EasyRoads3D beta 2 preview...

Hi, just like to leave a note that next week beta 2 of EasyRoads3D v3 with support for intersections will be released. Still some things to do and code optimization is not done yet but overall it is working quite well in my own projects.

Feature requests etc. are always welcome!

Here is a video

 

Hi , i am curious about your roads. I have recently been using the Path and road tool thats free in the asset store. Unfortunately , when baking lightmaps, well the results are horrible, and it seems to definately be related to this toolset alone. Im curious if lightmaps bake fine on your roads (for eg : all my street lamps etc)?

Thank you .

 

Hi Raoul

Very good Demo as always . i just like to know if there is a way to makes roads with more than 2 Lanes.
Like a 4 lanes Highway. And will you have roundabout support in the future.

thanks

Norby

 

more lanes? you can just make the road wide enough and then apply a multi-lane texture.
or you can import the obj file and split it up in you 3d app.

Edit: Nice update raoul - unfortunately we have already finished our project, but hopefully we can make use of it in future projects.

 

Will crossings/junctions work with sideobjects as well? For instance, to create sidewalks?

 

Hi Guys, thanks for the feedback!

@willc, EasyRoads3D creates a second set of uvs for lightmapping based on the terrain boundaries. This way you can use the terrain lightmap on your roads. Also when exporting roads, extra triangles are positioned at these boundaries so you will be able to easily recreate the uv's in your modeling app should this be necessary. Regarding the side objects like street lamps etc., if you do not use the combine feature they should be treated individually just as you would manually place them. You can test combined side objects yourself by using the Unity combine feature. If that works well it should work fine for EasyRoads3D side objects as well as it uses the same base script. I haven't tested this apart from the roads, I will. But anyway, you can export side objects to .obj. and then reimport so it will be treated as if it was build in a modelling app.

@norby, like kondrup mentioned you can use your own multi lane textures and create you own material. Alternatively you can use the material window part of EasyRoads3D. Drop your textures in the specific texture folder and they will be displayed in the material window. EasyRoads3D comes with a number of example textures, see image below. Yes, roundabouts will be supported. After this Beta 2 release, the code will be optimized for faster handling of heavy road networks and the editor bugs of the v3 side objects system (part of EasyRoads3D, http://unityterraintools.com/WIP_sideobjects2.php) will be fixed. Then roundabouts and highway interchanges will be added. Also to do is auto connect road specific side objects like sidewalks.

@kondrup, thank you! Yes, hopefully it will be useful for you in a future project...

@zappapa, Yes, not done yet but this will be implemented. Road specific side objects like sidewalks will connect at crossings. As it is now, they will simply follow the road ignoring the crossing but they will be adjusted to the crossing height.

 

Hi Raoul

Thanks for clarifying

Norbert

 

Hi Raoul,

will this beta support multiple terrains with multiple road objects in the same scene?

 

Hi guys,

@Norbert, no problem, let me know if you have further question. As mentioned in the final release there will be support for highway interchanges, exit roads etc. Maybe also optionally seperate geomtery for left and right side.

@ThomasQ, support for multiple terrains has been implemented in the v2 project. There are still some issues to fix regarding splatmapping and the terrain smoothing option. A version 2 update will also be available next week if these are easy to fix , otherwise it will be the week afterwards. But this has not been implemented in the version 3 project yet. I will see if I can add it to the beta 2 release otherwise it will be in the next...

 

Hello Raoul,
Whole road object uses same texture (2 lane asphalt, 4 lane or just dirt) but as you can image its not possibly useful for complex projects.
Somehow if a segment start and end have some blending texture feature it would be beyond amazing.
In example, blending from dirty road to asphalt or wet road to dry (like in tunnels) ..

Do you think its possible (except exporting road object and painting with photoshop etc-which that was your solution when i asked in v1)

 

Hi Yusuf,

Although texture and lightmap uvs are automatically generated, EasyRoads3D primarly focuses on creating the road geometry and deforming the terrain accordingly. It does include options to split the roads in segments so you can assign different materials to each segment. If you want to blend textures but rather not use textures with these blends painted in the texture, I belief you could use a splatmap type of shader on the road. But I am not a shader / material expert but, maybe there is a better way to do this? I will put it on the list to look into.

As you can see in the beta, materials in v3 are handled differently. You can create default materials in the main EasyRoads3D object.This material will be assigned to each new road. Then for each road individually you can easily change this material In General Settings of that gameobject..

 

Yusuf, I searched around and found some interesting info about using vertex colors etc for blending textures, http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/44749-Vertex-Paint, I will look further

Meanwhile, if a shader expert is reading this and in for some extra money, please contact me...

 

Does version 3 worth with terrains for mobile? I tried with version 1 and ran across some issues (i.e. the editor kept crashing in 3.2) and hadn't had a chance to see if version 2 resolved the issues so I figured I'd see if they were resolved with version 3.

 

The terrain object for mobile is the same as for the other deployment options. You are just more limited regarding performance. You can try the free version of EasyRoads3D and see if it works for you.

In case you are using the 3.5 beta, there is an issue with terrain.treeInstances which is used by EasyRoads3D to update the vegetation. Unity will crash. Make sure "Update Vegetation" in General Settings is turned off. The free download from my website has this turned off by default for now, Assetstore update is pending... This issue should be resolved in the next 3.5 beta...

 

Much appreciated. I already own the old version 1 and was going to go Pro (I may already own it but I've been in mobile land). Just wanted to check to make sure that it would work since 3.5 beta crashes enough that I didn't want to introduce any NEW issues

 

I belief we have been in contact over email in the past, if that was indeed you then you upgraded to v2 the end of 2010.

Seems that the only issues with the 3.5 beta are the vegetation issue and an issue with selecting 2 markers and the marker alignment tools for which a fix is already available for those who want that. A new version of EasyRoads3D will be released once 3.5 is officially released.

 

I think I have problem using EasyRoads 3D in Unity 3.5. I think that there must be at least 3 road markers before a road mesh can appear on the terrain. I can't get the road mesh to render.

 

Do you mean it doesn't render at all or only after at least 3 markers have been added (which is normal behaviour)?

 

I had to add at least 3 markers before the road can render.