World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hi,

I have problem with building road. I have terrain made with GAIA, and when I click build (and all buttons in "Terrain tools" there) nothing changes. My road is still under terrain in some places and floating above terrain in others. Am I missing something?

 

Ok, I've fixed problem above, but facing another. Road texture is reeeeally blurry (just road, terrain looks ok). I haven't chagned anything in texture import settings. How can I fix this?

 

Hi szymonkosok,

regarding your first problem, I assume "Terrain Deformation" in the Inspector for that road was not toggled on?

The blurry road can be related to two things.

1. A very low tiling setting ("UV Tiling" in the Inspector for the selected road)
2. A low value for the aniso level for the actual road texture. Select the texture in the assets folder: Inspector > Import Settings > Aniso Level. You mentioned you haven't changed anything, but could you double check this anyway?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Beta 7.5.1 is available

I started yesterday on improving some scene view functionality and decided to already release another update because I think the below can be useful.



(Edit Mode - Edit Mode with Road selected - Build Mode)

Instead of the white surfaces surrounding roads, you may want to use the new road and white surfaces "Highlight" visualization which will only be active for the selected road. This way you can clearly see the road shape (also when below the terrain in Edit Mode). It is also more clear how the terrain will be affected so you can optionally fine tune Indent/Surrounding valus per marker.

General Settings > Scene Settings, here you will find new controls for all this.

Beta 7.5.1 can already be downloaded from our website.

Additionally to yesterdays post on the previous page. If you currently have Shape type of side objects in your scene, please do a: General Settings > Scene View > Refresh Road Network.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes. Terrain deformation was not toggled on.

UV tiling is x 1 and y 1. Aniso level is 12.

 

Is this your own texture? Looking at the screenshot, the tiling value seems very small. Does it look better when you increase it?

You mention UV tiling x and y. The Inspector for the selected road only has one UV Tiling control, what is the value for that?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

No. It's not mine. It is bundled with ERv3 "motorwayTGA" texture.

One control? Where? I see just UV tiling with X and Y controls.

EDIT: Ok, I see what you are talking about. Value for this is 0.1.
EDIT2: And when I increase it to 1, everything seems to be ok.

 

That is what I meant, "UV Tiling" in the Inspector of the selected road Glad to hear you got that resolved!

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thank you for your help! BTW. is it default value (0.1)? Because I don't remember to change anything there.

 

Does Easy Road support normal maps and the standard shader? Because i noticed with the free version, normals maps would make all geometry black. Thank you. This would be a big plus!!! I want to buy the pro version, but this is a turn off.

 

Hi szymonkosok.

The default value is one but when you create a new road by selecting a specific road type from the dropdown, the tiling value will inherit the value of that road type. You may want to check these values in General Settings > Road Types.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi UniqueMindsGroup,

In Unity 5 objects are rendered black when using normal maps when the mesh does not include tangent info. Indeed this is not supported on the free version which is also still version 2.

The full version does support normal maps and also includes a modified version of the Unity 5 standard shader.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I love the look of your product! Before purchasing, I wanted to ask is there the ability to add jumps or other arcade style pieces with this asset? I realize it might not be a part of a normal workflow since this seems to be a better fit for more realistic games but if the workflow can get it most of the way there I'd be happy.

At a minimum, I would think this would mean being able to specify one end of a segment to fit the terrain and the other end to be up in the air. Also, it would require me be able to specify pieces of the road where a segment is missing on purpose (in between the end of the ramps). Finally, can we add banking to the road (x axis rotation for fast curves not necessarily following the terrain) Can this be accomplished with your asset?

If the answer is no, is a workaround workflow with your asset that could kind of accomplish this? Modeling a whole arcade style track on top of a terrain would be a pain, and even if your asset only got me 75% of the way there it would be better than nothing.

 

Hi greggtwep16,

You can mark road objects for terrain deformation, you can also deactivate terrain deformation per marker.

V3 is perfectly suitable for arcade type of games, but so far I have not shown any clear examples of that yet. Even things like loopings are on the list for the built-in dynamic system but you already do this using the custom connection system.

If you need a segment missing, can't you just start a new road object at the end of the missing sement? Banking is supported up to 360 degrees for road objects without terrain deformation (arcade style) and I belief up to 30 or 40 degrees for roads with terrain deformation.

