World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hi ghiboz, yes very strange, never seen that before either . After hearing you and others had problems as well I contacted support and tried some things myself. There definitely was an issue on that particular page, kicking you out as logged in when accessing your inbox and failing to post etc.

What you see is addressed in the Troubleshooting section of the manual. Those projects with presets appearing like in your screenshot most likely have "Text" selected for Asset Serialization in Edit > Project Settings > Editor. A workaround is included, import the package in a project with the default "Mixed" setting for Asset Serialization. After the import has finished switch to "Text" and export the package. You can import this package in all your projects that use Force Text.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

oh yes, my project is under git version control and the assets are forced to text..

 

Beta 7.7 is now available on our website

The asset store version is pending approval by the asset store team. Contact us for access to the website version if you like to start using the update without delays.

As always please backup your project before importing the update and be careful to deselect the main v2 assets and only import the v3 beta package into and existing v3 project.

Updates:

- Random and Manual rotations for side objects.

See the guard rail on the left (random rotations) and the fence on the right (manual rotation). This scene will be part of the final demo project.



- Dynamic sidewalk widths smaller then 1.

This is now possible and useful to, for example, create curb only elements (see screenshot below)

- Texture Utility (WIP)

This is available in General Settings > Materials & Textures. This will generate a base texture with matching patterns on the left and right side of the texture by taking a source texture with corresponding source road width and the target road width. This makes it easier to create matching textures for crossings with different road widths. For information how to use this you can click the "?" button in the Inspector for a link to the "Materials & Textures" section in the docs.



Furthermore this update includes requested API updates and some bug fixes.

Please keep posting / sending me bugs or issues you are experiencing

Thanks,
Raoul

 

woah! great news @raoul

 

Here are the API updates :

Code (csharp):

1. ERRoad:
2. public Vector3 GetMarkerTilting(int index)
3. public Vector3 GetMarkerTiltingCenter(int index)
4.  
5. public void SetMarkerTilting(float value, int index)
6. public void SetMarkerTiltingCenter(float value, int index)
7.  
8. ERRoadNetwork:
9. public float GetRaiseOffset()
10. public void SetRaiseOffset(float value)

Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

I asked Jose from iTS if there will be support for your road creation tool (automatically adding navigation waypoints when placing roads, intersections et cetera).
He would like to provide these features but it is currently on hold due to some API limitations on your product's end.
Getting both products with above mentioned feature would be cool. Is there anything planned on your side for the near future?

 

Hi Marco,

I have been in touch with Jose, we have to sort this out. There are several ways to implement support. Users already have created AI systems with the current API functions, so by itself the info is already there, left, center, right spline info. But indeed things can be simplified for Jose with more API options.

This is being worked on. For example, above in the beta 7.7 post a new Texture utility was announced. This works by providing line marking info to road textures. The idea is to also provide options to add lane info, as in the number of lanes, the direction and the center point. As the width of the road associated with the texture is also defined, this info can be used to auto calculate waypoint positions per lane. I think this is what Jose would like to see added to the API.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Beta 7.7 is now also available on the asset store.

As always please backup your project before importing the update and to avoid v2 and v3 assets getting mixed in the EasyRoads3D folder, be careful to deselect the main v2 assets and only import the v3 beta package into and existing v3 project.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks for the update! My Kerb approach is now working properly with both start and end objects being created.

 

simply thanks!

 

Can I have a short explanation of what are the limitations of the free version? I read the manual and it only says it asks for registration data after placing the first object - does that mean I can only place one 3Droad object in the free version? Are intersections free or paid? I know bridges as well as side objects are pro only.

 

Hi Zireael07,

The free version is still v2 which does not support intersections. The road system discussed in this thread, v3, is an entirely new road system which also includes support for intersections in various ways.

I belief indeed in the free version roads need to be finalized before creating a new road. In the full version you can create as many road objects as you want and also switch back and forth between Edit Mode and Build Mode.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Constantly is presented mistake at work, I now only deal with the functional.

And I wanted to know how to add one more point between two existing road, delete Shift + R?
Is it possible to glue the two roads, after the split, or only through the connecting object?

