I'm using the Nav Mesh Surface script.

 

yes, offsetting the vert position seemed to help/fix it for me.
the version number reported to me is v3.1.1 for what its worth.

 

Hello GamePyro,

Everything related to terrain deformation that could potentially cause issues is mentioned on the Troubleshooting page. Please check the demo package, or even the simple demo scene part of EasyRoads3D Pro package. These terrains have a larger heightmapscale (heightmap resolution vs terrain size) then the default unity terrain object. Yet, terrain deformation is still smooth according the road shape.

Like already mentioned on the previous page to a similar post by you , if you feel there is an issue with this not covered on the Troubleshooting page, then please email us a link to the project so we can look at it. That is the only way in this situation to provide additional feedback on what actually happens on your end.

First questions when looking at the second and third image are, what shader do you use and what is the exact Raise level? Is this a standard situation of Z fighting? This is covered on the TroubleShooting page including tips how to deal with that.

What do the highlight or white surfaces look like in these areas? These surfaces give an exact representation of how the terrain will be flattened. They should exactly match the road shape but extend sideways to cover additional terrain points to make sure the terrain will match the road,.

Whether roads should cast shadows can be set both in the road type settings and for the specific road, the "Cast Shadows" checkbox

4097 is high, what is your terrain size? Usually multiple terrain tiles of a lower resolution are used for larger surfaces.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hello swredcam,

Navmesh is not something that is discussed often here or somwthing we receive questions about. The topic was raised a couple of months ago here on the forum but that was more navmesh creation related. It turned out that the offset on the EasyRoads3D road shader visually was interfering making it appear that the navmesh was not accurately created, no visible blue surfaces. The navmesh indeed was accurately created.

We can look further into navmesh. It is probably also useful if you can send a simple project / scene with your exact setup.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Glad to hear you got that working!

3.1.1. is the Pro version, not the demo package. But we will check these specific assets in the demo package anyway.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I was able to create the navmesh and it is visible, I just can't get the character to move on it. Looking into this further it seems that navmesh is not ideal for pathfinding, but I would think that roads would need something like this. Otherwise what mechanism keeps a player on the road/path? Is there a way to create colliders based on the road mesh? I'm trying to avoid writing a custom controller as this seems like something many users would have conquered already. Thank you!

 

Hi swredcam,

Like mentioned in my previous post, so far navmesh or character specific pathfinding on roads is not discussed often in this thread .

Do you mean colliders on both sides of the road, no crossings involved? The side object system could be used for that.

For example a Shape type of side object like a wall/fence shape with "Mesh Collider" near the bottom in the Side Object manager toggled on and disable/remove the mesh renderer component.

Or perhaps even a "Mesh Object" with something like a Cube primitive prefab as the source mesh. If you check "Mesh Bounds Alignment", a button "Match Bounds" will appear next to the "Distance between Objects" field. This will set the distance between instances to the bounds of the box primitive. The box instances will align along the track.

In both cases two versions can be created clamped to the right and left side of the road.

Let me know if this might work for you and if you need more info how to do this.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I'm looking at the side objects approach now, one concern I have is the number of mesh colliders that would be needed as it is a complex road shape. The cost may be high. If "mesh object" can work with cubes and box colliders that would be better as boxes are cheap.

The other approach I have found others using is raytracing to see if the player is close to or off the road, then adjusting the position accordingly. Is it possible to raytrace to the road as a mesh? It seems like the road mesh is defined at runtime as I don't see a mesh object.

I understand this is not a common topic, but that seems odd. Unless most people are using the created roads simply as eye candy I would think that pathfinding would be a common need.

 

That will be two mesh colliders for the shape side object approach. Yes, that is why I also mentioned the mesh Object approach, simply instantiating nicely aligned cube prefabs with box colliders.

By default the mesh is stored in the scene file, the mesh exists, it is just not named. Raycasting will work just fine.

Navmesh / pathfinding is not often discussed. Generating colliders using visible side objects like guard rails or barriers or non visible side objects doesn't come up that often either but is already done since v2.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi. We're using EasyRoads3D pro for our project. We got it yesterday so probably latest version. All I need is to apply road texture to crossroad easily. I can drop texture on crossroad gameobject, but whenever I click on it it changes back to default. So I assumed creating new connection prefab with selected materials is the answer, but I'm getting the same bug even if I try to do it on sample scene provided with plugin and default materials. Unity 2018.2.11f1. Help?

 

Hi jamqdlaty,

That is right, although it worked fine in our development project, the in your screenshot highlighted "Create New Connection Prefab" does seem to throw a StackOverflowException in the current 3.1.1 build. This option was only added in v3.1.1. An update, v3.1.2, with a fix for this, is about to be uploaded to the asset store.

