World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hi Macrem,

There are so many different situations, types of crossings. This makes it challenging to auto create crossings in a realistic way regardless the type of OSM data.

Auto inserting X crossings and to some extend T crossings is done but not active. It will work well for, for example, typical american rectangular type of city blocks. But in other cases there can be unexpected results therefore this part is not active yet in the current builds. The part that is active is splitting roads at crosspoints when markers are found at the same positions on cross points, this makes it easier to attach the roads to manually added crossings.

Once additional dynamic crossing types like Y connections have been implemented all this will be further improved with a set of rules so the system will know what to do in specific situations.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

I just built my project on iOS device for the first time and I have a crash that seems to be related to a Crossing prefab.

The crash is 100% reproducible as soon as the crossing appears on the screen. And if I disable the crossing GameObject in Unity Inspector, my game doesn't crash.
The crossing is a custom one that I created from "Default T crossing" with 2 different road types (also custom) for connections

The crash happens in a dynamic batching function, and indeed if a disable dynamic batching in player settings, it disappears.

Did you already encounter such a problem?

I guess it won't be a big problem for my game to be run without dynamic batching but if you have an idea about that problem it would be very welcome.

I'm using Unity 5.5.2 and EasyRaods3D V3 beta 8.4

Thanks in advance

Mika

 

Hi Mika,

I did not encounter such a problem yet although it has been a while since v3 was tested for iOS. Issues related to this haven't been reported yet either.

The prefabs/meshes are ordinary unity game objects with a mesh filter and renderer attached. Is this crossing the only crossing type in the scene? Does this happen for a specific instance of the "Default T crossing" prefab or any instance?

Are you using the scripting API at runtime? Is the road network finalised? If not, can you duplicate the project and do a test with a finalised road network?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I live this asset. Great job.

I created a closed track, with guard rails on both sides. But no matter what I do, the guard rails cut across the terrain and part of the road. They connect at different parts. How do I fix this? I'm on the latest version of EasyRoads 3.

 

Hi AJ-Design,

Thank you! Glad to hear you like it

I just checked this and cannot recreate the issue. I assume it is directly related to your speicific marker layout / settings.

Does this always happen on your end, regardless, the number of markers and markers layout? Or is there anything else specific to your road? Are the guard rails for example disabled for specific markers?

Or, how are the guard rails cut across the terrain, where does it start and end? Are the settings different at these marker positions?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I have 3 custom crossings in the scene and only this one has the problem (but it's the only one with 2 different road types connected)
I don't use the scripting API at runtime (I use it only in Editor scripts)
My RoadNetwork was not finalised but I still have the crash with a finalised one.

 

I found some related bug descriptions in previous versions of Unity.
For example : https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...attributes-causes-a-crash-on-dynamic-batching
I used a Unity shader in a custom material for one of the connected road type. So I tried with an EasyRoads shader, but I still have the crash.

 

Hi Mika,

The current EasyRoads3D shaders are based on the unity shaders with only one line added, Offset X, X.

So this seems related to that particular custom prefab. I cannot see how the two different road types can cause the issue. Certainly not on a finalised road network. The attached roads to these crossings are individual objects.

What happens when you disconnect the roads attached to these crossings? Just as a test...

Did you test this per instance? Does this happen on all instances of that prefab?

If so, these are custom prefabs, I assume, based on a source prefab changed in a modelling app and reimported in Unity. In that case, what happens when you remove these instances from the scene and drop that source prefab in the scene?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Sorry I didn't use the right word, it's not a "Custom Crossing prefab" but a "Dynamic Crossing prefab" according to your doc.

Anyway, I found the reason why this prefab crashes and not the others.
I tried to recreate it from scratch using prefab Editor and using "Default T crossing" as default preset, and remembered that I modified manually 3 of the 4 connection materials so that the crossing appears with the same material as 2 of the 3 connected roads.

• Without this connection material modification I don't have the crash.
• With the modification of 4/4 connection materials I don't have the crash.
• But if I modify only 3/4 connection materials (that gives the same apparent result since the 4th is not visible on T Crossing), my crossing appears with 2 different materials in Unity inspector and I have the crash.

 

Ok, that changes things.

So the end result is a mesh asset with 3 submeshes, using 3 different materials.

On my end this looks alright, 3 connections, 3 different materials all displaying as expected.