Use Unity3D 5.3.4f1, EasyRoads3D v3 Beta 7.7

 

Hello Pyros,

When exactly do you get that ArgumentOutOfRangeException? I see you have a T Crossing selected in the hierarchy.

A known issue in 7.7 with crossings is that after selecting the crossing in the hierarchy pulling out new roads from a connection can result in repetitive ArgumentOutOfRangeExceptions. This may happen after first selecting the crossing in the hierarchy like in your screenshot. Snapping roads to the crossing connection works fine. Is this what also happens on your end?

I am not sure what you mean with adding one more point between two existing roads? Do you mean insert a marker, you can do that by selecting the road, move to the position where you want to insert the marker an hit the I key. http://www.unityterraintools.com/EasyRoads3D/v3/html/shortcuts.html

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Is it possible to splice the T intersection with the geometry that was creation of the hands (or T Xb perkrestok and Cross Walk)? Who gives a lot of mistakes and buggy

 

Hello again

I am not entirely sure what you mean with this? Do you want to add crosswalks to the T crossings? This is on the list to add for dynamic crossings. Meanwhile you can do this using custom prefabs, see the crosswalk examples in the main demo scene. These are done using custom prefabs.

Do you get a lot of different bugs or is the same bug repetitively thrown to the console? Is it indeed the latter and is it related to what I wrote in my previous post? If that happens please manually add roads to the scene and snap them to the connection instead of pulling out new roads from a crossing connection. I am looking into this. Can you give more details if you are having other issues?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Will there be a free v3 eventually? Also, what do you mean finalized? Once I've done one road and baked it and whatnot would I be able to place another one or not?

 

@raoul Hello. May i ask, how is the work on this asset going ? Is it stable enough yet to be used for a big project ? Are you just adding some fancy features now, or you still have bugs you need to fix ?

 

Yes, eventually there will be a free version of v3 but it is undecided yet what will be supported.

After you build the road and flatten the terrain you see a "Finalize" button in the Inspector. This will remove the script components from the road object. After that you should be able to create a new road with the current free version of v2.

And contrary to what people write in reviews, you can change the material as well in the free version since the road is an ordinary game object with a mesh renderer attached. You can simply duplicate the material in the assets folder (/Assets/EasyRoads3D/Resources/roadMaterial), change the texture and assign it to the finalized road.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hello RickyX,

No serious issues are known other than the one I think Pyros in his posts of today is experiencing as well. It is a simple materials issue and meanwhile fixed. I will prepare an update for those who want it. As mentioned, in the case you see this happening, you can workaround it by adding new roads directly to the scene and snapping it to the crossing connection rather than pulling new roads out of the connection directly.

At the moment I am indeed mainly working on the final v3 demo project, preparing more assets like road materials and side objects and also improving bits and pieces.

If anyone is experiencing issues, serious bugs or small issues, please let me know.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi guys, my name is Nyein Lynn Ko from Myanmar. I'm using the unity 3D currently but i'm not the professional.So that i face a lot of difficulties to reduce the size when i put in the sidewalk at easyroads 3D.. Would you like to show me how to do that. I've searched the tutorial but nothing to find for that.. Sry for my english skill..

 

Hello Nyein Lynn Ko,

You can change the sidewalk width by selecting the crossing in the hierarchy (select the crossing and click "Select Connection in Hierarchy" in the Inspector). Now you can change the sidewalk settings in the "Corner & Sidewalk Settings" foldout.

See the below video starting at 3.30 (http://unityterraintools.com/EasyRoads3D/v3/html/quick_start.html)

Note that the above video shows the full process of how you can create new dynamic crossings so they can be reussed quickly in the same scene and also across scenes. The same settings can be accessed through "Select Connection in Hierarchy" for individual crossings already in the scene.

Also note that this particular type of actions can result in the ArgumentOutOfRangeException issue related to connections between roads and crossings discussed on this page and raised by Pryros. If this happens to you, you can contact me and I will send you a temporary fix or you can use the workaround, Attach roads to the crossings instead of pulling out new roads from a crossings connection.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hello,

I am working on a prototype with Project Tango. It scans and rebuild the space arround you at real scale (1 meter = 1 unity unit). I need to work with approximately 0.06 road width. But then, when more markers are added the mesh does not build as expected. I think it is due to the spacing of rebuilt geometry vertices. Is there any way or configuration that I can use in order to produce a low scale (and smooth) road?