This button was added to quickly create a new connection prefab based on that specific road type. Another way to do this, also available before 3.1.1, is:

1. General Settings > Crossing / Connection Prefabs

2. Enter a name for this new connection prefab
3. Keep "crossing" selected in the Prefab Type dropdown and press the "Create" button. At this point the new prefab will be generated in /Assets/EasyRoads3D/Resources/dynamic prefabs/
4. Shift + Click in the scene, to add it in the scene for editing
5. In the Inspector open the "Connection Settings" Foldout. With "Uniform Connections" selected for Connection Setup, select the specific road type from the "Select Road Preset" dropdown



6. Press the "Exit Prefab Editor" button and press "Yes" to save the changes. The source prefab will be removed from the scene. This new prefab can now be selected from the connection prefabs tab




If you want to update materials / road types for an existing source prefab you can drop this prefab in the scene from "/Assets/EasyRoads3D/Resources/dynamic prefabs/" and follow step 5) above.

Regarding the StackOverflowException, this probably resulted in a new prefab being instantiated in the hierarchy as a child of "Temp Crossing Prefabs". Please remove these objects if that is the case.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks

But as said i tryed also in post before all from Manual etc

Shader is standard easyroads3d shader and at the image Raise Level 0,02


And you can see here with Side object Terrain


And tryed with and without Cast Shadows stll as seen here: its because of the bumps etc at terreins under road as you see when use ditch etc because terrain is not ffaltten right under road when buidl terrain with easyroads3d deformation :/





Terrain is:

Witdth: 6417
Lenght: 6301
Height: 3356
Heigtmap Resolution: 4097


With Road Ditch deformation and dtch left right



and one with only left right



and one with only ditch deformation:





HEre only the Highlihted


And here the White Surfaces only of the roads at the images at the location at the images

 

I'm using River Auto Material to create rivers and it can export a CSV list of the points used in the generated river spline.

I want to import this into EasyRoad so i can use easyRoad to remove vegetation and add textures to the terrain along the river spline.

Is it possible to import the csv points into an EasyRoad river? Or does anyone know how to import a River Auto Material river spline into EasyRoad?

 

Hi GamePyro,

In your latest screenshots there are no clear deformation issues visible.

The shadows are there because the road is still casting shadows.

Did you switch off the "Cast Shadows" checkbox for this road? And probably for that road type in general in General Settings > Road Types?



You have a fairly detailed terrain probably resulting in a small indent value based on 4097 heightmap resolution and the terrain size. These grass ditches are added as side objects. I don't know the settings, but I assume they are aligned according the Path Normal, exactly following the path?

When using side objects for this purpose it is important that the Indent surface is increased over a similar distance as the side object width so more terrain is flattened according the road / grass ditch shape. Also, what sort of shader is used on this grass object? If the road uses and EasyRoads3D shader with Offsets to deal with Z-fighting, and the grass does not use Offsets, or different offset values, the results can be different.

You are doing complicated things here which require a precise setup Usually the grass bit is baked in the terrain splatmap (also mentioned by protopop in the post below yours), have you tried that? Or do you prefer that sharp edge and use side objects for this?

For the terrain deformation, really, you keep repeating the same questions, why not email a simple scene so we can look at it? That is also what Unity will ask you. If you look at this forum, there are not that many questions about terrain deformation. If there was a serious issue with it I would think many more people would report it. It is hard to tell from your screenshots what is wrong.

The screenshots in this post seem more grass / ditch side object related, this is an entirely different situation explained above.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi protopop,

Csv is not directly supported at the moment. But it can be added next to the OSM and KML options, should be fairly simple. I will look into this, could you also send a csv file just to compare the format?

Or, if you do coding, this could be done through the scripting API as well.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

long load times for scenes in Unity 2018.3 beta

This was mentioned on the previous page. For anyone who experienced this, this issue seems to be resolved in the latest 2018.3 b7.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hello Raoul!

I am trying to add some sideobjects to my road. How can I remove them?
I tried to untick the "Activate side objects" tick box, and updating the scene instances, but the side objects are still in sceene.

 

Hi SveinEven,

Which "Activate side objects" tick box is this? In General Settings > Scene Settings > Build Side Objects In Edit Mode? This is Edit Mode related only, that will indeed not remove the side objects completely. They will still be generated in Build Mode.

After deactivating a side object in the main side object list for that road it should be removed.

Side objects can be removed completely in the Side Object Manager. That should also automatically remove instances of this side object currently used in the scene.