But, I now see that when the material for the 4th connection (for X crossings) is different from the other 3, it is still assigned as a material in the Mesh Renderer component. This will be fixed, but I wonder whether the iOS issue when using dynamic batching is related to this? What happens when in X crossing mode, you assign one of the other 3 materials to this 4th connection and then switch back to T Crossing mode? That 4th unused material will no longer be assigned to the Mesh Renderer. Does that solve the problem?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes, as i said in my previous post, if the unused connection (in T crossing) has a different material from the 3 used connections, I have the crash, else it's ok.
(I didn't test this with X crossing mode switched back to T crossing, but by using Unique connections Setup where the 4 connections are editable even in T crossing mode)

 

Yes, all 4 connections are visible in the Inspector so indeed it is not necessary to swap between X and T crossing mode.

Thank you for reporting this, I will make sure unused materials will not be assigned to the mesh renderer component.

Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

It doesn't always happen, only in this scene. There is nothing special about the road I created.. just standard assets. The guard rail cuts across at various places. The settings are the same for all markers. I tried 100% looped guard rails, I also tried to break it up at certain points. When I break them up at the problem points then it's fine. But there is a place that I really need to add guard rail, and it's cutting across.

I went ahead and flattened the Road Object... now, where can I find this flattened guard rail mesh in my assets folder so I can delete the rail that cut across in C4D? It's the Guard Rail Right Batch 2. If I can just open the fbx in C4D then I can fix it and re-import it into my scene. I don't have the time to re-build the road since I already built the traffic unto it. I see there is an "unnamed" mesh in the inspector... both for the collider and the mesh. but where can I find it?

 

Hi AJ-Design,

Unity stores procedurally generated meshes by default in the scene file. V3 includes several export options for the full road network and individual objects. And there is an option to store the mesh assets in the assets folder.

But do you mean you finalized the road network? Finalize removes all the script components, in that case the export options are no longer available.

You could still use one of the .obj exporters to do this.

In the case, the road network is not finalized, would it be possible to have a look at this specific road?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes, that's what I meant... I finalized the road network. I'll try the .obj exporter. Ill send you the scene if I encounter this in the future. I'll package it before finalizing it.

Thank you for your help. Great asset, great support

Now, if you only made this as a plugin for C4D ....

 

This screenshot looks amazing. How exactly is this achieved in EasyRoads?

 

Thank you very much, that would be much appreciated!

Because you mentioned "... Batch 2" which is related to split meshes when the Unity limit of 65.000 vertices is reached, I thought perhaps it is related to cutting the mesh in seperate pieces. But I couldn't recreate that either. You may want to check that, does this indeed happen at the point where a new mesh segment starts?

Raoul

 

Hi magique,

That is done using a flat source mesh with subdivision from which a new dirt type of road is created. For the track itself the node positions are adjusted per marker to create the irregular shape. The N key triggers that option on/off. And Multi node selection now also works across multiple selected markers.

The track / road type in that screenshot is part of the new demo project.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Thanks. I'm not sure I fully understand your explanation, but if it's part of the new demo project then I can figure it out from there.

 

The built-in roads are simple roads with vertices on the left and right. The custom prefab system however allows you to import your own mesh prefabs which can have any shape. Roads pulled out of these connections inherit that same shape.

So this dirt path is based on a custom prefab with that specific geometry layout but flat by default. Through the custom prefab system (General Settings > Crossing / Connection Prefabs > Open the Custom Prefab Editor) a new road type is created with this shape. In the scene it is used together with an I Connector. A simple 2 node dirt path connects to this more complex dirt path. Because the shape is flat by default it nicely connects with the other road. Then the N key is pressed to activate node shape changes for the other markers resulting in what you see in the screenshot.

Hope this is more clear for now.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

I see. What about the nice edge blending. Does that require a custom mesh or can that be done with the built-in roads? I like how the dirt edges blend into the rest of the terrain. That's the part I'm most interested in.

 

What you see is road track only surrounded by water.

On the previous page there are two posts, https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/e...g-new-road-system.229327/page-67#post-3037329 , related to terrain blending.

It has also been confirmed that the RTP shader package can be used for mesh blending with the terrain, I haven't looked into that myself yet.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

OK, thanks.

 

Hi Raoul,

What is Road.sbsar ? Is it necessary or can I delete it?
1.2 mb 1.7% Assets/EasyRoads3D/textures/Road.sbsar

Thanks!

 

Hi John,

That is a road substance material. The diffuse texture is used on the road with the medieval bridge example.

You can remove it if you do not intend to use it.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Ok. Thanks for the info!

 

Hello @raoul !

Today I downloaded the latest version of easy roads V3. It has some very cool changes like the addition to determine if it casts shadows and the organization of side objects. I'm happy those are in!

I've noticed some strange behavior on the spline functionality, and I'd like to ask why that is.

