World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hi RsMeta,

Dynamic prefabs are built-in customizable crossing prefabs. This type of crossing is customizable by opening them in the Unity prefab editor. In the case of "Default X Crossing" the "Default Road" road type is assigned to all connections. This means that the crossing will be generated according the "Default Road" road width.

If you want to scale it up it probably means that you like to have the Default Road type wider. This can be done in "General Settings > Road Types". Select "Default Road" from the dropdown and adjust "Road Width". The crossings will also be wider. For roads and crossings already in the scene, "Update Scene Instances" near the bottom in "General Settings > Road Types" can be pressed.

Hope this helps

Raoul

 

Thanks for the reply.
Another question, how can I add to the "default road" the same curb that "default x crossing" has, because I can't connect my default road to that crossing.

Thanks

 

Do you mean you have a "Default Road" without curb and the crossing with curbs? In that situation you can do two things.

1) Extrude the road from the crossing, it will have curbs on both sides.
2) With the road network object selected, click the yellow center handle of the croissing. Green handles will appear in the corners. This means curbs are on. Click these green handles so they turn grey, the curbs are disabled now, the road does connect. In this state the grey corner handles can be clicked so they turn green again. The curbs will be activated, also on the connected road.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

But that brings me to the main problem where I can't scale the default x crossing, for example to the 1.5 x 0.5 x 1.5
And if I do scale it with unticked "lock scale", it only scales the crossing without the extruded roads.

 

So I did this, played around with it some more and eventually got to a point where I have a narrowed it down to a specific marker. I can place it and bake without issues - I move it to make the road a tiny bit longer and it fails... What I don't get is that where I'm moving the marker, the terrain is almost perfectly flat.

That unfortunately did nothing...

The heightmap resolution is 1025.

I don't mind giving you access to the project - but as beautiful as the naturemanufacture tress and grasses are, they are bloating the size of the project to 27GB... I keep is in a subversion repository, how would you be able to access it?

 

It seems these are two different questions.

Have you tried what I wrote in my previous post, change the road width of the "Default Road" road type to scale the crossing?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi argh6543,

What does this road look like? I cannot see how changing the marker position by itself can make a difference here.

You could duplicate the terrain object in the project folder, remove all trees and detail objects of this duplicate and email a link to the scene with this terrain and the road network.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks man, I finally got it right!

 

Hi Raoul,

I am trying to add a speed limit sign to the road and I tried to add the sign prefab as a side object but whenever I assign this side object to a marker, I always see 2 of them (one at the end and one at the start). Is there a way to attach an object (speed sign) to the road without creating 2 of them?

Best,
swnc

 

The only thing I would like, and we talked about this before, is to have lanes on the sidewalk so I can implement pedestrian traffic. Other than that, everything is good. The current beta of 3.2 is working well btw.

 

Hi James,

Yes, that will be added as well. Glad to hear the current v3.2 is working well, still some things to do though

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi swnc,

The current side object is intended to generate or spawn side objects a long the track, in your case at the specified intervals. What is your setup, did you indeed enter a high number for "Distance between Objects", higher then the distance between markers? That will not work.To fit this well per section, this distance is recalculated. This is why an object is also spawned at the end. There might be a simple way though to avoid this from happening with this specific setup. I will do some tests.

A hack in the current version might be to create a procedural side object and add the sign prefab as a Start Object. The procedural mesh that will be generated as well can be removed afterwards.

Spawning single objects will for sure be possible in v3.3.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

LOL. There is ALWAYS more to do.

 

Note to everyone about road lanes in 3.2 I wanted to say publicly that Raoul and the team have done a great job on this feature. The ability to have an intersection with different widths and number of lanes on each one and the fact that ER3D handles this by correctly directing the outgoing lanes to the proper incoming is very impressive.

Example: (lanes: 4x4x4x2) https://imgur.com/a/Cl3X4TU

Thanks Raoul for everything

 

I have a scene with what I think is a not very complicated road network - but recently discovered the scene file had grown to over 80 MB. If I delete the road network, it drops to about 7 MB. I have 3 connections objects, and 7 road objects. Maybe 60ish markers all together - there's some windy roads built up into the side of a mountain.

The scale of my roads is probably much larger than normal, as my game involves big, building-sized robots. Road width varies from 15 - 60. Terrain size is 1400x1400. Heightmap resolution is 1025.

Does the terrain backup get stored in the scene file or something? Is there anything I can do to get my scene files down to a reasonable size? The time to save is really terrible, and it's going to burn up a lot of disk space in git.

 

Hi DonkeyPotato,

Indeed the terrain backup data when switching to Build Mode is stored in the scene file. It is required to restore the terrain when switching back to Edit Mode.