Or what is the history of this scene? Are the side objects actually still available in the road network? Do these side objects update after for example moving a road marker?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

General Settings > Scene Settings > Build Side Objects In Edit Mode where ticked yes, and unticking that removed the objects.
I were talking about the "Activate side objects" list under road types. I were under the impression that they would be removed if that were unicked and updated.

Though I guess the tickbox you mentioned buildt them, so that makes sense.
Thanks!

 

Hello

Yes as said the cast shadows is deactivated everywhere at easyroads at that road but not work .

and i see the difference when enable disable cast shadows and the shadows comes as said from the litte hills / bumos or how you call them under the road after deformation.

as said all used to show the problems etc from easyroads3d side objects ditch shaders etc.

yeah need ceck because project over 150gb.

will try make a test scene with same problem

 

Ah, I was thinking where a "Activate side objects" tickbox is used. But this is actually about Road Types and then ticking individual side objects under the "Active Side Objects" header

You are right here, activating them and then pressing "Update Scene Instances" does update all roads. But that button is a general "Update" button. It will fully update the roads according the current road type settings.

That is the complexity here and why side objects are currently not removed after unticking a side object and then pressing "Update Scene Instances". In another situation you may have made other road type changes, the side object was initially active for that road type but you deactivated it but you still want it on some roads using this road type. So in that case they should not be removed only because this side object is not active for this road type.To prevent side objects are not removed in this situation at the moment unticking a side object has no effect when pressing "Update Scene Instances".

This could indeed be improved, perhaps a "remove" button next to each side object. That would be the safest solution. But for now please deactivate on the specific road.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi GamePyro,

When you initially mentioned the cast shadows issue I tested this functionality. It does work. Is this a problem for this road only? All it does is set the appropriate values in the Mesh Renderer component attached to that road object.

Is this actually the issue also with regard to "deformation problems"?

Yes, if there is still an issue and the project is too large to send, perhaps you can recreate it in a smaller project?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hm, there is something I am not understanding.
After unchecking the object in the road types, I an still see the object.
Do I manually delete every one, or do I have to delete the entire object in the side object manager?

 

That is what I tried to explain. Any side object can be added to any road, this is not necessarily done through the road type settings. There for removing side objects is delicate as part of the general road type "Update Scene Instances" button. Imagine side objects are carefully laid out, activated / deactivated for markers with adjusted offset values, etc. Then you press "Update Scene Instances" because the road width for that type was updated. And suddenly all these side objects are removed because this side object is not auto activated for that road type.

I will add an explicit "Remove From Scene Instances" button next to each side object checkbox in Road Types.

At the moment removing the side object is indeed done for the road itself In the side object settings of that road type.

If the side object is only used on that road type, there are many roads in the scene and you want to remove it from all roads, you could indeed also delete the side object in the side object manager. That will remove it from the roads as well. Afterwards you will still be able to import the side object itself back into the side object manager through the "Add Project Side Objects" button.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I'm sorry. Its friday, so everything is a bit slow.

Could you provide a screen shot of this? I can not find side object settings of a road type.

Thanks!

 

This is selected road related rather then road type The Side Objects section is between the Main Road Settings at the top and the marker section.



In this case, the "Concrete Barrier" side object in the "Barriers" tab is active for the selected road.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hello

Yes the cast shadows on and off i see difference at shadow but not much , but that as shown the hills / bug / holes how name it are still there


yes its same / connected both problems .



and i try to make smaler project with same problem then i send you yes.


Regards

 

Hi GamePyro,

Yes, please, I will send screenshots with settings back.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

hi whenever i use easy road pro it's tend to increase my android build size but without using it build size decrease. Why?

 

Hello mukki014,

That is a coincidence, please check this thread. It was started last Thursday, I noticed it today:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/compile-empty-scene-apk-weighs-450-mb.573973/

It explains in which situations that can happen and also includes a simple trick to avoid this.

This is indeed not directly EasyRoads3D Pro package related, but more additional packages, is that right?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thank you, just what I needed. Good job with responsiveness.

 

Thank you for the reply and for guiding me to the right direction

 

Hey Roul,

i've played around with your advices, how to move the RoadNetwork in runtime.

Using your code ends up in spaming the console with an error:

Not allowed to access uv on mesh 'Combined Mesh (root: scene)' (isReadable is false; Read/Write must be enabled in import settings)
UnityEngine.Mesh:set_uv(Vector2[])
EasyRoads3Dv3.ERModularRoad:OOQQOQCDDO(Boolean, Boolean)
EasyRoads3Dv3.OOCQDCQOOCExt:ODDQCDDOOQ(ERModularBase)
EasyRoads3Dv3.ERRoadNetwork:Translate(Vector3)
EasyRoadsNetworkTranslate:MoveRoadNetwork(Vector3) (at Assets/EasyRoadsNetworkTranslate.cs:51)
EasyRoadsNetworkTranslate:Start() (at Assets/EasyRoadsNetworkTranslate.cs:27)


When the RoadNetwork is set static ()including childs) the Translate function works propperly. Is it recommended to change static to false/true for the RoadNetwork in runtime?

