World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Yes, this helped. Thnks

 

thank you for your reply. is the demo included in the unity store download, or its required that a person download it from your website?

 

Hi paulojsam,

The demo scenes are included in the beta package or is this actually v2 related, the current asset store download?

In that case, for v2 the same applies regarding sbsar textures. The v2 package indeed is the tool only. You can download the demo project and additional packages from our website. Could you email me or send a PM through the forums? I will also send v3 beta info if you want, the topic of this specific EasyRoads3D thread.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, been working on AI for a while.

I notice that in roundabout and connectors the terrains textures appears to come up through the roads. Its like the roundabout texture is a couple of units below that of terrain.
I have set phys track material on road + sand on terrain which produce rolling wheel sounds depending on surface.
When I cross over a connectors or roundabout I can hear the sounds change to that of the terrain, when I leave connectors or RA back on road the sounds is correct.
Its as if the terrain collider below these RA +connectors pushes thru the road surface a few units.

In this video note when on roundabouts you can see what I mean happening in the left corner of screen.

Thanks.

G

 

Hi Gus,

This looks like similar to z-fighting but then for colliders. I will double check, it could be that connectors and roundabouts geometry is positioned relativly to y = 0 (local) and for roads a small offset is used. With small I mean 0.005 or 0.01.

You could simulate this yourself by raising the road network a little bit in the middle tab in Build Mode, does that solve the collider issue?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes I had to increase by 0.002 to solve the issue - have not looked in other roads though.
G.

 

Glad to hear that! It seems the Raise option should indeed fix this but I will check this anyway and, if necessary, add a similar offset to crossings as on roads to avoid confusion.

Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

I've been using the Beta for a few months and it's great but I have a couple of questions regarding side objects.
Is it currently possible or will it ever be possible to mix side objects on 1 road object?
I have quite a long road and I can't add side objects to it because of I'm over the maximum amount of verts permitted by Unity.
Is there a way around this? Can I specify a stretch of my road object where I don't want side objects to appear? for example, What if I only wanted a guard rail to appear on the outside of each corner rather than the outside of the entire road?

Also, is it possible to connect 2 road objects with the same geometry to each other without using a crossing?

I'm using Beta version 6.6.1 It's no problem if I need to update to the latest version in order to achieve the above.

Many thanks.

 

Hi sheffieldlad,

When you scroll downwards in the Inspector after selecting a road/marker, you will see a section "Marker Side Object Settings". It will display the settings for the selected marker. You will see a dropdown with currently active side objects for that road. Below the dropdown marker specific controls for the selected side object are displayed, among which "Active" which is what you need. Aftewards you can use the Start / End offset controls (also visible in Scene View, otherwise hit the H key) to perfectly align the side object.

Also for performance, depending on the side object type, it is certainly recommended to use this feature on longer roads.

Connecting two roads is on the list, what is required for this is selecting two markers which is not possible yet. A new beta is about to be released, this part is scheduled for the beta after that.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Many thanks Raoul, Now that I can add and remove side objects at intervals Connecting too roads together is no longer as important.

 

Hey Raoul. Just an update, i think i discovered what the cause of those errors where. Turns out the size of the the roads leading to each end weren't perfectly the same. One road width was 19.999999 and the other road width 20.00002 that to me is a little sensitive, but with a second run of the test intersections we made sure they where exactly the same size, and those errors did not appear. To further answer your question, i am unable to send you any sample assets due to government restrictions releasing content.

Thanks for all the help.

Now that i have said that, any plans on making it possible to have multiple road textures along a road spline. Reason this feature would be a huge must for us could be passing lanes. On a street/roadway in most cases you would have different center strips to identify passing lanes and what not. Connecting two roads like mentioned in a prev post might be the solution for this maybe?

Thanks for the help.

Matthew

 

Hi Matthew,

Meanwhile I did run into the same errors as you posted on the previous page. These errors are actually related and happened after the same change in the scene is that right? The second error is a result of the first "This bug was triggered" which is more an alert as obviously this happened before on our end. It looks like this is not a critical bug, code has changed so only the first alert is printed to the console. I left this message as it is not entirely clear yet what causes this.

