World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Yes, can you check image two in Build Mode? Is the terrain correctly deformed according the road tilting?

Thank you for reporting the crash when using a negative roundabout width, I will fix that.

Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

Apologies, I cannot give you a copy of this project as terrain model has a copywrite.

The sharp angle was created by easyroads, I was snapping the road to the intersection shown, on snap it seems like it connected the other end of the road to the other intersection at the same time and created geometry road in between, as you can see the road has extended all the way to the end of the terrain and come back again but over the mountain where there is no terrain. In image 2 have you seen the width of the road it created? Also note there seems to be another road below the terrain, you can only see the blue markers.
Also if you look closely you will see that it looks like there are two roads connected to the same intersection point.

This has happened to me many times at different stages, so much that I created a side project just to test the road creation as it kept destroying the roads that I was happy with.

BTW there is no undo feature! Once you connect the road, it screws up there is no way back. I need to re-open the project and start again.

The road was previously connected to the intersection so I guess that they should match. I broke connection then cannot re-connect again.

This has happened at other times as well. Sometimes if I re-open project it will let me connect. Other times I have to delete intersection and add new one.

Also at time it seems as if markers lose connection to the road system and will not affect road shape on movement. I can move the markers well away from the road as if it was just a separate object on screen.

Sometimes when I click on another road the markers seem to re-connect and will move the road to the position the are on, but no good as you cant tell where your moving road till afterwards.

I have tried both options with same result. I just cant correct it. I can replace with a new road and this will not happen. It seems it happened while drawing the road.
I can cut the road at this marker to remove the offending piece of road.
But can I join the gap between the 2 roads without using an intersection. If not I think this feature would be most useful.

I had not notice this setting I will test and let you know.

In build mode the road is rendered fine. The texture disappears from the editor window only. It is not that the road is below the terrain and cannot be seen. The texture is not shown instead you get the white border colour. However the texture of the sidewalks remain.

Thanks for your help with this.

I believe you have created a invaluable product that once perfected will save a great deal of time when creating roads etc.

I look forward to your next release.

Gus

 

BTW I forgot, at times when I select an intersection that is connected to roads, if I move it upwards, the connected roads will not follow, but the markers of the connections on the roads (blue) remain on position on the intersection. Follow terrain contours is off. This is what happened in image3. I removed connection to the intersection then could not reconnect.

 

Hi Gus,

I can assure that the project will be safe, I will look at it and destroy it. Is quickly changing the terrain (heights, remove trees, textures etc.) an option? I am asking this because all this is strange, bug004, roads jumping through the scene, markers getting repositioned(?). I have not seen that happen and I am working on this on daily base for more than a year. Otherwise, I need more info, steps, to recreate these issues.

I meant bug002, on the left road connected to the T crossing I see 7 markers going upwards, then moving back downwards. Did you put those markers there or were these markers repositioned. The sharp angle of those markers with the crossing (almost 90 degrees) results in the big road deformation or shouldn’t this road be connected to this specific connection of the? The road shape in bug001 extending over the terrain can be also be a result of the markers layout. In general it is recommended to position markers at more or less similar distances. When you put two markers very close to each other and the next two markers also very close but far away from the first two markers and the markers the spline shape may look unexpected on bigger angles between the markers. Is that what is happening for that specific road? If so, did you put the markers there or did EasyRoads somehow reposition (add markers at random) places?

Do you mean Unity freezes? Do you get error messages? Can’t you disconnect or delete the road object?

Regarding the red connection handles and the road not connecting, do you mean before in the same beta it did work or before in a previous beta? Did you check the geometry structure of the road and the crossing? Do they match? What happens when you create a new similar road and put a new instance of the same crossing prefab in the scene, do they connect well? In that case, can you select the specific not working crossing and check the sidewalk handles, are they all green? If not, then this could be related to the sidewalk bug in 6.3 (tomorrows update should solve that), at this moment you can try clicking those handles that are white so all handles are green, matching the crossing in the image (sidewalks on all crossing sides). I am guessing here, hence why I am asking to have a look at this scene.

Image 4, so you are not using “Follow Terrain Contours” on this particular road? Is the road connected to crossings? What happens when you disconnect the road from these crossings? Does it resolve the issue?

Regarding marker tilting. The road texture may seem to disappear because of z-fighting with the white surfaces, the sidewalks are above the white surface so there is no z-fighting involved. I will see if the shaders in Edit Mode can be improved for this particular situation but it is harmless regarding the end result. If it is disturbing you could switch off the white surfaces in General Settings > Scene Settings.

