World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hi Freznosis,

What do you mean with the Default Perimeters if these values are changed both in Road Types and in General settings > Terrain Management. General settings > Terrain Management. these are the default values. And what exactly do you mean with "refresh the road"?

Can you confirm that "Update Scene Instances" is pressed or that these values are changed in the actual road object settings? Or "Reset All Road Types And Objects" is pressed after changing these values in the main settings in General settings > Terrain Management.

I just checked this in v3.1.9f3, all 3 ways to change these values and apply them to roads work as expected.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Default perimeters being the the default values for the perimeters. They start out as 2,2,4,4,8.


When I say refresh, I mean this. When you change the "Active" toggle in Terrain Management, it refreshes the roads and changes the Mask Line components.



But yes, I also used the update scene instances, etc to "refresh" and it's still the same behavior.

I think part of the problem is also that the Vegetation Mask Line doesn't get updated when the values are changed externally. So when the network is refreshed, the values don't apply until you change the editor. But this seems to be at fault of Vegetation Studio and not ER3D. I must be doing something wrong. I will investigate a bit more and get back to you.

 

Hi Freznosis,

"Active" activates Vegetation Studio support for EasyRoads3D, it will refresh the roads and activate Vegetation Studio with the current values assigned to the road. It will not update the roads with new values. The "Reset All Road Types And Objects" button in the same section does that. This button is available below the "Active" checkbox but I cannot see it in your screenshot. Which version do you have imported? So if you would change "Grass Perimeter" from to 2 to 0 and afterwards press "Reset All Road Types And Objects" then Vegetation Studio grass should be placed up to exactly the left and right road edges.

Can you debug this starting at the most direct way to change perimeter values, directly on the road further below in the Inspector in the "Terrain Options" Section. Perimeter value changes should be visible instantly.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I have a small feature request, it's not too important but maybe you can consider adding it:
A hierarchy/list/overview (in the scene control tab or maybe even a sceneGUI overlay for example) for road objects currently in the scene to make it easier to select them.

As the unity hierarchy it seems shouldn't be used to select them (it needs the main component active) it would be easier if the system had a little clickable list of all road objects in the scene. In my case i have what i intend to be a river that for some reason doesn't work correctly yet, so it's hard to select in the scene (no geometry to click). It would be nice if i could just select it in the scene control tab for example for now, before i fix it, or even just to quickly be able to jump to a specific road without navigating the scene first. This becomes more useful the more road objects one has.

 

Hi Flavelius,

Something like that is on the list. The idea is to add this to the second tab where also new roads can be created.

Regarding selectying roads in the hierarchy, that can be done, the EasyRoads3D toolbar will be visible in the Inspector. After pressing the most left arrow (Scene View Tab) ther main road network object will be selected in the hierarchy and the initially selected road will now be the selected road in the main road network Inspector.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Good to know!
A few other quirks i just encountered:
The 'Mirror [axis]' buttons in the shape editor don't mirror the shape, they just flip it.
Hitting the 'r' key in this editor also puts unity into scale mode (maybe that's preventable)
The shape editor allows multi-selection via shift key, but not moving that multi-selection (it just selects the next vertex clicked for moving), it would be nice if it did. It also doesn't care what mouse button is pressed to select vertices which slightly interferes with middle mouse button canvas move.
'Distribute Y Eveny' for markers only works if 3 or more markers are selected, if 2 are selected the scene control tab just displays the last selected one as if solely selected.


And something i need a little help with:
I'm trying to create a river but it doesn't behave as i expect;
this is the road type:

this is the side object type:

and this is how it looks in the scene:

i expect it to not snap to the terrain and deform it, but neither of those things happen (if i build the terrain no deformation is applied, and if i move a marker it slides across the terrain instead of letting me absolute-position it, meaning the 'distribute y evenly' button doesn't work either)
How do i fix/adjust this?

 

Guys, Hi everybody. what do you think about this?
On Sceneport and Gameport everything ok
It's happening after build project.

 

I have a lightmapping issue with a procedural side object wall:

The outer wall is the road spline (from side object), the selected object is manually placed for comparison. The scene is lightbaked (progressive CPU, shadowmask, no realtime). The procedural wall (procedural mesh object) shades strangely. It doesn't seem to matter if i generate lightmap uvs in the importer or not. The source objects (main piece + connector) have non-overlapping uvs.
How can i fix this?

 

Hi Flavelius,

First of all, I will be away for a couple of days until Thursday this week. Response time will be less frequently then usual.