Regarding custom crossings and the small differences in road width, currently a small offset is used exactly for the reason you are describing, when using models small inaccuracies can happen on otherwsie similar connections. You can see that in your case, whereas the roads did not exactly match due to slightly different connections, crossing handles probably still appeared in green meaning you can connect the road to to the connection. So small inaccuracies have been taken into account. Some of the current custom prefab models part of the package do have these small inaccuracies as well. I will see if it is indeed related next time that warning appears.

You may want to try this on the upcoming new beta with this slight code change and see what happens. You will still get that first alert but it would be interesting to see if it is indeed harmless.

Different road textures and also lane/road width changes on a single road obejct is on the list. What exactly do you need? Only the ability to change the texture on a section of the road or do you also require geometry changes? Indeed all this can currently be done by inserting a custom connection.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I would say the ability to change the texture on a section of the road.

if you look in that picture you can see three different centre lines. being able to toggle this on a road would be a huge plus for making accurate roadways for simulations. Custom connections could be a way to do this, but a more streamlined way kinda like how you handle side objects, except change the texture from that point until it is identified in a further node that is is different or something like that. Just an idea I suppose.

With that being said, if a custom connection is our only option I guess we will have to go with that, not the end of the world for us to do

Looking forwards to the next beta, and hoping you get to those "on the list" features in the next few betas

 

The multiple textures option I had in mind is slightly different and more complicated, just like implementing options to change the road width. This is planned for after the first public release otherwise the beta releases will be going on for a while (I get many requests).

But a texture swap option per marker is less complicated. I will see if this can be implemented before the public release.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks for the reply,
I have that error again.. below are my steps
-start to drag a new road from a custom connection.
-click around to start to draw it around the terrain.
-i then click the last point on the road and drag it onto the second custom connector point and that is where the error is triggered.
-if i try and start another road from a different point on any custom connection it looks like it trys to snap that point to where i am trying to start the new road, at this point my camera gets stuck and i can not move it, only thing i can do with the scene camera is scroll it in and out...

i tried to get a better screen grab... but i cant move the camera haha

 

I repeated the error again and managed to grab a better screen grab.

The road that you see ended at the bottom of the right custom connector. That error appeared and then i tried to create a road straight across from the left custom connector to the right one. As soon as i clicked the green point to create the new road the last point on the first road snapped to that point.

 

Hi Matthew,

Does this always happen with this specific custom prefab?

Does this also happen with other custom prefabs?

Does this also happen with this specific custom prefab in a new scene?

I am asking because it is hard to comment on this without being able to see this happening myself. The provided steps are fairly standard when working on the road network. I just did the following:

1. Instantate Custom Roundabout Prefab
2. Pull out a road from one of the 3 lane connections
3. Added 5 more markers in a circle and finished by snapping the last marker to the other 3 lane connection on that same prefab

This works well. All looks good and I do not get errors. This is on beta 6.7

I assume the issue in the last step in your list is a result of the initial error after step 3? When you instantiate a new prefab in the scene you can correctly pull out a road from that specific connection, is that right?

When the cam gets stuck or you cannot select navigation toolbar controls anymore (usually a result of errors being thrown continuously) you can temporarily play the scene or do a script change. This should fix issues in scene view.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Its kinda frustrating because it doesn't happen all the time. I just created a new network and everything worked without errors...

all custom connection I have made you can pull roads from all green nodes and create the roads no issues.
It seems to happen on and off when connecting from a road to a green connection node of a second connection.

I was able to recreate the error with the included roundabout. I dragged a road out of the left side and connected it to the right side of the second one. but when i tried to duplicate the same flow it worked without errors.. fun times eh

 

Hey Raoul,
I've been meaning to ask about a different issue but i kept forgetting about it. It has to do with sideObjects. I am trying to make pillars appear under the dynamic bridge. I have created a sideObject and applied it to the road. When in edit mode it works exactly like it needs to, but when i build they always snap to the terrain no matter what the settings are. Any ideas as to what I might be doing wrong?
Bellow are screens of the different stages and the end result of the issue.




thanks again for the help. Hope we can figure out the other issue to.

 

Yes, it is , I am working on this every single day doing these sort of procedures hundreds of times. Obviously you get used to a certain way of doing things so that is where possible errors could occur when doing somehing in a different way hence the full steps for a repro.