In the very first post of this thread I mentioned arcade style of tracks, it is perfectly doable, imagine arcade style of textures in the pictures below.

closed tracks above the ground:


Shape changes per marker:


Thanks,
Raoul

 

Heyho!
awesome tool so far! havent bought it yet but i think i will
what i am missing compared to another road building tool is the ability to do stunt tracks. with loopings and jumps. is that also possible with easyroads?
ah, and what i also wanted to ask. is there also some runtime creation stuff planed or even in there? like painting roads at runtime for a level editor

 

Hey Kevin,

As greggtwep16 also mentioned, EasyRoads3D primarily is a realistic road network creation tool, so first things first

All these additional features more for arcade style of tracks will be added. When you select a marker you will see the Controller type option in the Inspector. This currently includes Spline, Straight XZ, Straight XYZ and Circular. More will be added to this, like Looping and also Screwdriver. The screwdriver option will cerainly be available in v3.0 one way or another because it is needed for some elements in the new demo project.

If you need loopings urgently, you could also consider creating a looping model and import it into EasyRoads3D as a custom connector this way you can easily attach other track elements to it and pull out new tracks from it.

What exactly do you have in mind for jumps? Because it seems this is already possible.

The current beta already includes API access that works both in the Unity editor as at runtime. Painting roads at runtime is part of that, the current beta includes a runtime scene that will create a road and have an object follow the road afterwards.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hey! thanks for the lighting fast answer
i actually had something like this in mind:


i think the solution with the separated looping model is fine for me, i think i can do that also for the ramps. wasn't sure if it recognized as part of the track. but since you mentioned the custom connector everything is clear now, thanks

sounds cool with the the runtime painting. is there already a example available how this will look/feel? as far as i understood now, the demo scene just creates a random road, right?

cheers,
kev

 

Ok, the ramps include additional geometry. You can easily use the side object system for this. This way you can quickly create different types of ramp shapes since the side objects will adjust to the road shape.

Yes, you can have the looping integrated in the system as a connection object. Tracks will snap and you can pull out new tracks directly from the looping just as if it is an "ordinary" connection prefab like an X or T crossing.

I am not sure what you mean with? The API is purely scripting, currently there is no GUI system if that is what you meant? You probably want that customized to your game anyway.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

i just had a simple scene in mind as a kickstart. where it gets shown how to draw and modify a road at runtime.

 

It looks like this is a matter of getting familar with the API and implementing the bare minimum of what you want to show in the video?

In terms of the implementation, you can add the start marker than you update the last marker based on mouse position changes and you can add new markers by looking at angles between the existing markers.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

okay, thanks.
its not that i cant make it on my own, but like i said, a kickstart demo scene is always a nice thing
anyway! thanks for all the answers

 

Yes, it is. The same for EasyRoads3D, the package is still beta, the demo scenes are provisional. More examples will follow. Meanshile please ask if you have questions on how to do something.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi,
Some questions

I wonder if we can use this with meshes or any plans for that in future? I don't mind having to edit our meshes to fit, but it would be nice if the road fit best it could to the underlying mesh (got close enough).

Are we free to use our own shaders?

Can we have subdivisions for road across, not just lengthways? Because we paint vertex blend shaders of our own..

Thanks

 

Went to ask the same question as i did in the v2 thread, but can see an image above that answers my question.

It is on my wishlist now!

 

Hi hippocoder,

Indeed all this is optmized to work with the Unity terrain object in terms of adapting the terrain to the road shape.

However, in General Settings > Scene Settings you can assign a mesh based terrain game object. The markers will snap to that object. But obviously you will lose the terrain modifications part which is a bit more complicated for meshes. Alternatively you could also use side objects snapping to the road at one side and to the terrain at the other side.

The generated objects are ordinary game objects with a meshrenderer / material attached so you can use your own materials.

Subdivision is currently not yet supported for roads connecting to the dynamic built-in crossings. But you can do that with the custom connection system since roads pulled out of custom connections will inherit the geometry structure of that connection. So, if you want to use your own custom crossings with subdivision on the connections, all this can be done instantly.

Otherwise, the recommended workflow for v3 is that before starting to build your road network, you first want to create project specific road types and customize the built-in dynamic crossings. This will make things a lot easier because you can reuse these road presets and crossing prefabs.