Yes, I asked this above as well, is this a project upgraded to beta 6.3 and were these connections made in the previous beta? Before trying to resolve this particular situation can you first try what I suggested above in the part with the red connections? All this seems related to the same thing.

I really like to resolve any issue people have so thank you for reporting it!

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, I will ask for permission for terrain.

The new geometry added seem like the white area connects to wrong areas.
Once this happens I cannot delete the road object.
Say I have three roads I try to connect two using intersection, when I snap connect it like connects to other road object but not the connection looks like white area or something. This creates a new road between the wrong road.
I cannot remove this new wrong road + it has also detsroyed my previous road which was correct. Do you understand what I mean?

BTW I tried removing trees using distance from 1 to 100 with same result, no trees are removed.

I will check tomorrows update and see it it fixes my issues and revert back to you.

Thanks

 

One more things sorry, the cul-de-sac option is not available, I have placed the prefab in the missing panel but it will still not appear as an option.
Is this a problem with my version or do I have to configure this in another way?

Thanks

 

That looks like something that I can try, but the following is not entirely clear.

I put 3 new roads in the scene, in the center I add a crossing (for example the standard T Crossing), what should I do next that results in a new road being created?

Because when I connect road A to the crossing, it connects. And when I connect road B to the crossing it connects too.

I just checked removing trees. It turns out that after changing the distance in Terrain Management, the road has to be updated (moce a marker slightly) before the change takes affect. I will change that but you may want to check that.

The cul-de-sac, in the video was generated using a custom crossing. V3 will have an option to build cul-de-sacs. But the one in the video is very similar to a roundabout. Create a roundabout with only one connection and set the radius to half the roundabout width. You may have to play with the resolution setting to get the sidewalks right if you need that.


Thanks,
Raoul

 

not talking bout the white surface talkng about the road..... did you see it
? it is choppy.. also if you look ahead the road texture is missing in the 2nd screenshot were the texture begins to break,.. it does not work as it should and have smooth texture like the default textures.. I tried over 20 textures.

PS: I have not bult it yet because it will mess up and I will have to redo a hundred times... so thats why I showed it that way so i,m aware of the white sides.

 

Hi Recon03,

I did see the first two screenshots. I see two roads surrounded by white surfaces. As I do not know what your own source texture looks like I am not sure from those two screenshots what the problem is. Whether it is related to what I see on the road itself or indeed the fact that it disappears in the white surfaces. Does that not happen with one of the textures that comes with the package? Or is your last post another question?

I mentioned removing the white surfaces because it gives a clearer view of the road on the terrain further away from the cam. Because if this is indeed purely texture related, the only thing I can think of that might be different is the Aniso Level on your texture, Texture Importer > Aniso Level, which becomes visible further away from the cam.

The last screenshot looks more material related, does it indeed use one of the EasyRoads3D shaders? The road should be on top of the white surfaces.

What will mess up when you switch to Build Mode?

Could you post or email one of the textures you tried?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I have noticed white surfaces when the crossing material had not been set in the T crossing. Only the road material was set. When I generated terrain these would appear in bright pink.

Sometimes roads change texture in editor. If I change to another texture then back to the original it comes back.

I have been working on trying to connect my roads again today and had the same problem with new roads being created and can not be deleted.

Here is a video, I select the road marker the click on Default T Crossing under the "Connect to additional dynamic prefab.".

 

I managed to correct by adding the T crossing to another road.
I have quite a number of crossings to complete should I wait till next beta?
Thanks

 

Thank you for posting the video! That was very helpful, sorry, I thought you connected the road to a crossing already in the scene and forgot about another 6.3 bug already fixed last week.

This particular bug (T-Crossings only) is also related to checking for matching geometry structures part of 6.3. By default roads not connected to a crossing yet connect to any type of connection. T-Crossings are derived from X-Crossings with one empty connection (the straight side of the T Crossing). In the 6.3 code this particular none existing connection snaps to the road markers, that's why it looks all messed up. It shouldn't happen for X crossings.

Tomorrows update includes a fix for this. I am not sure though about a new road being created? Let's see if 6.4 fixes the issue for you.

Indeed, your last post, when you instantiate the T-Crossing first in the scene, connecting roads to one of the three connections should work just fine.

Raoul

 

When no material is assigned to a connection it indeed renders in pink. This isn't visible in Edit Mode because the white surface with an offset applied to the shader is rendered on top of the object. That's why you only see it after the white surfaces are hidden, after building the terrain for example. The dynamic crossings do come with materials assigned. Do you remember when the crossing started to look white? Did you change something related to the materials?