I constantly use circular control type for my spline, and I alternate between straight and circular most of the time, only occasionally i use the spline controller.

This behavior, although a bit delicate, worked very well for me, but now it has something that has made it impossible hard to use.

My curve nodes started moving around on situations where they previously wouldn't. Particularly, the nodes following a circular node move around when i move a node that is 2 positions ahead. This has made it very difficult to do chicanes or anything that has 2 corners that are close to one another.

I'll add numbers to be more clear, Node 1 is circular, node 2 is straight, node 3 is circular, Node 4 is straight. If i move node 4, it will force node 2 to move around, changing the shape of my original turn. This prevents me from having fixed corners and trusting the system to leave them in place while i continue to work ahead. I need to go back and forward multiple times, sometimes not being able to get the desired result at all.

I also noticed that my nodes would move around when turning on and off certain side objects.

This may be because the track I'm working on was done with the previous version and its "accommodating" itself to the changes, but it made it impossible for me to continue working on this track.

One extra thing, is that most of my "shape objects" were getting very stretched UVs. Was this an intentional change that i'd need to change some settings to? or this is unexpected?

For now, i'll revert to the previous version i had, since it was working well. I'd like to be able to try the new additions further, but until the splines are working properly in more fixed positions, I'll wait.

Thank you for your work! I hope this feedback is useful.

Cheers!

 

Hi @raoul

I reverted all my changes related to easy roads on github, but I still have the latest version's behavior.

Why could this be? Is there a way for me to go back? I thought just reverting my changes on Git would be good, but it was definetely not.

Please let me know what can i do to recover the previous version's functionality.

Cheers!

 

Its Ok, i solved it. I just copied and pasted another version of easy roads from a backup copy. Strange that reverting my changes didn't do it, but it's all good now.

 

Hi Alberto,

What was the previous beta you used?

There haven't been changes to this for a while. The last time was to deal with the situation that the circle was inverted resulting in a circle with a huge radius.

What type of chicanes are difficult for you to create? I just tested this using consecutive straight and circular marker segments. It seems to work all well.

Let's say you have markers A, B, C, D, E, F.

A, C and E use the straight controller type, B, D and F the circular controller type. So the segments between B and C and D and E are circular and part of the chicane. When moving marker A or D, the position of either marker B or C will have to adapt as well. I belief It always worked like that. The last changes are related to when moving marker D towards marker B. This is the situation that sometimes resulted in the flipped circle. This has changed in a way that once marker D is within a critical range to marker B, marker C will also move towards B. Is that what makes it hard for you to control the shape? You can always move C afterwards to make the circle shape larger.

So given the already existing markers A, B, C, D, E, F where D will be close to B (typical chicane shape), what I would do is:

1. position marker B at the start of the chicane.
2. position marker D at the start of the next bend in the chicane.
3. position marker E, the end of the chicane. This change can also affect the position of marker C.
4. At this point you can re position marker C to fine tune the shape of the first bend.

Hope this helps

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hey @raoul

Thanks for your reply.

I'm now on a previous version of v3, and this behavior is working perfectly for me. On the newer version, 8.5.1, this was not the case. My exit node from the first corner would move around instead of staying in place, which made it very very uncomfortable to use compared to this beauty.



Aside from that change, i also had problems of nodes moving their positions when turning side objects on and of on a per node mode, as well as stretched and inconsistent UVs.

I'm assuming the nodes moving around has to do with a change on the node's behavior, and my road network adjusting itself to the new rules? because it would continue "relaxing" itself the more i turned on and off a side object, which to me seemed like it was just constantly recalculating positions and finding that it needed to adjust itself.

If it would help you, I can go back to the new version, replicate those things and show you what it looks like on my end. I'll just need to know what the best way is to go back the the version i'm on right now, so i don't loose too much time. Is it ok to just copy and paste a backup copy of the easyroads folder? I'm not sure.

I tend to use nodes very close to one another, and that's when that behavior became really noticeable. On far nodes, it worked fine for me as i recall.

Personally, I much rather use a behavior that leaves nodes in place with the risk of the giant circle, than nodes that move around from where I left them.

Cheers!

Alberto

 

Hi Alberto,

One of the side effects with those giant circles was that when complex side objects are involved it could lock up Unity.

This does sound as if the road did refresh according the new behavior. Or did this still happen afterwards? Side object processes by themselves do not affect marker positions.

The current behaviour should still be the same for the selected marker in your clip.



Selecting the next marker after a circular segment will make one of the circular segment markers move but I think that works the same in the version you are currently using.