Thanks,
Lukards

 

Is there a known issue page for v3? Yesterday I had a quick look at the scenes that ship with it and they had the power lines, the bridge columns and the railroad sing completely out of scale - just wanting to know if that's to be expected due to the beta state.

 

Hi Lukards,

Everything is optimized for 1 meter = 1 unity unit. If you use that scaling, a 0.06 road width seems a bit small? I have never tried a road width like that (6cm), I will do some tests but in general it is recommended to use 1 meter = 1 unity unit scaling.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Marco,

The manual has a known issues page.

The demo scenes in the beta package are provisional but as far as I know there are no issues. I just checked this in the project from which the packages are created, I cannot see anything wrong with the powerlines and railroad examples. I will double check the asset store package as well.

Can you show a screenshot? Which version are you using? If it is the latest? Did you import the package in a project with a previous beta already imported? And did you try an import in a new fresh project in that case?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Maybe false alarm. I forgot that we have an asset postprocessor running that sets the import scale to 1 if I remember correctly. I'll report back.

 

Hi Raoul,

You are right, but lets imagine that we have a 2x2 meter table, with Project Tango you can scan it, obtain a quite good approximate mesh and then you can play with it. My intention is to let the user create a procedural road arround that table. So, as you can imagine, I need to define a road width smaller than 1 meter.

I will investigate if there is any way to change the scale of the mesh obtained from Project Tango. Let me know, if you find a way to work with smaller units than 1 meter.

Thanks,
Lukards

 

I just imported the latest version from the asset store, the scaling indeed seems to be correct. I did notice a legacy shader being used on the electricity pole which dosn't render the pole well, I will fix that.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I just tested a road width of 0.06. The marker handle sizes are a bit awkward with this sort of scaling and the required zoom level, you can adjust that in General Settings > Scene Settings > Marker Handle Size

But at first sight it seems the road is generated correctly. What exactly goes wrong at your end? How can I reproduce the problem? Is this about the road resolution which cannot go lower than about 0.2?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

Can I change the Marker Handle Size in runtime? I'm following the sceen runtime example.

Thanks,
Lukards

 

Hi Lukards,

The marker handles I was referring at are the handles displayed in scene view, in the Unity editor. What exactly do you mean with Marker Handle Size in runtime?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi raoul,

I followed the example of runtime script (used in runtime scene) where you create the road procedurally inside the script. No UnityEditor. In my case is the user who sets the markers and create the road. I cannot make a previous one.

Thanks for your help and pacience
Lukards

 

The runtime script is an example of what you can do with the scripting API, no marker handles are involved. The API is scripting only at the moment, it doesn't include a User Interface, if that is what you are asking for.

Is this related to adding/inserting markers or a new road? To create a new road, the road network must be in Edit Mode.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

We're looking for beta testers for the integration between EasyRoads v3 and Landscape Builder. You need to already own EasyRoads3D Pro and have ER 3 beta 7.7 or newer installed (PC or Mac).

 

Hi Stephen,

I like to try this out. I know you have been working on API integration. In which way exactly does Landscape Builder support v3?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

When driving around the countryside, or even at racetracks, you may have noticed near the roads or tracks, the topography, ground textures, trees, grass etc. can be often a lot different from the surroundings. There can be many reason for this, but we'd like to be able to capture that effect. EasyRoads is an excellent road and side object tool and knows a lot about how roads are constructed - their look and feel etc. Landscape Builder knows a lot about topography, texture, tree and grass placement, and noise generation. We think these two complementary products would work well together.

Landscape Builder can create "maps" that can be used to provide finer control over Texture, Tree, Grass and Mesh placement. When building roads in a landscape, it is useful to know where the roads are and how wide they are. This can be very useful when constructing road “corridors”. You may wish to place different trees, grass or textures at different distances away from the left or right of a road. You may also wish to create a blended texture effect on either side of the road. Maps can also have "noise" applied to them so that the effect looks more natural.