About the changing road texture, does that happen after connecting it to a crossing? You can assign road types to crossing connections, roads attached to that connection inherit that specific road type. If that involves a different material / texture indeed it will change on the road. The first chapters of the manual describe the recommended workflow part of it is first preparing road types and crossings required in your scene. But indeed afterwards you can always change the material in the specific material slot or in the Road settings where you will see all available road materials in a dropdown.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, is it possible to create a 4 lane roundabout crossing?

 

Another thing I would like to have have is the custom round about with four lane connections on all the three sides. is it possible?
Thanks!

 

I think I have got the answers from previous posts. Please disregard my questions.

 

Hi nbd,

Glad to hear you already figured it out! Just to summarize how to do this the fastest way and make this roundabout reusable in the scene and other scenes:

1. Create a new road type matching the width of the 4 lane road, assign the material you want to use on this road to the material slot and assign possible side objects you want to be activated for this road type. See General Settings > Road TYpes for additional options for road types.

2. Create a new roundabout prefab (General Settings > Crossing / Connection Prefabs)

3. Adjust the width and radius as you probably want a bigger roundabout for 4 lane roads

4. Add connections and select the newly created 4 lane road type from the Road Presets list for each connection. The connection will adjust to the 4 lane road width and any new roads pulled out from this connection will inherit the 4 lane road type settings.

Through this process it will become available as a new crossing prefab in the crossings tab (3rd tab from the left) so you can reuse it in your scenes without having to create it over and over again.

The custom roundabout example is mesh based, the mesh needs to be modified in a modelling app to have 4 lane roads on all connections.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

there is no different from your textures. I use 3d road, and with out, same issue.. so no idea why this is causing issues with textures that are not default with package, I use it with my own roads I made, I have no problems... so has to be something with asset, no I will not post my texture.. I have an NDA to follow. sorry. this includes textures.. I showed you a test scene.

 

Hi Recon03,

In the 5 years EasyRoads3D exists I have never seen a specific texture not working with EasyRoads3D.

Ordinary Unity game objects are used with a mesh renderer attached, the material is attached to the renderer, the texture is assigned to the material. It involves a standard Unity workflow.

I can assure there is nothing special done to the textures in the package.

To me the image of the test scene does not clearly show a problem specific to the texture because I do not know what the base texture looks like, therefor it is unclear for me how it is supposed to render.

Can you test and provide a texture that is not part of an NDA, any texture? I am 100% sure this can be resolved.

If someone else is experiencing this, please let me know.

It is still unclear what you meant with the last image you posted, the white surfaces covering the road, is that part of this texture problem? Because in that case, then all this is probably not texture related. It looks like that is shader related. Does the road/texture appear correctly when you hide the white surfaces (Build Terrain or Hide White Surfaces in General Settings > Scene Settings)?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, when and how can we get the new beta that's coming out today?
Thanks

 

Hi Gus,

The update is ready but while preparing the Unity 4 package I noticed that the sidewalk UVs on the default X and T Crossings are a bit off in the beta packages. That is editable through the build in UV editor but I want to update the demo scenes and fix this (and update the river example) for the update.

The package will be available later today. I will post here and on our website. The downlink will be the same as the previous beta.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Looking forward to the release.
Thanks again.

 

Hello,
I just got through reading the fine manual you provided with this asset. Looks like a really well put together package. It will definitely work for my next project out of the box, which will use Unity Terrain. My current project uses volumetric procedurally generated terrain: Ultimate Terrains. I was wondering, since I own the asset now and would love to be able to generate rivers and roads for my terrain, what are the chances I can somehow get EasyRoads to work with uTerrains?

 

Hi boysenberry,

Thank you! EasyRoads3D indeed only works with the Unity terrain object although you could consider not using terrain deformation. How exactly do you want it to interact with uterrains? Do you want to flatten the terrain as well according the road shapes?

In that case, that needs to be implemented, perhaps we can look at that once v3 is out?

Raoul

btw, new beta unity packages are ready, I will have a quick dinner break now, afterwards I will complete everything and upload to the server.

 

I am working towards using the terrain like is seen in games like Minecraft, Planet Explorers and 7 days to Die, to name a few. The last two I believe are made with Unity, but I might be mistaken.
Basically I would like to both shape the terrain to make way for roads and rivers (using the tools in uTerrains, which has a generation system I could use for doing this) and to use EasyRoads3D to procedurally generate the road and rivers in the areas I cleaved out. Once the terrain gets deformed, via player actions, etc. I would like to remove or adjust the roads or rivers. I am also hoping to use other assets I have for the water generation as well, e.g. Fluvio (which I hope to purchase soon), or Suimono Water System (which I currently own).
As far as getting EasyRoad to work with volumetric terrain I think rather than focusing on voxel terrain, just getting it to work on standard meshes using colliders, or something similar, might allow me to do what I hope to relatively easy. You would certain have a better idea of what is involved than I.