At this stage, in your case you could export the created dynamic crossings to .obj, add the subdivision to the connection segments and import back into the custom crossing system.

Regarding vertex painting and corresponding shaders, that will be part of the package itself as well in different areas.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul!

I've been testing the demo version of your asset, looks great!

I'm planning to create a very long road, I tried that with the demo version but I received a mesh error (no more than 65k vertices) is it still a thing in the last version?

Is there a rigidbody path follow script included in the asset ?

Thanks a lot

 

Hi Balours,

Thank you! The free version is still v2 and in v2 it is actually possible to split the road in segments. This can be used to deal with unity's 65.000 vertices limit for a mesh.

The current v3 beta does not have this option because it is less relevant as the road will be split in segments through the junctions. I assume the long road will have junctions etc.?

Nevertheless, this is currently being optimized so objects will be split in case the 65.000 vertex limit is reached. This will also be added for side objects.

Currently a simply path follow script is part of the package but not a rigidbody path follow script. I can look into that without going in the direction of full vehicle AI at this stage because I do not want to delay this any longer, it is about time that v3.0 gets released . And AI vehicle packages are aleady available on the asset store. What sort of behaviour are you looking for? Also, you do have API access to the spline data so you can also do all this yourself.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hello,

with this new version of EasyRoads 3D, can we import your own assets of roads and build a road with this asset ?
Can we also access to positions of neutral fiber in the road ?

 

Hello Nicejuju,

Could you give an example of what your own road asset could look like?

This could work with the custom connection system which allows you to import your own crossing / connection models and define connection connection sections in the Custom Crossing Editor window. Roads pulled out from these custom connectors will inherit the shape of the connection. In your case the crossing / connection model could be your own road asset. Note that these roads will not automatically connect to the built-in dynamc crossing system. You will need a separate connector with on one end your custom road shape and on the other end the default road shape, one vertex on the left and one vertex on the right.

I am not entirely sure what you mean with positions of neutral fiber in the road? Do you mean positions relative to the main spline curve in the center of the road? The API give you access to the center, left and right spline data of the road. With this info you can calculate the relative position on the road for any point.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

What program can model intersections?

 

Hello DiegoBrickESP,

Do you mean your own custom intesrections next to the built-in intersections? There are many modelling programs. Blender is free, many companies use 3DS Max and Maya but they are not cheap. There are lots of threads covering this, https://www.google.com/search?q=unity+modelling+programs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Regarding workflow, depending on what type of crossing you want to create, you could create the base of your model in EasyRoads3D, use the export to .obj option and import into the modelling app.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

So any rough ETA the v3 will be released....

also dies v2 supports multi terrain

 

Hi Mayureshete,

Is there any specific reason for this, are you waiting for something specific? I am asking because even when v3 is out of beta there will be v3.x etc. there will always be updates with new features.

Or are you running into issues with the beta (part of the asset store download)? Please let me know in that case.

At the moment the last bits of pieces for 3.0 are being implemented/improved and I am working hard on a new demo project. Once that is done v3.0 will be released.

What exactly do you mean with "dies v2 supports multi terrain"? V2 does support multiple terrains although it is not as optimized as in v3. In v2 you have to update each terrain one by one.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I am new in Unit3d development, my area is in J2EE mostly.
Found EasyRoads3D but before purchase I want to ask:
Is here a simple script to move GameObject along the road? - to get the idea mostly.

 

Hello Smokas,

The package includes a runtime demo scene. It shows how you can create a road at runtime. Afterwards you will see an object follow the road. This is using the runtime API which gives you access to the road spline data required for this.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

Thank you for answer. One more question - will be v3 free for v2 Pro owners?

 

Yes, the v3 beta is already part of the current asset store download and no need to upgrade once it has completely replaced v2 on the asset store

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Dies = Does, i mistyped it....
all good, there is nothing i need anything specific, v3 and v2 both fullfill all my needs, i just need to use completely stable version of easyroads3d for my next project, currently im just exploring Gaia and easyroads3d both just bought last week..

BTW awesome asset, il review it once I have gone through each and every feature of it.. keep doing the good work..

 

Ah, ok

V2 and v3 are two entirely different road tools. Since you start a new project I would recommend to check the v3 beta first. It is fairly stable, certainly regarding v2 features and bug reports are always taken care off with the highest priority. Please report them, that is to anyone!