We're also working on a new Topography Layer feature. Although this is great for building landscapes in general, we want to be able to apply this also to road "corridors". We plan to do this by filtering a topography layer (or layers) to only the road "corridor". We're still developing this feature and we probably need to take into consideration ER3 sideobject placement.

 

Do we also need to own Landscape Builder, or will this be given as part of the beta testing.

 

During the beta testing phase, the LB betas will be available to use for free. At the end of the beta it is entirely up to you if you wish to purchase LB.

 

Hi Stephen,

So apart from tree/detail object removal at a specific distance and baking the road shape in the terrain splatmap at a user defined distance (v3 features) Landscape Builder will adjust all this more accurately according the terrain topography after matching the terrain shape with the roads with also different options per tree/detail object type? Sounds very interesting!

Raoul

 

Hello. Is any way to use free version with Terrain Composer? When I try I get a problem with active terrain which I can't change. In scene exists more then one terrain...Is it free version restriction or i do something wrong?)

 

Hello imaewyn,

Indeed mutliple terrains objects in the scene is not supported by the free version, other than that everything should well with Terrain Composer, just make sure it only generates 1 terrain object.

Also, the free version is still v2, what you see in this thread is v3, a completely new road system.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I've bought pro version today)) Trying to use with tiled TC composer terrain. One thing, which I can't understand, how can I use change selected terrain in road options whithout flipping list? May be there is srcipt, which can help me? If I chosen "selected terrain" it's not working))

 

Hello imaewyn,

It looks like you are still using v2, is that right? The v3 beta is part of the download. To avoid that v2 and v3 assets get mixed in your current project, please remove all files in /Assets/EasyRoads3D/ After downloading the package, deselect all assets in the package import window except the top asset "EasyRoads3D V3 beta 7.7.unity5". This package will import in /Assets/EasyRoads3D/. Double click this file, this will open the Import window for the v3 beta.

Regarding v2, I am not sure what you mean with "flipping list"? You can select the active terrain from the dropdown in the Inspector or by Ctrl+Alt+Click on the specific terrain in Scene View. The same for v3 if you only want to flatten one particular terrain which is useful to speed up processing during development and when you are working on a particular part of the road network.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi raoul, just wanted to let you know:
Fresh install in a clean project solved the scaling issues I encountered. So yeah. It was our project's mesh importer.

A questions for you:
Do you write "meaningful" data into the vertex colors of your road meshes? Could we somehow use these to blend between broken road and new looking road segments?

 

Hi Marco,

Indeed I couldn't find any scaling issue on side objects in the asset store download either.

Currently only vertex colour info is stored in road meshes when using the transparency blend option over X distance at the start / end of a road.

But more will follow. Blending for crossings is partially implemented. Examples of this will be included as custom connections in the new v3 demo project. This will be introduced for dynamic crossings in v3.x. Blending options for roads will also be added but that will always be optional so you should be able to use your own implementation just fine.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi everyone,

I have finally achieved what I was looking for. Now I'm facing a different problem. I want a car gameobject to follow a road. It is quite simple if I asign ERRoad.GetPosition(...) to the car position. But now I would like to add more realism to this car. If the speed is too high the car should get out off the road. Is there any way to follow the road path with physics?

My first attempt was to have an object following the path and another one following that object with an spring joint attached to it. But the result is far from good.

Thanks,
Lukards

 

Hi Lukards,

That is indeed more physics related in combination with position info relative to the road using the API. A physics based example of an object following the road is on the list to add but at the moment I am focussing on getting v3 released.

What I have in mind for the example is an extension on the car controller script part of the unity vehicles package.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi all,

my game build has problems with the road texture, in scene and game view everything is fine. Does anyone know how to fix this? Tried easyroads 7.6.1 and 7.7 on Unity 5.3.4.

Thank you,
daschatten

 

Hi daschatten,

I am not sure if that solves the issue, but it looks like the UV tiling on that particular road is set to the lowest value 0.1. Ca you try the default value of 1? In previous versions the UV Tiling value for some road types indeed was 0.1 but this should not longer be the case. You can check/fix this in General Settings > Road Types.

Please let me know if increasing the UV tiling doesn't fix the problem.

Thanks,
Raoul