Thanks for your patience

Sk4tOoR

 

Hi Sk4tOoR,

Dynamic meshes should always be read/write enabled, https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Mesh-isReadable.html

Can you see for which objects this happens? ''Combined Mesh', is this related to combined side objects specifically? The "static" settings can be set in the Side Object Manager.

The Translate option simply recalculates marker positions. Does the same happen when updating a road shape / marker position at runtime?

EasyRoads3D can be used in different ways but generally you want to set static to true. So if that solves the problem as well

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi.I've got one more issue. I'm trying to make my own crossroads and it's mostly fine now, but... What's going on with these black crossroad sides? Any idea? Below this I'm pasting a picture of my model placed there instead of crossroad element. Looks like something is going wrong when I'm creating a crossroad prefab with this model.

 

Hi jamqdlaty,

Is it possible to send us the source model so we can look at it on our end?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I was preparing files and decided to send you obj instead of fbx... And tried with obj... Wow, the issue is gone, also when I used fbx, crossroad had some weird little lighting difference compared to connected road (using same texture colors, same material settings). I assumed this is some lighting settings issue, but with obj all the issues are gone.

If you still want to take a look at it, I'm attaching a pack with both fbx and obj included + unity material and textures. I also included connecting road textures and mat if you wanted to add one.

Is there any reason I should use fbx's for easyroads models? Or are obj's just as good/better?

EDIT: Actually very small lighting difference is still there and it gets much worse if I use baked GI. For some reason baked GI doesn't do anything with crossroads, but it affects roads. I'm only a designer, not Unity dev, could you possibly point me at the issue here? Is this a plugin bug, or am I doing something wrong?

 

Hi jamqdlaty,

Glad to hear that!

I wanted to to update my post but decided to wait. Were you perhaps using the Axis rotation options and RecalculateNormals / Recalculate Tangents options using the Unity API. This can cause differences just like when using these options directly on the object in the asset import settings.

FBX often results in Unity applying rotations to the transform, you can see this when dropping the prefab in the scene. This may require the "Recalculate Normals" option. When not using the Recalculate options the lighting will be completely off when using the axis rotate options. Because of all this, we prefer to use.obj. for this type as it appears to import better regarding this, also for side objects. An alternative when this happens is adjusting the FBX export settings.

I am not sure about what you wrote in the [Edit], what is the static status?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Was this tool ever tested in an actual deployed game?
The way the Resources folder is currently being used is a big oversight: This leaks so many assets in a game that is properly using assetbundles. Can't it be moved inside an Editor/Resources folder instead?

 

Hello MikeHergaarden,

There is a reason behind that, the runtime capabilities, and it is not an issue with the EasyRoads3D Pro package itself which hardly includes any additional assets.

See the below recent forum post and a quick workaround if you do have the demo package imported in your project.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/compile-empty-scene-apk-weighs-450-mb.573973/

Thanks,
Raoul

 

@jamqdlaty

I imported your models in the demo package scene. Indeed the fbx has a 90 degree rotation added on the x-axis after dropping it directly in the scene.

The obj seems to import fine in the system, the roads connect well with the crossing/



Could the small lighting difference on your end between the connected roads and crossing be material related?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi,

I recently purchased EasyRoads together with the HD roads addon, and I'm experiencing problems. I'm using 2018.3.0b8.

Using EasyRoads by itself will cause Unity to mark stuff in the scene as dirty. For example, just clicking on Road Network, then hitting Ctrl+S will save the scene. If I click on anything, then click Road Network again, Unity will save if I hit Ctrl+S again (even though I havent modified anything).

This may seem harmless, but importing the HD roads addon will for some reason exacerbate the problem to the point where Unity will completely hang on save. So, now I can't even delete the Road Network from the scene (since I have to first click on it to delete it). I had to delete all the EasyRoads (and addon) files from the project to be able to delete it from the scene.

It seems to be related to the new prefab system somehow - in one case I got into a state where Unity kept reloading the HD road prefabs over and over whenever I clicked on anything.

Also, I don't know if it's related, but I'm getting import warnings on the EasyRoads dll files with importing the addon (it says the GUID of the asset has changed, so I'm guessing there's two different versions of the dll files in the different packages). If that's the case, I'm guessing you're doing something that slightly upsets Unity in the EasyRoads package, and really upsets it in the HD addon dll file, since just importing EasyRoads works better (still weird, but doesn't hang).