For circular segments it cannot be avoided that one of the markers part of the circular segment is repositioned, preserving the same radius, when one of the adjacent markers is moved unless it is moved exactly in the direction of the other marker. The only difference in the latest builds is that the end marker of a circular segment is also moved towards the start of the circular segment when the next marker is moved closer towards the start of the circular segment and within a specific range

For chicanes you could check those steps I mentioned in my previous reply. Perhaps that works better?

To easily switch between builds you can create a package with only the dll's:

/Assets/EasyRoads3D/Editor/EasyRoads3Dv3Editor.dll
/Assets/EasyRoads3D/lib/EasyRoads3Dv3.dll

Or am I missing something here?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Excellent! Switching the dll's was extremely handy. I was able to capture all the behaviours i believe make it really hard to use, compared to the previous version, which i also recoreded. Here are my examples, I hope they are useful.


This is how it looks on the previous version.


But the new version, this happens.


Here, I turn on and off the kerb on this corner. By doing so, it starts to sort of relax the road network, i imagine that since it refreshes it, it applies the new rules and moves it around. You can even see it move on the nodes of the right, which are way far away from the current node im making modifications to.


On this last one, I show how the UVs become stretched when the shape objects refresh, and its also an example of nodes being moved around, although less severe as the example above.


I hope this images are useful to spot what i believe, are aspects that make the tool less user friendly.

I love this tool and I think it is the best there is by far. A lot of wizardry goes on into it and im amazed, but this last version sure caused some problems to my workflow.

I'll stick to the previous one for now, and if there is a chance that some of these changes are reverted or improved, I'd love to upgrade again to get all the cool new features.

As always, thank you for your work, it is stellar.

Best,

Alberto.

 

Hi Alberto,

Great work!

Clip 1 and 2:

I think it is more clear now what the problem is, especially in those chicane type of areas where previous markers can be affected.

The barrier shapes that are moved are separate objects not attached and therefor following the road shape. Two different objects using circular segments. I can see how it can be hard to exactly align these two shapes when the previous marker positions are affected.

Clip 3:

This looks strange. I will see if I can recreate that on a similar road shape.

Clip 4:

What exactly changes here, activating / deactivating a grass segment side object next to the track? I am not sure if this tiling issue is directly related to the circular segment changes, which only affects generating the spline points. UVs are calculated afterwards based on these final spline points. Do the UVs look good after road changes afterwards? Can you see changes in the UV tiling settings?

What is the "working" version you are using now?

Regarding the circular shape changes. I can make these changes optional.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, very much appreciated!

Raoul

 

Hi Raoul,

I'm glad the gifs were useful to explain! An gif is worth a thousand words!

The clip 3, i think accommodates the road to the new values as it is being refreshed. To recreate it, maybe you could draw a spline with the old version, then change to the new version and refresh the road a couple of times, by either moving a node, or just turning on and off a side object on a specific node, like i did.

I'm not sure what version I'm on. I update pretty regularly, so unless i missed one, it should be the last one previous to the latest release. If you want me to check which version, I'll need some guidance to know where to find the version number, or I could send you the dlls I'm currently using.

Clip 4, I think maybe the way the shape objects calculate their UVs changed? It might be very easy to fix by just adjusting my tiling value on the parameters of that sideobject, but I was curious if this was something intentional or not. Right now, most of my objects have tiling set very low, 0.1, so maybe now they should be set to 1. I didn't check properly, but it was something i noticed and wanted to ask you if it was an intentional change or I was seeing something unexpected.

As always, thanks for the quick reply!

Best,

Alberto

 

Hi Alberto,

I had a look at it, what happens is that the end marker of a circular segment is adjusted in steps to a smooth level based on the position of the next marker relative to the start of the circular segment. This is fine if the next marker is repositioned. But it shouldn't happen in the case of a general road refresh like when tweaking side object settings like in your clips. This will be fixed.

You can see the version in the most right Help tab in the Inspector.

Clip 4. I cannot see how the UV tiling for the full road suddenly changes. The UVs are based on the width of the road, the length of the road and the uv tiling value in the Inspector. All this you can see in the Inspector, the length of the road is displayed near the top.

As mentioned above, since one of the later versions the width of the road is taken into account. This way it is more likely the default tiling value of 1 will be what you need. Could this be related? What is the tiling value for this road in the Inspector?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

What exactly is the difference between the free and pro version?

And is this Gaia (terrain) and SUIMONO (water) compatible?

 

Hi FlyHigh,

The free version is still v2 and is a single road creation tool only with limited featrures compared to the Pro version. The manual of the free version shows what the pro features are. For v2 that is especially side object related, walls, fences, etc.