Mirror Vertical / horizontal will flit the shape on the respective axis. How would you expect Mirror to work?

When selecting multiple nodes all nodes will move when moving the last selected node as long as the mouse button is kept down after selecting this last node.

Distribute Y Evenly should align all markers between the two selected markers. This was updated in v3.1.9f3 by request to also support multiple road objects connected with an I Connector. I will double check when I am back to see if this indeed behaves differently now on a single road object.

Regarding the river, please check the demo package. It includes a river example based on the Shape type of side object. One for the river surface and one for carving the river shape in the terrain, river bed. Especially the river bed setup is useful as this shape can be setup as complex as you want with outer nodes snapping to the terrain between 0 and 100% for a smooth river bank shape. "Terrain Deformation" is switched on for the riverbed side object this means the terrain will be updated according the shape and will not be visible in Build Mode.

Generate Lightmap UVs in the importer for the source object will not do anything since this has to be calculated for the final mesh. This is done by toggling on "Generate Lightmap UVs" in the Build Mode settings. Although not for side objects, this was recently brought up on the forum for road objects and confirmed to work well. Generating UVs is done through the Unity API and works same for both roads and side objects. I cannot test at the moment, but if you confirm that this still does not work then I will check this too when I am back.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Raoul,

Are there any considerations I should be aware of if I use the new Unity feature "Sub Scenes"?

Thanks

 

Hi xsence,

Is this a long road and does this start further away along the track? Then it is most likely related to UV floating point inaccuracies. There are two solutions.

1. Insert I connectors at intervals at a distance just before where this start to happen. Inserting I Connectors will split the road in separate objects preserving the shape. By using separate objects, the UVs start back at 0. This option is available further below in the marker section in the Inspector.

2. The reason why this happens in the final build and not in the Unity editor is most likely related to the project settings, specifically: Project Settings > Player > Other Settings > Optimization > Vertex Compression > Tex Coord 0

Switching this off should also fix the problem. Does that help?

A built-in solution like previously in v2 is being worked on, it is not active yet. It will be part of the next v3.3 alpha update.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi James,

That uses DOTS / ECS, if you experience issues please let me know.

In that case, I mentioned in my post above that I am away for a couple of days but I will be happy to look into that when I am back.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

No worries. I will try it out, after a full backup, and let you know.

Sorry I didn't see/read the other post. And for future ref, don't EVER feel the need to respond to my posts as quick as you normally do, none of them are that important.

 

Ok, using the generate lightmap toggle in the ER settings indeed makes it look correct, thanks.
As For the handling in the shape editor, maybe this could be changed to the usual way of interacting with selections, i would not intuitively guess that it works this way.
To the mirroring, i made a sketch that illustrates the difference:

 

Hi Flavelius,

Glad to hear you got the lightmapping work well for the side object.

Regarding mirroring, the first example has an orange and green circle mirrored, two circles. Then the second shows 4 circles marked as "flipped" I belief based on the initial "normal" setup. What would the mirrored version look like?

For the first example I can see perhaps you would you like to be able to keep the nodes on the left and add mirrored versions on the right.

But how would that work for the other example?

Thanks,
Raoul

[Edit] What can be added is a "Symmetrical" checkbox that will auto create the shape mirrored like in your first example. Something similar can be done for custom roads shapes in the v3.3 alpha.

 

Hi Raoul,

I updated ER3D and I now I can't replicate the issue. Everything is functioning as it should so that's very weird. I'll write to you again if it does happen again though.

Thank you for the help.

 

Hi Freznosis,

Thank you for the update, glad to hear this is working well now.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I should probably have reversed the order, the 'normal' version is what's assumed to be created in the editor.
If an imaginary flip-button is pressed the 'flipped' version comes out. Or if an imaginary 'mirror horizontally' button is pressed the 'mirrored' version is the result. This is analogous to how a real mirror works. Blender's Mirror Modifier is a good example to visualize that (yes this one is live-linked but who knows, maybe you could even add that too ):

btw: 'Delete Object' (scene control tab) only works if a marker is selected. If a road object is selected in the unity hierarchy and the '<' button is pressed, the main road object gets selected and the road set active, but no marker selected. The delete button pops up a confirmation in this case but does not actually delete the object.

 

Hi Flavelius,

That is how Mirror works in Blender in the video, but is that always the case in every modelling app?

That is why I was asking what type of result you expect.