 

If you only need the road generation features, that should be relatively easy to implement. The only necessary changes are related to some scene view code.

But I was thingking, it shouldn't probably be to hard to hard for you to get the deformation working yourself. I can probably at some required info to the API and uTerrain might be able to do the rest. That said I am unfamiliar with your voxel terrain system and voxel terrain systems in general so perhaps it is more complicated. But I assume all that is required is some height data?

If you want we can discuss this over email?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Beta 6.4 can now be downloaded from the same link as usual.

This update includes smooth normals at crossing corner centers and connections with attached roads, see the below image. The v2 feature fading roads in an out is added. Side objects used as deformation objects can now have more complex shapes, see the updated river demo in the Main demo scene, the river shape is more detailed with snapping nodes at the outer side which results in a much smoother river shape. This update also includes various bug fixes and other improvements. Check the release notes section in the manual for more info. One thing I forgot to add to the updates is that you now have acces to the full road spline info through the API, which could be useful for AI purposes (see the runtime script in /Assets/EasyRoads3D/scripts).



Thanks,
Raoul

 

Raoul, In the latest beta, road types are showing as hexa decimal strings(Also side object strings). Can you please fix that asap? Also, Unity 5 is complaining that there are alot of leaked mesh objects. I have only added two custom roundabouts to the scene.

Cleaning up leaked objects in scene since no game object, component or manager is referencing them
Mesh has been leaked 617 times.
Mesh (Clone) has been leaked 2 times.
Mesh Combined Mesh has been leaked 1224 times.
Mesh surface has been leaked 2 times.
Thanks.

 

Hi nbd,

Did this problem with displaying preset names not happen before? Nothing has changed related to this compared to previous betas.

So far this situation seems related to the Unity editor being set to Force Text for Asset Serialization in the Editor settings instead of the default Mixed option. Is that the case in your project?

Here is a fix:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ea...g-new-road-system.229327/page-13#post-2022802

I have to check how this can be resolved regarding preparing a package that will directly work for both Mixed and Force Text mode because the last comment in the link above doesn't seem to always work.

Those messages are related to Unity's carbage collector. I will see how things can be optimized further regarding this, but by itself, all this is harmless, it is related to the Unity's carbage collector cleaning up unused objects.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,
Thanks for the new version.
Seems to work a lot better.
However some problems...

• I have motorway with trees, these disappear after build terrain.
• At times the unity editor tools, pan and rotate screen stop working and cannot move scene inside editor.
• Adjust road width on roads already created does not do anything.
• (RA) Roundabout 4 connections prefab has problems... position of connections does not adjust properly, width and radius does not seem to work properly either and crashed unity when trying to adjust these.
• I tried creating my own roundabout using the RA4 connections as a base, I created prefab copy using "create copy of" buttons, then clicked on scene, RA appeared on screen, I was able to adjust position of connection nicely, I saved prefab using button then exited the editor using button, prefab disappeared normally. I then selected my new prefab from the connection menu and clicked on scene, the prefab appeared but the mesh and textures are missing I only get the green/white dots. This seems to be a problem.
• I created a cul-de-sac using same method, when I select and add this has no problems and comes out correct, so the problem must be with over 1 connections on RA.

Will keep working on my roads and let you know o any further problems mate.
Thank again.

 

Some more problems with loose markers, please check video out...

 

I added new roundabout prefab, road snaps to it but when you move prefab road is not truely connected.
This problem was also happening in 6.3
It also changed texture of the road to the yellow pavement texture although another texture is selected.

 

Hi gibmation, thank you for the feedback!

Do you mean all trees on the terrain disappear? I have been testing this after your previous comment related to trees removal and fixed the issue with having to update roads first after making changes to General Settings > Terrain Management > Tree./detail distance. All this should work well now. Does changing these distance values have any affect?

It seems Scene View tools like panning, rotating can become unresponsive after repetitive error message are thrown in the console. Is that the case? If so, after which specific action?

Road width do update correctly over here. Or are/were these roads connected to crossings? In that case, yes road width changes will be ignored.At this moment roads inherit connection settings. It is explained in the first sections of the manual which explain the recommended workflow. After you set up the connections you need first (you can always change this) the workflow of creating the newtork will be much faster, no need to change road widths, set up materials, etc. for every road, every connection. You just put them in the scene pull out new roads, connect roads and the correct road type will be assigned.