Next time this happens could you disconnect the first marker and check if you can connect the last marker afterwards without errors?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I have Beta 6.7 and I am trying to use the OSM import feature. It says it is building the roads, but it doesn't. I have made a screencapture of me trying to use it.

http://www.screencast.com/t/3MNOLvgVtzOf

 

A new beta is about to be released. The custom crossings system is expanded further and now also supports "closed" connections. It can be used as an alternative way to create bridges and also for all sorts of sci fi type of tracks.

This afternoon I was updating the demo scene with an example and had exactly the same issue, the pilars snap to the terrain in Build mode. When looking into this there is indeed a comment in the code that segments with "Bridge Segment" toggled on needs attention. However, since you can achieve similar objects with custom prefabs now, a new option for road objects "Terrain Deformation" has been added (also for road types). Meanwhile this snapping to the terrain issue is resolved when toggling off that new "Terrain Deformation" checkbox. I will also look at this for markers with "Bridge Segment" toggled on.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Oh yea, last but not least
When i create a custom connector/intersection. i follow you video on how to add other elements to the created prefab. All is good bu i noticed that it is duplicating all the added objects when added into the world.. Any ideas?
This is a screen grab that shows the added Intersection, bellow that is the prefab dragged into the scene, and near the bottom is the actual prefab expanded.

 

Hi Tinjaw,

I see a blackscreen with lots of mouse cursors moving around.

If you want you can send the osm file to me so I can test it.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes, I have noticed that as well, all gameobjects added to the prefab are somehow instantiated twice. I will fix that.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Gosh darn it. I didn't check the video. I assumed it recorded properly. I looked at it and I see what you mean.

Better yet. Can you make a quick screen capture of starting a new scene and importing an OSM? You don't have to use mine but I am using

http://www.openstreetmap.org/export#map=15/50.1992/15.8522

 

EasyRoads is making roads off of OSM data now? If so, awesome!

 

Hey Raoul,
here is a quick video capture of what i have build on top of EasyRoads. Every part of the AI traffic paths are generated off of the EasyRoad spline information you have exposed (except for the intersection paths, those are generated using a different technique ). with a couple button clicks, and some simple inputs (based on the road width, amount of lanes, lane width) the entire network is created and all logic is assigned where it needs to be. Just an example of how expandable your tool is with a little elbow grease.

There is a lot more work that needs to be done still but its getting there.
PS. The above traffic system is internal only and will never be released. Sorry guys

 

Hi Tinjaw,

I download the map from the link.

All I did is:

1. General Settings > Import Road Data

2. Click "Open OSM File", the File Dualog window opens, I selected the downloaded osm map

After this the data automatically extracts, 456 roads out of 7421 OSM objects for this map, see attached screenshot.

The only requirement is a terrain object in the scene.

Does this not work for you? What are your steps. I am busy now preparing a new beta. If you want I can make a video tomorrow but it will only show the exact same two steps I mentioned above.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi hopeful,

Yes, both OSM and KML files can be imported. It is already part of the package for a while but it has not yet been featured in videos / screenshots because there is still some work to do here, like inserting crossings etc. but importing the raw OSM data should work fine.

Raoul

 

That looks very complex, great work! Would love to see that on a more complex road network with several crossings

Raoul

 

What I tried should have worked based on what you've wrote. I upgraded my screen capture software. I will try again tomorrow from scratch and record it.

 

Could you sent me the osm file if this still does not work? Initially I had issues downloading using Firefox, IE worked well. So this was more related to downloading the map data but to narrow down possible issues it will be useful to double check the map you are using.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I attached it to my previous post zipped

 

Sorry, I missed that.

It is a different map but it extracts well on my end, 276 roads.

Raoul

 

I've had this error too complete with the camera locking.
I haven't noticed and ill effects from the error itself (although obviously it isn't desirable.)
The way I unlock the camera is to click on the editor layout button and choose the default layout (which is what I use most of the time anyway) and the camera frees itself. I can then carry on creating roads.
I only seem to get this problem when I'm dragging a new road from a connection prefab.

 

Hi sheffieldlad,

Yes, resetting the editor layout should also work.

Is this issue in your case also related to custom connection prefabs?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi guys,

Beta 6.8 is now available and can be downloaded using the same link as before.

As always, please backup your projects first.

This update includes changes to the custom prefab system, models with “closed” connections are now supported. This can be used to create bridge sections as an alternative to using side objects or complete highway interchanges and also sci fi type of tracks.