This thread, however, is v3. V3 is an entirely different road system with a different workflow and many new features. A short list:

- support for intersection/crossings both built-in as by importing your own meshes into the system.
- more shape controllers (straight, circular segments) for the roads,
- have the road automatically follow the terrain contours
- creation of road type presets so you can quickly reuse them in your scenes
- OSM/KML road data import.
- new side object system with many new features.

V3 does work with Gaia. SUIMONO has not been tested yet. V3 does not have a dedicated water system although it can be simulated using side objects. The demo project includes an example.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

It doesnt need a water system if I could use SUIMONOs water. I saw a video which showed how to create rivers and I thought if I could implement SUIMONO into that. I hope this will work, would buy v3 when it is final then.

 

For sure SUIMONO can be used together with EasyRoads3D in a scene. Whether you can create a SUIMONO river using EasyRoads3D depends on the set up of a SUIMONO object. You can assign a source prefab to a side object, this means that EasyRoads3D will create a new instance of that prefab including the materials and scripts assigned to the prefab. If that is how SUIMONO works then there is a good chance you can create the rivers with EasyRoads3D. But some systems involve more then a single prefab. In that case customized support will be required.

V3 is part of the package as a seperate beta package. It is in the final stage of being released and fully replace v2 on the asset store.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hey - Got a question does this work with the Unity Linux editor?

Just curious,

HeadClot

 

Hi HeadClot,

Working with Unity since 2007 and comparing how this worked for Windows and Mac builds over the years I would think it will work just fine on Linux as well. But v3 has not been tested on Linux.

If it doesn't work well you will get a refund or you can provide feedback so we can improve this for Linux.

Thanks,
Raoul.

 

the models and view look great.

 

Hi,

Has anyone encounter this problem (the Levels (editor log) from build size are huge 60.6% ) while using EasyRoads?
My APK build size is huge because of levels

1. Textures 46.1 mb 24.0%
2. Meshes 7.2 mb 3.7%
3. Animations 17.1 kb 0.0%
4. Sounds 2.8 mb 1.5%
5. Shaders 1.3 mb 0.7%
6. Other Assets 8.6 mb 4.5%
7. **Levels 116.1 mb 60.6%**
8. Scripts 1.6 mb 0.9%
9. Included DLLs 6.4 mb 3.3%
10. File headers 1.5 mb 0.8%
11. Complete size 191.6 mb 100.0%

How to figure it out what is the cause?
Thanks in advance for any answer!

 

Hi John,

What do your scenes look like? By default all generated mesh data is stored in the scene file.

Do you use the "Store Mesh Assets in Assets Folder " option? You could test that in a backed up project? This will store the mesh data in the assets folder.

Haven't looked into that for a while but things like static batching also used to increase the size considerably.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul!

Sounds excellent! I'm looking forward for those changes to try out the new features. Thank you for being so thorough with checking the problem.

I haven't checked again the UVs problem I had, but im pretty confident I'll just need to update my tiling value, which is not a problem.

I checked my version, it is V3, Beta 8.1.

Best,

Alberto

 

Just downloaded the free version to check this out because every has said good things and Road Architect was annoying me.

Sadly though I can't get it to work! I follow the manual to add a new road object then ad markers, but shift clicking in the viewport does nothing at all. Not only can I not see anything change visually, but I see no objects or components being added to the RoadObject.

In the manual there is a link to troubleshoot not seeing any markers, but I followed that creating the two layers (not sure why it can't auto add them like Suimono does?) but nothing changes, same result. I also don't see anything in the Game View so I think my problem is different.

I am on Unity 5.6f03. I see no warnings or errors in the console when I click.

 

Ok so I got it to work, but only by deleting ALL but one of my terrains in the scene! Does this only work if you have only a single terrain in your scene? That makes it pretty useless for me

 

Hi jwvanderbeck,

Not being able to add markers in the FREE version is indeed usually due to multiple terrain objects in the scene. The free version uses Terrain.activeTerrain, markers will not be added when clicking on any other terrain. Also, the free version is still v2. V3, this thread, is an entirely different road system.

MUltiple terrains not working is a free version limitation, both v2 Pro and v3 support multiple terrain objects.

Multiple terrains are supported.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Alberto,

I had a look at this yesterday and made some changes. The situation where the marker at the end of a circular segment moves towards the start of that segment when the next marker is within a specific range is still active but this will now only happen when one of the surrounding markers changes position. This should deal with all the situations in the clips you posted.

If you want I can send you a test build so you can see how this now behaves.

Thanks,
Raoul