Thank you! Glad to hear you like it so far, votes and reviews on the asset store are always very much appreciated!

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi @raoul, I had a suggestion for the v3 manual. I just tried EasyRoads for the first time and followed your manual. When I got to the mountain button to actually do the terrain modification, it didn't work. I tried several things and at first it just seemed broken.

It wasn't until I saw the post from @szymonkosok on this thread from a few weeks ago that said you have to enable terrain deformation on the road that I realized what the problem was. Even after reading that, it took a little while to find that checkbox. So I'd suggest you mention that in your instructions, since new users aren't going to know that.

After that it worked great though. It truly is easy to use. Drove a lap on my new road that does a lap around a Gaia-generated island - fun stuff. Great job on the asset.

 

Hi Steve,

Yes, it is confusing. The Terrain Deformation checkbox was added recently because some times you do not want the road to affect the terrain, like for overpasses. By default Terrain Deformation should be active for new roads not based on road types selected from the dropdown.

But I belief some of these already existing road types have this option disabled at the moment. You can check this in General Settings > Road Types, and make sure that Terrain Deformation for the standard roads is activated.

I will check the manual anyway and see if the Terrain Deformation option for individual road objects is actually already covered.

Glad to hear you like it over all and that everything is working well with your Gaia generated island terrain as well!

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,
Can i find a video / webplayer of the road creation at runtime? For a new project i am looking at a powerfull runtime road creation tool and I hope this will be the one.

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi dterbeest,

There are no runtime videos at the moment. All videos are still provisional, new videos/tutorials will be available once released.

What exactly would you want to see in a runtime video? Because the runtime API currently is scripting only, so a video of this would show a terrain and a second later a road with the terrain adapted to the road. The beta package indeed includes code examples for this.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi there,
I need to build a no 90 degrees intersection to my road. I remember there was some thing to adjust the angle of intersection but I do not find it anymore. What I need is similar to the bridge prefab intersections the last release gives as example. Do I need to build my own prefab or I can adjust something?

 

Hi Fabio,

T crossings can partially adjust for non 90 degree intersections. But what you want is a different type of intersection. It is partially implemented but not available yet, this will be completed in v3.x.

Meanwhile indeed this can be done through the custom prefab system with your own prefabs integrated in the system like the highway overpass examples in the current demo project. The new v3.0 demo project will have more examples of this.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

How?

 

Crossings > General Settings > Activate Bending. This is active by default, it affects the straight part of the T crossing. But from what you wrote it seems you need more something like highway exit roads which generally require a different implementation than standard T crossings.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I have two questions, in doing custom models does that include things like sidewalk and does that include custom materials on those objects?
Second, how does this tool perform in scenes as far as drawcalls and triangle count?

Thx

 

Hi jayimagination,

The custom prefab system is entirely based on your source mesh. If you need sidewalks on the custom prefab, they should be part of the model. New roads pulled out from the connections of this prefab will inherit the shape of the connection so this includes the sidewalks. This does work slightly different then sidewalks from dynamic built-in crossings as the sidewalks will be part of the road. However, you can still connect roads pulled out from custom crossings to dynamic crossings if the shape of the sidewalks match.

So, in the case of sidewalks, indeed these roads will require a custom material with the sidewalk texture part of the actual road texture. In the Custom Prefab editor window you can assign this material to the specific connection. It will be assigned automatically to the connected road.

EasyRoads3D is a geometry creation tool, the end result are ordinary Unity game objects with a mesh renderer and mesh filter attached. The performance will be the same as if you would model it and import it into Unity. Regarding triangle count, you have various controls at your disposal to optimize the triangle count. You can set the geometry resolution, this will result in a fixed resolution. Alternatively you can use a lower Angle Treshold and an higher geometry resolution, this usually results in lower triangle count while maintaining the same detail in bends.

Also, the roads will be marked as static (batching), you can do the same for side objects. Side objects also have Combine options to reduce the drawcalls.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi guys,

Beta 7.5.1 has finally been accepted on the asset store.

I had to change the package contents. The v2 files are now all imported in the root directory, the v3 beta is included as a separate package.

To keep your v3 project clean, please import the update including the v3 beta package in a temporary project and import this package afterwards in your development project.

And please always backup your project before importing an update.

Thank you,
Raoul