But I am not sure how this affects saving time? Is that the case in general, or after road network changes? And can you see a big time and size difference when saving the road network in Build Mode and in Edit Mode? Which version of Unity is this? In older versions then Unity 2018.3 the save time can be longer but this is more related to possibly changed assets in the project folder being reimported.

There is only one terrain in the scene? 80mb sounds like a lot, unless perhaps there is a lot of trees and detail objects involved.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I've had the same experience. For 256 terrain tiles (256px heightmap, 2 splatmaps, no vegetation) this increased my scene size from 20 to 120mb. There is backup data stored in the ER Terrain component attached to every Terrain. This can unfortunately still get loaded into the game along with the terrains and greatly increases load times.

I personally got around it by removing all the ER Terrain components when I'm done editing the Road Network or making a build. Not sure how this affects the restore options. But I sync my terrain from World Creator so I always have access to the pre-modified terrain in any event.

 

Hi StaggartCreations,

The main backup data is stored outside the /Assets/ folder in: [project folder]/EasyRoads3D/ . This data is the data associated with the manual terrrain backup / restore options.

Any backup data stored in the scene related to switching back to Edit Mode is stored in the ER Terrain component attached to each terrain object. This component, including the backup data, will be removed after Finalizing the road network. The backup data will not be part of the final build. Indeed the ER Terrain component itself can also be removed.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Raoul,

I did some more work on this and am more confused than ever before... I'm using Opsive's Ultimate Character Controller and as soon as I deactivate the character (or more specifically, the Capsule Collider component of the Player/Colliders/CapsuleCollider gameobject), I can build roads all I want. I have no idea how those are related...
When I'm done with work today, I'll see if I can build you a smaller test project. Until then, I can build the terrains by disabling the player character...

 

Hi argh6543,

Some terrain tools have the option to lock the terrain which will make it impossible for EasyRoads3D to make changes. There is no known history with the Opsive's Ultimate Character Controller.

A test project would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hey raoul,

Your support is amazing! That's why I got even more questions for you Here is a beautiful picture of my problem. Is there a way to create a smooth transition to the additional lane like in my "Target" drawing?

have a nice sunday,
Thendon

 

Hi Thendon,



This type of transitions is not built-in in v3.1. It will be possible in v3.2

Meanwhile, if you do modelling, you could create a model with the start, a short middle section that will be repeated and then the end, and add this to the road as a procedurally side object. Regarding start / middle /end sections, the bridge, guard rail and several other barrier examples in the demo package show how these sections can be defined in the Mesh Editor window in the Side Object Manager. You want to toggle off "Default active state for each marker" and instead only activate it where these transitions are required.

Thanks,
Raoul

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi,

Is it possible to disable the start/end decals when connecting to a connection prefab.

 

Hi deverolirc,

These decals are assigned to individual road types in General Settings > Road Types. That is where they can be removed.

When there is more then one decal option assigned to the road type, a decal will be selected randomly at each connection. In the Inspector of the selected road (about half way in the main Road Settings) it is also possible to select a decal manually or do not select a decal at all.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hey,

Apologies, I should have been more clear. These are my own prefabs/decals that I made, I am just wondering if its possible to never place end decals when the end is connected to a custom connection prefab.

For example, I want a decal on the blue check, but I don't want a decal on the red because it interferes with my intersection. I essentially want to use the decal as a fade out for the end of the road.

If this is not possible with the current decal system, any idea how to do something like this without manually removing all the decals that are on the connection prefab.

 

For organization purposes, can i move the EasyRoads3D folder into another subfolder or are there hardcoded paths in the system that will break?

 

@deverolirc,

There is no logic implemented that willl not (or optionally not) add decals if a custom connection prefab is involved. What is on the list to add is link these decal presets to other road types. That way decals can be assigned automatically that are intended for specific transitions. I belief that should also work in your situation assuming road types are associated with the with the prefab connections.

That is manually setting the decal selection in the dropdown I assume? Otherwise the decal will be added again after a road update. The only way I can think of doing this at the moment is by removing the decal through code using a callkback that will be triggered after road changes.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

@Flavelius, the code shouldn't be using any hardcoded paths for that reason. If you run into any issues with this, please let me know.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I think my solution will be putting the decal below the road mesh, and raising the custom prefab, this way only the end decals will be visible. A bit of wasted performance but whatever.

 

When generating the road is it possible to get coordinates of the center of the road. My use case is generating road with some laneCurvature data from the real world. Idea is to generate road and move vehicle and update its position & rotation so it is always centered on the road.

I have only start and end marker for every segment of 100m of the road and I need all points in between. Any ideas? Thank you.