Selecting a road in the hierarchy and then press "<" in the toolbar should select the road within the main road network and also select the first marker of that road.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes, that's also how other modelling apps define it, for example modo, 3dsmax:
https://learn.foundry.com/modo/902/content/help/pages/modeling/duplicate_geometry/mirror.html
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/supp...3473A37B-EA96-40E7-8B69-61E1F6593ED0-htm.html

To the selection, then there must be some bug with the 'selection' of the marker as it seems selected but is actually not:

 

Hi Flavelius,

Yes, but is creating a "clone" like in the blender video you posted something that will happen by default and always work like that or is it optional? I belief it is often optional and Mirror can also work similar to how it works in the Shape editor window. Perhaps we should move forward

EasyRoads3D is not a fully featured modelling tool and things may work differently. This is a shape creation tool to create a procedural mesh along a spline shape. Less relevant in v3.2 where a single side object can be used for both sides of the road, the intention of the current "Mirror" option in v3.1 is to quickly create a version for the other side of the road by duplicating a side object and mirror the shape. That is why it works the way it does. It is not intended as a tool to "model" the shape. But features like that can be added hence why I mentioned the "Symmetrical" checkbox if that is what you were looking for. Is that what you like to be able to do?

In the video the road network object is selected after pressing "<". The Inspector View does not show the Marker section so it is unclear whether a marker is selected. However the position handle is visible and codewise, this handle will be displayed for the selected marker. When I am back later this week I will test / check the "Delete Object" action after the steps shown in the video.

In any case, it is perfectly fine to delete the road object while selected in the hierarchy, the status in the beginning of the video, also for road objects connected to crossings.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Ok, i was just trying to use it to define the river shape, but i guess that's not too relevant, i'll just use a pre-modeled mesh then.
The selection in the scene control tab does show the marker as selected that received the position handle in the sceneview, but it is not highlighted green either in the scene. If i click it, it becomes green and the deletion works as expected.
Btw, very minor issue, the manual html file included in the asset is called _manualv3, but the 'Previous' and 'Table of contents' links in every section point to 'manualv3', so they don't work correctly.

 

Yes, it seems that the object not being deleted is directly related to the specific steps in your video instead of selecting a road marker. That is why I also mentioned that the object can already be deleted instantly when selected in the hierarchy. I will check this though.

Thank you for reporting the issue with the manual. The online version appears to work well, it is available directly from the most right help tab in the Inspector toolbar.

https://www.easyroads3d.com/v3/manualv3.html

Thank,
Raoul

 

Hey Raoul,

Thanks for all your hard work!

I am getting a weird bug here that my partner is not. I cannot see the green connection orbs to join a road to a connection piece when I "Instantiate New Connection Prefab" off of an existing road (or non existing road - I've tried both).


What I see:


What he sees:




If I shift left both the orbs in my image, it links the right orb/road directly to the middle of the T-connector which messes up the road.



My partner has even watched me and talked me through it step by step and he doesn't know why it isn't working. Any help would be much appreciated!

Thank you,
Brandon

 

Hi Brandon,

Thank you, hope you like the tool once this is sorted out.

The issue appears to be related to assets in the HD Roads package and what looks to be a package import issue. This has been reported before and can especially happen when first importing the HD Roads package before importing the EasyRoads3D Pro package. Somehow all connection data, also required for displaying the green connection orbs, is lost directly after the package import.

A package reimport should fix this. To guarantee a full reimport of the involved assets, could you first delete all assets in:

/Assets/EasyRoads3D/Resources/custom prefabs/

Then with the main EasyRoads3D Pro package imported, which appears to be already the case, reimport the HD Roads package.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi,

I'm new to game development, so excuse the perhaps stupid question. I have also not used this or any other road asset before (actually, i'm playing around with the free version of this asset).

Does this asset allow for potholes and the effect of potholes ?
Is it possible to have road imperfections (not the potholes, but just crappy road) ?

I'm having some trouble finding anything about this.... it's like nobody ever thought about the idea of a road being broken and so far.. every road asset I found is totally unnatural looking because of that.

Any help ?

 

While I am not the developer of this asset, you can apply Materials to it like any other Unity asset. So yes, if you can make a material that has the effects you like it can be applied to a road AND each Road and Connection/Intersection segment can have it's own material.

 

Hello alekth85,

It depends on what you are looking for exactly. Like JamesWjRose mentioned this can visually be done by using a matching material. The HD Roads Add On package does for example include damaged road type materials.

If you want true potholes and matching physics behaviour and crossings then that is not really possible built-in with version 3.1.