You can still make changes in the scene though. But at this stage, if you want to change the width of a road already connected to a crossing then please change the width on that crossing (both crossings if the road is connected at the start and end).

In a future build it will be possible to have this work the other way around as well. I think this is mentioned in the To Do's in the manual.

I just tested this, it does update correctly over here. What is the exact problem on your end? Is this related to for example the roundabout with / radius becoming too small to include all 4 connections at their current width? Do mesages appear in the console saying that the Connection could not be created? The manual, Known Issues / Troubleshooting includes more info related to this. The best way to build a new roundabout (especially smaller roundabouts) is by starting with a single connection.

I just tested this and this did work as well. Which button did you click at the end? "Exit Prefab Editor" or "Save as new Prefab"? The last button seems to throw and error, I will check that. But that button is intended to quickly create small variations of a new roundabout prefab. "Exit Prefab Editor" seems to work well. Do you get error messages?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks Raoul, that helped.

 

Can you provide more info? Do you get error messages? What is the history of this road? When did this start to happen? I assume you connected it to a crossing. What is the status of this crossing? Is it an older crossing? The release notes have info on this.

I am quessing here... Roads not updating after marker changes have happened over here as well. Usually it is a result of an issue with the crossing like in beta 6.3, fixed in 6.4 with additional info in the release notes on checking older crossings.

What we do to debug this, is disconnect the road from the crossing(s). Do marker changes work well afterwards. If so, connect a new road to that same crossing, does the same problem occur or another problem? Then it is a problem with the crossing and checking the crossing as explained in the release notes could solve it. Otherwise it is a debug situation which will require more info.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Glad to hear that!

Raoul

 

I cant, as the markers are loose they just move but nothing happens to the actual road, the one on the RA is welded man there is no way of moving it off.

I can only delete the object, but as markers will not work I need to re-open project.

 

I created this roundabout type using the same settings. I noticed that currently the roundabout options do not have the option to switch of sidewalks by default. I will add that option.

Regarding your issue, do you also get and error related to normals (which is a result of only one connection being available)? This bit of code is currently not optimized for single connection roundabouts. It is a simple fix. If you want I can send you a quick, scripts only package for this. Please let me know if you are using the Unity 4 or Unity 5 version in that case.

Also, with respect to your previous post, loose markers. This is an example, when you connect a road to this connection (which is corrupted because of that error message), the connected road becomes unresponsive to marker changes.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

No, the trees that come on the road side left and right.

No I do not get any errors on console.
I am adding RA only today so errors must be when handling these RA.

Preping a video for this upload later....

 

Using Unity5 bro.
Thanks

 

How does markers not updating the road make it impossible to delete the road? Select marker > Delete Road. I just did that after the same happened over here (my previous post) where the road became unresponsive.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

So, was that actually a confirmation that tree removal works now for you?

Can you notice a pattern here? Afer which action does this happen?

[/quote]
Thank you, that is usually very helpful in this sort of situations.

Raoul

 

Not the road lol, it is impossible to disconnect the road from the roundabout is what I meant.

I can delete the road this is not the problem. But if I delete I will have to re-draw road again man :-((

 

Here are some videos of my problems with the RAs ...
Is there something I am doing wrong?

 

How does one get the v3 beta?
I have the v2 pro license.

 

Ok, but you mentioned that you had to restart the project. It seems you only did that to fall back to the previous scene status?

Anyway, I will also add a button in the Inspector to disconnect the two.

Raoul

 

Hi Jonathan,

I will send you the beta. Could you send me a PM (Start Conversation by clicking my forum name) and include your email or contact me through our website (see the link in my signature)?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

thank you for the quick reply, started a conversation with you with my email..

 

It looks like all 3 videos are related to the same thing. I see messages in the console but it is not clearly visible. Do you get messages like: "connection X cannot be created, move the position forward"

As mentioned in the manual (Troubleshooting) page you have to be careful making changes to roundabouts. It is certainly recommended to get a feeling with this by experimenting with it before using it on an exisiting roundabout with 4 roads already connected.

It works but when connections overlap or a connection is too wide for the roundabout width/radius things can get complicated when 3 or more connections are involved.

Start simple, with one connection, change the position, change the width. Add a connection, change the position all around the roundabout, when moving too close to the first connection you will see the above error message.

When the connection is ready add another connection, etc. Does that work?

As mentioned in the manual, making this more user friendly, is on the list.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

This is a good idea.