 

Or, if the situation is indeed, only show the decal as a fade out and not when a crossing is involved then an editor script can do that as well. The decal will be generated but whenever you run the editor script, unwanted decals are removed. If you want I can send and example.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi PhilipZ0,

That can be done trough the scripting API. The runtime scene demo includes an example. First a road is created, after that an object follows the road in the center. The script is available in /EasyRoads3D/Scripts/runtimeScript

ERRoad.GetSplinePointsCenter() returns all the points.

More options are available in v3.2 (in beta), lane info can be set for road types. This will be used to generate data both on roads as on crossings. The v3.2 beta includes a basic AI script using this data to move objects on the road network.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul! Thanks as always for the support/reply.

I'm running 2019.1.0f2. I've got several thousand trees on the map, but no vegetation / detail objects. Saving stalls the editor for about 10 seconds, both in Edit and Build mode. Deleting the ER Terrain component, then answering 'no' when prompted if I want my terrain backed up gets things running much smoother/faster, but I'll obviously be lacking the terrain backup feature. I may just rely on committing in git for my back-up, as this makes the editing experience much better. I'll try that for awhile and see if the workflow works out better for me.

Another contributing factor here, is that the scene gets marked as changed (asterisk shows up on the scene name in the hierarchy window) from just selecting the 'Road Network' object, even if nothing has changed. This leads to a lot of unnecessary 10-second long saves happening.

 

Hi DonkeyPotato,

Answering 'no' when prompted if you want to backup the terrain should not affect saving scenes. This data is stored outside the Assets folder and is only used when chosing to manually restore the terrain data.

I just tested this in the package build project in Unity 2018.3.0f2, selecting the road network object does not result in the scene being marked as changed. A situation where this could potentially happen is when road type or side object data has changed through for example another scene. In that case this data will be updated in the current road network as well which means the scene had changed. I will double check tomorrow in 2019.1.0f2.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I am having a very similar issue to the one swnc posted, and I can't figure it out what it is. I'm trying to add a sideobject to each road in a RoadNetwork. All of that Roads in the RoadNetwork are of the same RoadType:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. private void InitializeRoadPool()
3. {
4.     roadNetwork = new ERRoadNetwork();
5.     var roads = roadNetwork.GetRoads();
6.     for (int index = 0; index < roads.Length; index++)
7.     {
8.         ERRoad road = roads[index];
9.         // Activate a sideobject in a given road marker:
10.         SideObject sObject = roadNetwork.GetSideObjectByName("Traffic Light A");
11.         print(sObject.position); // Prints "0" for each road in the network
12.         print(sObject.name); // Prints "Traffic Light A" for each road in the network
13.         road.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(sObject, index, true);
14.         //
15.         roadPool.Enqueue(road);
16.     }
17. }

I've tried with both true/false for the option "Default active state for each marker", but no sideobject is appearing in my hierarchy! From the prints I understand the sObject is not null.

I also tried with the Active Side Object settins, checking the one named "Traffic Light A" for that road type, but nothing changed.

No SideObject ever seems to appear using the scripting API. Except if I make it appear for every marker by default through the editor (not using API).

 

Hi 40detectives,

you should add this line :
road.SideObjectSetActive(sObject, true); before
road.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(sObject, index, true);

Best,
swnc

 

Hi 40detectives,

Like swnc mentioned, the missing part is also activating the side object for this road.

In the Unity Editor this step is required because only after activating a side object for a road, this side object will be available in the side object dropdown in the markers section.

This is not relevant for the scripting API, but the side object should still be activated for ther road as well. I will make some changes to the scripting API and auto activate the side object for the specific road if it is not activated yet.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Ok I followed @swnc advice, but still have issues, just to be sure @raoul:

Code (CSharp):

1. ERRoad.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(SideObject obj, int markerIndex, bool value)

markerIndex for a SideObject starts counting at 0 or 1?

 

It starts at 0

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi 40detectives,

It might be that you are assigning the road index instead marker index "road.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(sObject, index, true);" in your loop:

Code (CSharp):

1. for (int index = 0; index < roads.Length; index++)
2.     {
3.         ERRoad road = roads[index];
4.         // Activate a sideobject in a given road marker:
5.         SideObject sObject = roadNetwork.GetSideObjectByName("Traffic Light A");
6.         print(sObject.position); // Prints "0" for each road in the network
7.         print(sObject.name); // Prints "Traffic Light A" for each road in the network
8.         road.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(sObject, index, true);
9.         //
10.         roadPool.Enqueue(road);
11.     }

Best,
swnc

 

Thanks to @swnc too, Yeah you're right I was doing that.
- - -
It was not all my issues with the SideObject API, though:

I think I've figured out what was happening (there were to many SideObjects per Road, even solaped; or too few).

I'll try to explain my setup and let me know if I got something wrong:

My "Distance Between Objects" (SideObjects settings) is set at 150.
My roads were each 300m straight in one axis only.