I've created a clean project apart from my main project and was able to reproduce.

Other than this, I have to say the actual system is really nice - it's intuitive to use and produces nice results. The HD roads look really good as well, nice textures and materials. I just want to be able to save it now

 

Hi simonjacoby,

Selecting the road network can indeed result in updating data triggering Unity to mark the scene as changed. But there are no known issues with Unity actually hanging on save.

There was a Unity 2018.3 beta issues with loading scenes, Unity seems to hang but eventually the scene loaded. Some people also reported Unity hanging on save. This was resolved in Unity 2018.3b7. Since you use b8 I would think this is not related.

Regarding the new prefab system, the HD Roads prefabs use the EasyRoads Custom Prefab system. So far we have not seen issues with that in the 2018.3 betas. The test in my post above with the models from jamqdlaty was done in 2018.3.b7, it is a custom prefab in a scene with a fair amount of other custom prefabs (the demo scene). It saves well.

We will check this on the HD Roads package in the latest 2018 beta. Do we have to do anything specific or simply create a new project import the HD Roads package and add some roads and crossings?

The HD Roads package does not include dll's. Which packages do you have imported? Also the separate EasyRoads3D demo package?

Glad to hear you like the tool

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi again, thanks for the fast reply

I haven't imported the demo package, just EasyRoads and the HD road addon.

Repro steps:
1. Create a clean project
2. Add terrain
3. Import EasyRoads package
4. Add new Road Network to scene (just an empty one will do - don't need to create roads)
5. Import HD addon
6. Press Ctrl+S

Result: Mouse cursor will change to animated busy cursor, and Unity will become non-responsive. Bringing up the task manager will show Unity as "not responding" and using zero CPU.

/S

 

Hi simonjacoby,

Thank you for the fast feedback. So this already happens with no objects added to the scene yet. We will test that today!

Raoul

 

This is indeed an issue in the current 2018.3 beta and when having many custom prefabs available like in the HD Roads package. We will see if this continues to be the case in future 2018.3 betas and make changes if necessary. This is related to some functions that check the status of these prefabs. Meanwhile there is a patch available that has these functions disabled. These functions are not crucial for building the road network.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi raoul,

Did you find a solution for the stretched texture on roads?

It works just fine in the editor, but in build mode the road textures are all stretched out at some places. Can't modify the roads network as it was finalized.

 

Hi marcrem,

That is most likely UV floating point inaccuracy related.

Usually roads are split in separate shorter objects by crossings. Stretching textures can happen on longer roads when no crossings are used. Does it kick in after a while and does it become worse the further along the track?

Within Easyroads3D and for roads only, this can be dealt with by inserting I Connectors.

This was actually discussed yesterday with simonjacoby, he mentioned that changing vertex data compression on texcoord 0 in the player settings also fixes it.

With regard to finalizing road networks, it is recommended to back up the scene before doing that. That way it will always be possible to make changes in a later stage. The road network object can be dragged between scenes if that is necessary.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Raoul,

This may not be something I should bother you about so feel free to ignore. I am working on a bit of code that lines up CScape building assets along your roads (can't use side objects because of the way the asset works) I'm close and the only time I have an issue is when a building is on the outside of the curve, it then overlaps on the sidewalk. I wish to push back the anchor points (values gotten from Vector3[] markersRight = road.GetSplinePointsRightSide() )

However, if you look at the image you can see "back" varies based on how the road curves. I tried Vector3.Right, left, etc but always the issue of relative since the road can curve. I am so sure that this is going to be simple and I am going to feel stupid. Feel free to laugh.

 Vector3[] markersRight = road.GetSplinePointsRightSide();

                  foreach(Vector3 markerRight in markersRight)

                    {

                        GameObject rightSphere = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Sphere);

                        rightSphere.transform.localScale = new Vector3(.5f, .5f, .5f);

                        rightSphere.transform.position = markerRight;

                        GameObject rightOffCube = GameObject.CreatePrimitive(PrimitiveType.Cube);

                        rightOffCube.transform.localScale = new Vector3(.5f, .5f, .5f);

                        Vector3 offRight = new Vector3(markerRight.x, markerRight.y, markerRight.z);

                        offRight += Vector3.back * 5;

                        rightOffCube.transform.position = offRight;

                    }

https://imgur.com/a/Ou0GcDw

EDIT: btw: can't use the center point, the outer edge of the curve because the CScape asset has the pivot point in the corner of the building instead of the center, so i had thought of that... drats)