Below is a screenshot part of the demo scene in the package. As with all current beta package assets, these are provisional models/textures serving as examples.



To make creating this type of sections more user-friendly a new method to add markers has been implemented. Mousedown on the first or last marker + Shift + Drag will pull out a new marker NOT snapping to the terrain.

Also, a terrain object no longer is required in this update so no need to add a temporary terrain object for sci fi type of tracks in scenes without a terrain object.

This update also includes fixes for most of the issues posted in this thread.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

@raoul I have uploaded a video (for real this time ;-) showing my attempt to create a road network from the osm file.

http://www.screencast.com/t/TiTnrTL4L

 

@raoul I believe I have found the problem. I was able to get the roads to build when I didn't set any optional values for Global Terrain Coordinates or OSM Settings. In the video above, I did set values.

Obviously, I would like to be able to pick my desired values.

I have built the roads in my actual project and I am finding that the roads created do not match up with the roads in Map-ity. I don't know enough to know which is incorrect (or if both are incorrect). Unfortunately, satellite imagery for that area is not available from Bing Maps. The tool I use (World/Terrain Composer) uses Bing Maps API.

http://www.screencast.com/t/A0M0M0Es

 

Hi Tinjaw,

Yes, I was just writing reply, I indeed saw you entered lon / lat boundary info. If not the data will be parsed relatively to the terrain which could cause the inaccuracy you mentioned.

I also see that I swapped the lon / lat fields! Can you try putting the longitude fields in the latitude fields and vice versa?

The lon lat coordinates you enter must be those matching the terrain boundaries, this way the osm data is parsed relatively to these boundaries instead of the boundaries in the specific osm file.

Does that work better?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I misunderstood. I was entering the boundaries of the osm data and not the boundaries of the terrain in the scene.

When I used those boundaries instead (and reversed lat and lon), I got the roads matching the Map-ity data.This is great. Now I guess I just need go tweak what was generated for my scene.

Progress is a wonderful thing.

 

That's correct @raoul it is related to custom prefabs.

 

OK. I tried to do this without reading the manual, but I can't figure it out. I have watch some of the videos, but none of them that I have found are tutorials on how to do the most basic things. For example, with my auto generated road network I need to change overlapping streets into intersections. I can't figure out how to do that. If there is a video I overlooked that is a basic quick start video, please point it out to me.

 

Thank you sheffieldlad, how often does that approximately happen for you let's say out of a 100 custom prefabs, connecting road etc? Does that happen for you on specific crossings? Are those the custom prefabs part of the package or your own? This evening I will sit down and experiment with the custom roundabout, hopefully at one point this issue ossurs...

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Glad that is working now! Yes, the lon lat coords for the terrain are required, the lon lat coords for the actual map are already part of the map data.

Roads in the OSM data are already split in separate roads when markers are nearby each other (cross points). Otherwise you can split a road by selecting a marker and click "Split Road at Selected Marker" at the bottom of the Marker settings in the Inspector.

The next step is to drag the markers at a cross point a little bit outwards to create space for a crossing.

Instantiating crossings is done through the 3rd tab from the left (and Shift + Click in the scene) or by selecting the first or last marker of a road and click one of the available crossings at the bottom in the Inspector.

Now you can connect the roads.

But before jumping into all this I would take some time to get familiar with the system, this to get the most out of it. A good starting point are the first sections of the manual. Set up your own road types, create the crossings you need for your network so they become available in this 3rd tab from the left and can be reused. Assign the created road types to the osm road types, etc.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Little by little I am getting a handle on this. I am trying to join a road section to a crossing and can't. What my be the cause of this? How can I correct this so I can join the road to the crossing?

http://www.screencast.com/t/klWJfu7rkeQj

 

I am having problems controlling the nodes. Based on the hotkeys listed here I should be using W and R for position and rotation. But W and R are assigned by Unity for other things. The top row of keys QWERT set the mode in Unity. So there is a conflict and the Unity default keys are winning out. What am I doing wrong?

 

I am sure there is some setting I need to set to fix this issue, but I can't find it. I am having problems with conflicts between the terrain and the roads.

http://www.screencast.com/t/0XRdoMfbG62i

 

As I am working, red objects are appearing on my terrain. What are they?