With that setup only 3 SideObjects can be placed on a road. But because My "Default Start Offset" (for the SideObject) was also set to 150, the markerIndex for 0 (the first 150 from the offset) was skipped by the API automatically (wasn't expecting that but I guess is nice).

Also, I don't know why does the API do that, but when I call

SideObjectMarkerSetActive(SideObject obj, int markerIndex, bool value)

on a road it will activate all the markers for that road from the markerIndex till the last "possible markerIndex". In my example above, it was 2 or 3 SideObjects depending on "Default Start Offset" is set to 150 or 0. @raoul Is that the desired behavior or a bug?

With the SideObject settings and the Road length above, if I execute:

Code (CSharp):

1. road.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(sObject,1, true);
2. road.SideObjectMarkerSetActive(sObject,2, true);

It will instantiate 4 SideObjects per Road, with the last two overlaping the two firsts. Like in a circular list, they will not overflow the size of the road, instead will be placed again in the same spot the others were.

 

While adding code a minute ago to make sure the side object is actually activated for the road object I did notice something that could potentially activate the wrong side object for a marker if more then one side object is active. But what you describe does not happen on our end. The side object is only activated for the passed marker indexes.

In your post you do mention that "Default active state for each marker" is on. This means that when the side object is activated on a road it will actually be auto activated on all road markers as well. Is this related and is side object indeed not activated for the first markers before the passed marker index or are they not visible for that section because of the start offset of 150?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I made I typo writing it before, "Default active state for each marker" is off

 

What is the behaviour if you do the same inside the Unity editor manually?

What do you mean with 2 or 3 side objects? How does that relate to the Default Start Offset of 150?

I cannot make a clear picture what this looks like and in which way these results are wrong? When multiple side objects are involved, positions can overlap.

Perhaps you can email a simple project with your scripts so I can look at it?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Just a hunch -- could it be a conflict with the layers that ER uses for background tasks? Opsive UCC uses layer 31 for the character controller... try changing ER background tasks layer to something unused by UCC, like layer 25...

 

Hi Raoul -- I've got two questions that ought to be pretty common but I can't find the answer to anywhere. I've tried to search this thread as well as your docs and I'm coming up empty.

1) What is the secret to creating a model mesh that is compatible for creating cross roads? I'm trying to do something really simple, like this:


When I go through the steps to create the crossroad and add the crossroad to the scene, I get this error:

ArgumentException: Can not triangulate less than three vertices!

I've tried to look at the meshes included with the project, but they aren't in a format that I can make sense of.

I can provide the complete stack trace to the above error if necessary, but what I really need is some clue as to what the mesh needs to be like to function as a crossing prototype.

2) I would like to generate rails in my scene. I've looked extensively at the demo project that includes a rail road type, and I've tried to figure out how it works, but I am stumped -- how are the two spline meshes defined??? I get how the concrete tie-bars and metal plates are side items, that makes sense; but I do not understand what/how/where the control exists to change from flat road to twin rails.

TIA,

--Bo


EDIT : Unity 2018.3.1.f21 EasyRoads3D 3.1.8.f2 (Pro)

 

Hi forzabo,

ER indeed uses layer 31 by default. Additionally to what you suggested, this is customizable in General Settings > Scene Settings

Other objects on the same layer can have unexpected terrain deformation results. I don't think it will actually break the process of updating the terrain, but indeed worth to try.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

The error is usually related to generating these white surfaces visible when "General Settings > Scene Settings > Hide White Surfaces" is toggled off.

To check this you could temporarily turn off Terrain Deformation for this object in the Custom Prefab Editor window.

The mesh by itself looks fine. Can you send it to us so we can test it?

This was also done by importing a mesh with the twin rails part of it. The result is in the custom prefabs folder, the "Secondary - Train Rail Prefab_ER" prefab based on the prefab in

/Assets/EasyRoads3D Assets/RailRoad/Secondary - Train Rail Prefab

The generated prefab "Secondary - Train Rail Prefab_ER" can be dropped in the Custom Prefab Editor window so you can see the setup. The railroad road type was created in this window.

V3.2 available in betas supports custom road shapes. What is not yet implemented is the option to disconnect two nodes. This will be added though. It will make it possible to create this sort of shapes directly without need to import meshes.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hmmm. Terrain Deformation doesn't seem to be unselectable ... (?)

Sure ... zipped fbx attached

oh... the fog is starting to clear a little bit. I'll check that out.

Thanks for the quick assistance!

 

I had a quick look. It looks a little bit different from the model you posted. It has a plane layout with 18 triangles. It imports well but very small which makes it hard to use. After scaling it up 500 times, so it covers about 5 units, it works fine.

Thanks,
Raoul