But as a workaround roads could be generated using the Procedural side object type which supports a source mesh input that will be repeated along the spline shape. This source mesh can include the potholes. And Unity 2019.3 supports holes in the terrain which are require to avoid that the terrain will break through these potholes.

Taking advantage of built-in custom road shapes and support for holes in the terrain in Unity 2019.3, all this will be possible built-in in v3.3. This will probably not be available within the next couple of months but just to let you know that this will be added.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi guys.

Yes, I'm not mainly interested in the visuals, but rather the physics. I think it's fundamental to road design and realism because it affects the vehicle behavior and it is one of the attributes that road have, IRL. The visuals are cool tho... but god is in the details.

Btw, by crappy roads i meant uneven roads that make the vehicle shake / move as opposed to a one time reaction that a pothole would cause.

I'm currently in the "play around" stage... in which i'm learning what's possible, and what not... and how to do certain things, so my game is probably couple years away from actually being released. Hearing that this is something you guys might introduce is very comforting as the workarounds sound too time consuming to implement (or maybe i'm just not seeing how easy your ideas with the meshes actually is).

If this sounds interesting to the devs of this asset, or they already planned for it, then I will certainly wait for it as I'm not in a rush. My game will not be driving game, but driving will be an aspect, and I cannot believe this has not been implemented already !

Thanks for the reply.

 

Hi alekth85,

Unity only supports holes in the terrain since the recently released 2019.3. Unless the road has thickness and is raised further above the terrain, holes in the terrain are required for real potholes. That is one reason why this is not implemented yet, the other is that this is not very often requested. We use feedback from the survey form on our website and requests here on the forums as a reference.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,
For me, this is causing more problems than fixing them. I understand the reasoning behind the decision, however, would it be possible to change this value by code or with an advanced settings checkbox enabling us to use a value set by us?

My use case is very specific, in short, I need to have 2 roads at different heights going very close to each other (I need to exactly reproduce part of an existing road, mostly for visualization). I would like the terrain to abruptly drop. The top road would have a wall as a side object. Please check the image of the tests I did in the demo project for a reference.

Do you have different alternatives for cases like mine? Please let me know.

Also, is there an ETA for HDRP support? Some shaders like the "ER Terrain mesh Tesselation" or the multiple blend shaders are very useful but no alternative is yet available in HDRP.


PS.: The documentation on your website for retaining walls is messed up: https://www.easyroads3d.com/tutorials/road_walls_mesh_overlays.php

 

Hello juliobds,

In your example there are significant terrain height differences. The retaining walls option will change the way the terrain is adjusted. Indent values are not relevant anymore here. Surrounding values are, there ate various options to choose from.

But tweaking the surrounding value in your case, two roads overlapping the same terrain points, will probably also not be the ideal solution. In your situation there should not be any terrain deformation for the higher road in that section.

I belief new features in v3.2 cover exactly what you are looking for. The main new feature is auto creation of side objects based on rules. This includes side objects like retaining walls or terrain detail mesh overlays also triggered for overlapping roads anticipating on parallel motorway support in v3.3. It is WIP but can be tested, v3.2 is available in betas on our website, http://www.easyroads3d.com/v3beta.php

Thank you for reporting the issue with the retaining wall tutorial, that will be fixed.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Could someone kindly point me to a clear "how to change materials" tutorial? I can't figure it out. Materials revert back to the original asphalt no matter what I do. I drag new material on road, but no luck. I tried changing default road material to sand, and get error:

 

Hello edub101,

It is recommended to work with road types (General settings > Road Types). Materials can be assigned here to the Material slot further below in the Main Settings. "Update Scene Instances" further below in the road type settings can be used to update all roads in the scene that use that road type.

The material can also be updated for the selected road in a similar way, in the Road Settings after selecting one of the blue road markers with the main road network object selected in the hierarchy.

I am not sure about the error. I assume you changed the texture of the "Default Road" material to a sand texture? This is Unity related, EasyRoads3D is not involved in that. When exactly is the error thrown, how can this be reproduced?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I'm trying it on the version of Unity 2019.3, but when I press Shift + click instead of creating a new node it selects the terrain together with the EasyRoad object.
In few words makes a multiple selection instead of creating the road.

I even put the Non Clickable option on the ground, but holding down shift Select it anyway.

Anyone have the same problem and know how to fix it?

 

Hello ciorbyn,

This sounds like a known issue with recent Unity versions, mouse and keyboard events potentially not working well. EasyRoads3D relies on that, for example when adding markers, Shift + Click.

