World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

I'm wary of getting the beta much less the alpha since I'm having so much trouble getting the offical release to work for me. But I did purchase the Add-on pack, which has some really nice road options... but:

1) I made this road, 20m wide, and this intersection is 20m wide on that side -- but they refuse to join. Any tips on how to make that work?

2) I can select from the new Add-On road and intersection types when creating a new road or intersection, but they are not listed when I'm trying to change an existing road or intersection. For example, since I can't connect a new road to the intersection above, I made a new road by dragging out from the green dot on the intersection. Then I try to change that road type, but when I select that road, on the Scene View Selection: Road Settings: Road Type pulldown, only the core road types are listed, not the Add-Ons. How do I get the add-ons to appear here as well?

thx
Dave

 

Hello Dave,

1) The "HD Roads Add On" road types are based on a three node setup, one in the middle and one on tjhe left and right. Dynamic built-in crossings are based on a two node setup. In order to connect roads to crossings, the shape must match. That is why this does not work.

If you want to mix "HD Roads Add On" road type and crossing prefabs with other road types then a solution is two create short section of a two node road, connect that to the built-in two node crossing connection. Attach an I Connector on the other end, this option is available further below in the marker settings. And attach the "HD Roads Add On" road to the other end of the I Connector. That will work.

2) The same here, the listed intersections ar those with connections that match the shape of the selected road.

Regarding the video and the issue with creating a new road and adding markers, did you meanwhile toggle off the "Gizmos" tab at the top right above the Scene View window? It does appear to be disabled. In recent Unity versions there is an issue with this. Keyboard events such as pressing the Shift key are not captured in OnSceneView() in that state. That is why the terrain is selected in the video after clicking the terrain, default Unity behaviour, and now road marker is added. Can you try activating the Gizmos tab again, this is necessary anyway to visualize the road markers. The Gizmos tab is active in the default Unity Scene View setup.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks for the reply. I'm trying the I Connector and that looks promising. But I'm still having this problem with texture UVs at the intersection. A week or so ago, you said to use different materials on the two roads that intersect here, so I've done that, but the UVing is still messed up. Is there a way to fix that without going to a beta or alpha version?



regarding #3: Dang, I thought I deleted that. The actual problem was that my Layout was somehow corrupted, and I had to switch to a default layout. (Console error: The editor layout could not be fully loaded, this can happen when the layout contains EditorWindows not available in this project)

 

Hi Dave,

These v3.1 X and T Crossings do not work well with different materials. In v3.1 you could export the specific prefab and adjust in a modelling app to your liking and reimport it within the system. Or is this more about the stretched UVs, that can be controlled in the crossings "Connection Settings" after selecting the crossing in the hierarchy.

Glad to hear the issue with adding markers is resolved. The default layout should have the "Gizmos" tab active, I will double check that and add a note in the Troubleshooting section if that is not the case.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks but the UV Tiling slider doesn't address the stretched textures -- they're stretched at any slider setting, just thicker or thicker stretched lines. Last week you said "Using the same texture / material will have the result seen in your image. There is no way around that. So in v3.1 a different texture must be used for one of these two roads." So I used two different textures, and they are also stretched, because "These v3.1 X and T Crossings do not work well with different materials"?

So basically...with v3.1, you cannot have crossings with significantly different widths?

 

Hi Dave,

This is getting a little bit confusing

This does not really reflect the situation in the last image you posted. This last image shows stretched UVs and two different road materials.

My comment in your post was related to the image in this post, https://forum.unity.com/threads/eas...-new-road-system.229327/page-184#post-6779657 two roads with different widths using the same material / texture. The texture will squeeze on the less wide road resulting in the two roads with the two materials not being aligned well.

So you can have roads with different widths, it all depends on the material what the final result will look like. Are you in the position to create your own road materials? That is what needs to be done in your situation when using the v3.1 built-in crossings and roads with different widths.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Ah, sorry, that was for a different issue.

What do you mean by "create your own road materials"? Like with special UVing to handle the situation? I'm not a 3D modeler so can't create anything custom like that. I can create a new material in Unity but don't know how to make it fix the stretched UVs in that screenshot, since the texture is good on part of that area of the mesh, and stretched on other parts.

EDIT: Is there any way to have a street segment get narrower from one end to the other end? Then I could have it wider at the intersection, and use this short street segment with the I connector get narrower before joining the next street segment.

 

What needs to be done is that the texture for road A is adjusted for road B in a paint program so the outer line markings are at the correct position relative to each other. For the smaller road the area from the outside to the inside of the line marking must cover a larger area of the texture then on the wider road. It is probably a matter of trial and error although this adjustment could also be calculated.

The road can be scaled per marker using the scale tool or R key.

Than ks,
Raoul

 

Oh, sorry, i'm talking about the stretched UVs. Is there any way I can fix those?

Oh, that's fantastic! That might solve everything for me. But I can't figure out how to do that. I selected a green node on a road, and press R to switch to the scale tool, but that just makes the gizmo on the node disappear, like there is no scale option for it. How exactly should that work?

thanks!
Dave

 

Hi Dave,

Please check this post of yesterday https://forum.unity.com/threads/eas...-new-road-system.229327/page-185#post-6810176

Which version are you using? It was recently added, perhaps this is actually a v3.2 beta feature.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi, i recently brought easyroad, after a few days of use i have 3 questions:

1, i'm unable to spawn a dynamic prefab with different material (eg. if i duplicate the "Default T Crossing" prefab inside dynamics prefab folder, and give it another material, when i spawn the duplicate connection object, it will change back to the original material.
2, how do i add sides objects to a custom connection object? I wish to add guard rails to one of the connection prefab, is it possible to do that or do i need to put rails into the mesh itself.
3, I attempted to create a runtime build road system like cities skylines, I'm somewhat able to achieve similar result. However as more roads are created, the buildroadnetwork() seem to get slower and slower. Is there any method to approach this issue?

Thanks!

 

Well, we're talking in circles now -- I replied directly below that with "Thanks but the UV Tiling slider doesn't address the stretched textures -- they're stretched at any slider setting, just thicker or thicker stretched lines."

I guess I will get the 3.2 beta and hope it will solve my problems.

 

Hi JasDeVon1995,

1. It sounds like you want to create roads, crossings using your own materials. In "General Settings > Road Types" new road types can be created. For example the road width can be set and the road material can be assigned. Below the Road Material another matching material can be added but for matching crossings / connections. Below this "Connection Material" slot there is a "Create New Connection Prefab" button. This will generate a new crossing prefab for this road type. It will be available in the Connections tab ready to use.

2. in v3.1 side objects can only be added to roads, not to connection objects. This will be introduced later in v3.2. Meanwhile the side object for the connection can be created as a side object only in the scene and then be added to the connection prefab in the project folder in /Assets/EasyRoads3D/Resources/custom prefabs/

3. BuildRoadNetwork() is the process where the terrain is adjusted to the road network similar as the middle mountain tab in the Inspector. The number of roads is not so relevant here, more the bounding box of the road network and the complexity of the terrain object(s). So depending on the scene this can last from almost instantly to seconds or longer. How long does this process take?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

That is exactly why I refered to my intial answer to this same question.

I just tested this on two roads with significant width differences, one is double the width of the other. The issue can be recreated this way. I will look into that.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

About the bounding box, if the player is building a city, the road network would spread out, if i'm understanding this right, it means that the bounding box will get bigger thus take longer to execute the function, so does this mean eventually the game beccomes unplayable due to network size being too large?
To avoid this issue, is it possible to make the bounding box the size of the ERRoad instead of the whole network?
Thanks for your answers!

 

There is an overloaded method:

public void BuildRoadNetwork(bool splatmaps, bool trees, bool detail, ERRoad[] roads);

But that sounds as if roads will be added / edited with the road network already in Build Mode. I don't think that will work. That would require some API changes. For sure this is not possible inside the Unity editor.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I just tried to use the overloaded method and it solve the lag issue, however while the roads will get adjusted to the terrain but the connections won't. Is it possible to solve this? (those connections are "tertiary_dirt_grass_T_ER" from the easyroad3D free assets), i also made sure the ERRoads[] array includes the road on both end of the connection.
Edit: I also wish to avoid using the iconnector if possible, because the min distance between the iconnection is too large.
Thanks again!

 

Hi JasDeVon1995,

I will add another option so also connections can be included in the BuildRoadNetwork() call.

What do you mean with the Min distance between the I Connection is too large? And are you asking something here?

The road in the image does include multiple I Connectors. I guess you use that to build the "road" in batches? In that case, the problem with that in your situation is that the I Connector treats the final spline shape of the road sections as a single road. So when a new section is added on the other side of the I Connector, the previous road section, for which the terrain may already be adjusted, will also change. This may not be what you want.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi @raoul

I have an older project (2018.2) with a road network in it, and I want to transfer it to my current project (2019.3). However when I try to transfer the road network via a prefab into my current project it tells me the following and it shows no road.



What data does it need? Do I need to transfer something else for the nodes, how are these serialized?

Regards,

Lenne

 

Hi Lenne,

Unity prefabs in this case do not work well for various reasons. Since all road network assets will be required anyway, what you can do is export the 2018.2 scene with the road network to a unity package. That scene can optionally only contain the road network object. Then import this package in the 2019.3 project. The scene with the road network can then be used as it is or the scene can be loaded in the hierarchy together with the other scene. At that point the road network object can be dragged from one scene to the other in the hierarchy. The 2018.2 scene can be removed afterwards. This way the road network will remain in the exact same state.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

@gecko,

Today we prepared a build for a user to test a specific feature. We fixed this stretched UV issue on specific crossings yesterday so that is part of this new build. If you want I can also send it to you so you can try this out on your end and see if that indeed works better. This build works for Unity 2019.3+

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, thanks it works perfectly. Except for one thing, which started occurring only after a little while. Now when I click a node, the node is selected for a fraction of a second and then following the underlying gameobject gets selected.



Do you know why this happens?

EDIT: Scrolled through the forum a little bit and saw that resetting layout could possibly fix some things. But it didn't help.

EDIT 2: Ah it's fixed by restarting Unity.

 

that would be terrific! The project is on 2019.4, so that's fine.

Also, I upgraded to the latest beta, and really enjoying it now! Adjustable road width offers so much control and flexibility! And the procedural retaining walls and bridges are super cool!

One question, though: In a few spots, both the retaining wall and the bridge think they should be active. How do I control that? I don't see a way to disable the retaining wall in this spot:


EDIT: In fact, in a lot of sections, I'd like to disable both bridges and retaining walls, and rely only on terrain deformation. Is that possible?

 

Hi Leniaal,

The editor layout reset is related to Shift + Click to add markers not working. The issue here is actually most likely the "Gizmos" tab at the top right of the Scene View window not being enabled anymore.

What you described is unknown, glad to hear that restarting Unity fixed it.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Dave,

I will send the update in a private conversation, it is actually a v3.2 beta package.

Glad to hear you like the new v3.2 side object features. These auto generated side objects are based on rules set in the Side Object Manager.

The rules are different per side object category / type. Also, each generated side object section in the scene is clickable (with the main road network object selected). Controls will be visible inside the Scene View window to customize this section. For example, imagine you have several different types of retaining walls active on a road, it will be possible to change the type. There is also an "Active" checkbox. Toggling this off will make the side object transparent so it is still visible and selectable. In Build Mode however this side object section will not be visible. But when this happens a lot then it is recommended to fine tune the rules. For retaining walls that would mean increasing the height difference threshold between the road and the terrain.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

thanks. I have tweaked the min/max Terrain Threshold Height, but it doesn't work as I'd expect -- see screenshot. The terrain is definitely more than 6m below the road at some points here, but the retaining wall is still being added there.

 

Hi Dave,

The way this works for retaining walls is that a minimum value is set based on all activated retaining wall side objects for the specific road. That is the criteria for generating walls. The Max value is currently intended to optimize the wall selection when specific waIls are more intended for larger height differences.

Your situation is on the list but it is not that straight forward to implement. When the height difference is more then the max value it will mean that there will be overlap. The area where the height difference is between the min/max values. That could be dealt with by looking at the terrain profile, do not insert a wall when the the height difference continues and exceeds the max value. But what if there is a section where the terrain goes down, then a little bit up, all within the min/max values, then it goes down again, exceeding the max value. What would the logic be in that case? At what point should a wall be inserted and when not? It will probably require more controls. So not a 123 easy solution

The wall section in your image also includes a bridge section. Is that an auto generated bridge? Because in that case, there should not be a retaining wall.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi @raoul ,

I'm having an issue with a few parts of road network showing these red dots. I remember them being there when I made the road network two years ago, but I didn't have the time to dive in them back then. Now however I'd like to solve them before I expand the roads. I have a lot of issues like this:







I read the documentation, but I don't really understand what's happening here. These areas are definitely not below the terrain Y position, since this area is located on a hill.

 

Hi Leniaal,

Red dots near crossings can be ignored. Red dots following roads means that the road is very close to the terrains game object Y position. The Unity terrain object does not accept negative height values. Although markers cannot be below the terrains Y position, the spline curve could potentially go below this point depending on marker positions. When that happens it will be impossible to accurately adjust the terrain. So it is recommended to review the areas highlight by red dots in Build Mode to make sure the road is above the terrain. It is also recommended to setup the terrain in a way that there is a margin between the lowest terrain point and the actual terrain game object Y position. That way there is always room to adjust the terrain downwards when necessary.

Also, these red dots only appear in Scene View as an alert. They do not appear in the final game and display of these red dots can be toggled off in "General Settings > Scene View > Display Critical Terrain Areas".

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

I don't know if this is related then, but I'm having a strange issue where my terrain gets completely flattened when I build all roads. I didn't have this issue earlier, but I can't really find out what is causing it now. I've build all individual roads separately but that produces no issues. It only happens when I build all roads.

Before:


After:


Regards,

Lenne

 

Hi Lenne,

I am not sure what is happening here, I have not seen that before.

EasyRoads3D uses layer 31. Do you have other objects in the scene using this layer?

Th is default layer 31 can be changed in "General Settings > Scene Settings > EasyRoads3D Layer"

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hmm I didn't think so, but I changed it to an unused layer just to be sure. But I got the same result.

Edit: Actually looks like something got a bit messed up. It seems to be cutting a square out of the map. There's not even a road near this area. View attachment 792968

Edit 2: Hmm well mystery solved, one of the surface nodes is actually really big. I have no idea why this happened though. Any way I can reset these or somehow regenerate it?

 

The previous image clearly shows that something strange is going on in your scene, as if the full terrain is flattened apart from the area surrounding roads.

"General Settings > Scene Settings > Hide White Surfaces"

Can you toggle this off. It will display white surfaces around all roads and crossings showing how the terrain will be adjusted according the road objects. What does this look like?

Is it possible to email us the project / scene so we can look at it on our end?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

See my latest edit on the previous post.

 

Hi Lenne,

That is strange. How many roads / crossings do you have in the scene? Can this object be isolated by deactivating roads and crossings one by one? Each white surfaces is a child object of the specific road or crossings so that specific large object should at some point be deactivated as well.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

Yeah the inspector in my screenshot is the one that is big. What do you want to know about it?

 

Hi Raoul,

is it possible to use EasyRoads with mesh terrains? It works great with Unity terrains but I have changed all my standard terrains to mesh terrains.

 

Hi Lenne,

The fact that the scale is not (1,1,1) is strange.

Which object is it part of? What happens when you remove this surface object and then update the specific road or crossing. Is it recreated in the same size?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Bartolomeus755,

The terrain deformation feature is Unity terrain object only.

If this is not required then roads can be laid out on the mesh terrain by dropping this object in the "Mesh Terrain" slot in "General Settings > Scene Settings". That way road markers will snap to this mesh at the clicked position.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

thank you very much for the info. No, I don't need the deformation feature. I'm happy, that I can still use Easy Roads with mesh terrains. EasyRoads is a really awesome asset.

Regards
Marko

 

Hello guys,

I am new in unity.
I am trying to generate scene (including roads) from json file.
To create the roads I am using roadNetwork.CreateRoad(name, markers), but it does not create any objects and when I refer to created roads, it gives nullPointer. I wanted to ask in free version of easyRoads3D, can we create roads using API and scripting?

Thank you.

 

Hi pari1991,

Are you indeed using the free version of EasyRoads3D?

Because the scripting API is not supported in the free version.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

I recreated the crossings and it had the same scale. To be honest, I think something got a bit messed up and I just couldn't fix it. So as a work around I deformed the terrain without the problematic areas and simply put those meshes in place after.

The problem also seemed closely related with the red dots I showed in the post below. Some red dots were far away and the terrain got deformed quite strange in the direction of these dots (big spikes/holes). There were only 2/3 roads and crossings that had this issue, so working around it wasn't so bad for now.

I'll just move on from now, but I think if I ever make some edits to this road again I'll just create it from scratch.

 

Hi Lenne,

The image in your post shows one large object. The Inspector of the screenshot of this specific object does not give further info. I asked to which type of object this is related to. In this post you mention crossings. Does that mean this surface object represents terrain deformation for a crossing? If so, which crossing prefab is this? Is it one of the provided crossing prefabs?

Regarding red dots, if this surface object is created over such a large area then the red dots will cover a similar area. Red dots do not cause this issue, they merely show similar data also used to create these surface objects.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

V3.2 beta 10 is available on our website and on the Asset Store

V3.2 is about to be released. Because there are some new, potentially often used, new features added like scaling Procedural and Shape type of side objects this final beta 10 update is released first.

Bug reports are very much appreciated. v3.2 will be released in the next 2 / 3 weeks if no critical time consuming issues are reported.

This update also includes fixes and improvements for recently reported issues, beta 10 info

The beta package is located in /Assets/EasyRoads3D/Beta Release/. As always, please backup your project first before importing the package.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

In version EasyRoads3D 3.3 alpha 1 gets an error

Assets/EasyRoads3D/Scripts/Traffic AI/ERTrafficManager.cs(10,16): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'ERTrafficDirection' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

 

Hi Funtyx,

Which packages do you have imported and in which order?

The installed version is visible in the most right info tab in the Inspector. Is it indeed the v3.3 alpha?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

In EasyRoads3D Demo 1.7, some materials are not on the roads, I have already deleted all the packages and re-installed them several times.

Here are the roads in which there are no materials when choosing:
Side Object General, Fence, Bridge 01 Two Lane, Residential Road

What materials need to be installed manually and when will there be a new update?

 

Hi Funtyx,

The Fence "road type" is not really a road type. It is an example of how other objects like fences can be generated in the scene, not involving roads. This fence is based on the Fence side object. Do you mean the Fence appears in pink as a reult of no materials being assigned?

Regarding the other two road types. These are not current v3.1 demo package road types. Is this perhaps related to the older v3.0 beta package which is still included as a separate package. Do you have this package imported as well? The main reason for that package still being there is to provide more example assets like motorway overpasses. The "Bridge 01 Two Lane" is related to that. Matching materials should be available in the materials folder.

Perhaps the issue with the fence is also related to this? Does the fence work well with only the main demo package imported?

In any case, v3.2 will be released in the next couple of weeks. It includes a new demo scene so this package will be updated. There will be new assets, also for motorways. This older v3.0 beta package will not be part of it anymore.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Presales Question:

1) Does EasyRoadsPro and the HD extension only work on Unity Terrain? Can it also work on Gaia or World Composer?

2) This question is for somebody that has both used EasyRoadsPro and the new Gena Pro. How does the 2 road systems compare?

3) Is there a Discord for EasyRoadsPro?