One way to fix this is to reset the Unity editor layout for example back to the factory settings, Window > Layouts. Afterwards Shift + Click to add markers should work again and the editor setup can be customized again back to how it was.

Could you try that and let us know if that does not fix the problem? Otherwise, we have discussed this with Unity, and send them a project with this issue isolated to Unity API code only. The problem apparantly is that it is hard to debug without being able to trigger this state of the editor. If you have a specific editor setup and you are able to reproduce this, could you please let us know?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi, thanks for the reply.

In the 2019 version, as is known, it is possible to create multiple terrains, so the selection is made using the CTRL and SHIFT keys.
I guess the conflict can be caused by this.

I was using the "Tall" layout as usual, I tried to restore with the default one and now it works well.

Thank you

 

Glad to hear that. I just tested the "Tall" layout, there are no issues with keyboard and mouse events. I guess everything also still works well on your end when you select the "Tall" layout again?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes, after setting default, I went back to the high layout and I'm working without problems.

 

I have a big problem with using Easyroads inside prefabs. I'm using prefabs as scenes in my game and when opening a prefab in the prefab editor with the EasyRoads system a warning tells me that it can't find a terrain, even though there's one right next to it, even with the ERTerrain script on it. Plus, when selecting the system's GameObject, i get a popup warning that markers are empty and that i should report that (EasyRoads3Dv3Editor.OQQDDDQQDC:OnEnable()) (and obviously all the placed roads/sideobjects etc are missing in the view).
All i did was move the whole scene into a prefab before.
What can i do here?

 

Hello Flavelius,

Using EasyRoads3D and a whole scene inside a prefab, a complete road network should not really be used inside a prefab. Unity stores dynamically created meshes, like the roads in this case, inside the scene file. The tool provides workarounds for that, the "Store Mesh Assets in Project Folder" option, but it is still not recommended to store road networks that should remain editable in prefabs because of other complications.

In what way do you want to use this prefab? What exactly is the workflow? Is this a final road network?

If you want to use a still editable road network in another scene, then both scenes can be loaded in the hierarchy and the road network object can be dragged from one scene to the other.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

That's unfortunate, but okay, I'll find other ways then, thanks

 

I was asking these questions to see what you need and to see if there is another quick way to achieve what you need, like moving road networks between scenes.

What you described is known, if you scroll through the pages, there will be a couple of similar posts where the suggestion I did was accepted as working very well, in fact easier and more clean because the road network remains exactly as it is, with all mesh assets still part of the scene file, no unused mesh assets in the project folder after making changes to the road network.

If using a prefab for a complete scene is still what you prefer we can look into these small complications, regarding warnings that no terrain can be found, etc.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,
using ER 3.1.9f3 and I was wondering, if there's a way to add a custom offset per marker for side objects (procedural mesh). I want to create a guard rail that follows along the road but at certain positions it should form a "bay", e.g. for a lookout platform.

Thanks!

 

Hello Wolpertinger-Games,

That will be possible in V3.2 which is all about new side object features. X Position in the Side Object Manager will be editable per marker and there will be an option to position side objects relative to the Indent values which may also be relevant in your example.

Meanwhile, this section could be created with a guard rail side object only.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks a lot for the quick reply. Is this feature already in the beta?

 

Not yet, I will see if it can be part of the next update

Thanks,
Raou

[Edit] @Wolpertinger-Games side object X Position control per marker is added for the next v3.2 beta.

 

Hello! Guys, I have a few questions... Easy Roads instantiates side objects as separate objects (not prefabs). How can I change it so all side objects will be instantiated as prefabs (because I need to be able to change all copies of a certain side object after finilizing road network)?

And another question: somehow on my custom road lampposts are added with MeshRenderer turned off (other side objects work fine). Is it a bug or I'm missed some setting? (I'm using 3.2 beta)

 

Hello pokruchin,

I assume this is related to the mesh type of side object?

In v3.2 mesh type of side objects are instantiated as prefabs inside the Unity editor, v3.2 is available in betas.

https://easyroads3d.com/v3beta.php

I am not sure about the other question. I would check the status of the source prefab and compare settings with the settings of other side objects that do work well. Can you find the problem that way? As a quick test you could duplicate another working side object and replace the source prefab for the lamppost.

Are the lampposts visible? Is this related to the "Combine" option in the Side Object Manager? That will disable the MeshRenderer and combine all objects in a single mesh.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thank you Raoul!
Yes, road is very long. So I fixed problem using your first solution.
same road site: