Track BuildR - Generate race circuits within the Unity editor

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Track BuildR is a powerful Unity editor extension that allows you to create your own racing circuits within the Unity editor.

Track BuildR allows you to generate a race track as you want it. Using procedural generation, you can create and edit the circuit you want and need for your game.

New version 1.1 RELEASED!
ADDED Support for Loops, Twists, Bridges and Jumps Added
ADDED One click add loop function added
ADDED Track extrusion added
ADDED FBX/OBJ Export
ADDED XML export and import
ADDED Substance Texture Support

 

Hi Jasper, congrats on the new extension!

Does this extension handle deforming and/or creating the base terrain?

Your support website has a section for video tutorials but it appears to be empty. Any idea when these will be posted?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Hi Radiomoto,
I'm planning on supporting terrains directly in a future release.
I should get those videos out in the next couple of days. Recording them around the schedule of a new born daughter is tough though!

 

Hi Jasper,

Your tool don't build the side for the tracks? (I mean the part where you used a terrain)

 

Hi Emergki,
I plan to support terrains in a future release although I don't plan to generate them, just match them to the track sides somehow.

 

I understand but, I mean about generating some hills or something like that on the side of the road, so, the users don't need to use the terrain.

 

I think some basic terrain generation might be done, but it would probably be limited to a specific style - like just trees and hills or something.

 

is this mobile compatible and if you generate some basic hill and terrain geometry would that also be mobile compatible geometry?

 

@tripnotix - Yes, with the track generated you have control of the level of detail, number of triangles. Terrain is a little less mobile friendly as terrain can be expensive. It depends on how you use it.

 

Congratulations for your newborn child!

... and for the great work on this asset.
How would you compare Track BuildR to BTB (bob's track builder) and EasyRoads3D? I own both of them, but in the end i find myself using my main modeling program instead (Silo).

What parts from the image below can/can't be done with Track BuildR?



Thanks

 

Hi NukeD,
Track BuildR specialises in making racing circuits, it doesn't do roads and highways.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Obviously intersections pose problems for all of the solutions i mentioned in my previous post, nevertheless:
- can i design/modify the road profile?
- can i have a road with variable width, camber?
- can i use different textures for different sections of a single road?

 

Yeah - pit lanes are proving a little difficult to implement but I should have them up and running for the next release.
To your questions, yes (I think, clarify profile) yes and yes...
check out the video to see what Track BuildR can do
http://support.jasperstocker.com/track-buildr/track-buildr-video-tutorial/

 

Thanks a lot, will watch the videos now.

 

This seems to suffer from the same problem that other assets I've looked at are having: building F-Zero/Sonic/Hot Wheels style tracks with loops and twists doesn't seem possible. The only asset I've seen that allows you to rotate points is Curvy. However, tracks made with Curvy are far too bumpy, perhaps as a result of there being only one horizontal segment. I strongly suggest you take a look at Curvy's spline implementation. If you can make tracks like that possible and provide a trial version of some sort, I'd be rather interested.

 

I'm pretty sure you can do loops and twists and that Track BuildR supports rotating points - unless I've misunderstood you. You mean the cant and camber of the road? It does those things.

 

I'm talking about a loop like these:
http://www.pressthebuttons.com/2006/01/fzero_x_track_e.html
http://download.gamezone.com/assets/old/gamezone/23/0/64/s23064_nds_5.jpg

 

Hmm - thought you could but not quite.
I'll look into patching that this week.
Got to have loops!!

 

Cool. And, an option to generate a flat collider rather than enclosing the entire track (to allow vehicles to fall off the edge of floating tracks if they're not careful) would be great too if it isn't already in. If you ever get a trial version going, I'll be sure to try this out; it sounds like the most promising track builder yet, as the name would imply.

 

Made any progress on implementing loops?

 

Any updates for this? Really need terrain matching or at least geometry created around the tracks further than the track barriers.

 

Hi, I tried to contact the developer by email, I'm really interested in buy it but, as I never receive any reply on my email, I don't know if I buy or not, because appear that the developer will not give any support on this .

 

Not good news.

I'll carry on making my own tracks with 3DS Max then.

 

I've created some years ago a "Road" creator with Blitz3D engine. My road creator was not released for public but, it can generates .3ds files that can be imported into Unity3D.

But, I really want to test this Track BuildR, unfortunatelly, the developer don't answer my email, so, I'm afraid to buy it for now.

 

Hi OhiraKyou, no update yet. it's in the works but there is no date for this yet.

 

Hi Emergki,
Sorry i didn't reply to your email. I've been away over Christmas and just catching up now...
Terrain working is in progress but I've not got a release date for this yet.
I don't have much time right now to implement new features.
Jasper

 

A friendly bump here.
Track BuildR is on promotion.

 

Why thank you sir
</tips hat>

 

Great! Just Bought!

 

me2

 

Just picked this up too. Any idea if terrain support will be coming soon? Seems the only thing this is lacking.

 

Well, it's also still lacking loops/twists, which is a pretty big deal.

 

I want to see terrain support please...

 

If you want terrains or loops, I'd recommend Megashapes.

JasperStocker is keenly aware of these problems, and has been promising terrain support, but it's been several months now. Meanwhile, he's still updating and working on other packages, even completely revamping a camera package, while TrackBuildR needs fixing.

 

Hi guys!
Sorry I'm not updating TrackBuildR as fast as you'd hoped! It's not quite true that it needs fixing, though it would be great to have more features.
Yes, I have other packages on the store and sometimes they might get updates when TrackBuildR doesn't.
I'm working on implementing these requested features and I really appreciate your patience.

 

Posted: 02:29 PM 11-23-2013:

We have almost March now.
Right now your tool is not usable for anything other than flat terrain. Yeah, sure, you could edit the terrain to fit the road or try to put the road along the terrain. But in both cases you will have to tackle the problem of a flat plane (road) on a curvy surface (terrain).
Please treat us as your other customers and provide a little support please...

 

I'm sorry Skyfly, how is it unusable? There is a pretty good replication of the Spa Francorchamps circuit as a demo. It's not a flat terrain. Am I missing something?

 

Further - don't worry, there are updates in the pipeline. Loops and twists first...

 

You know, farmers could work their crops with bare hands and a shovel. But they buy tractors so they can sped up the process and get more done in less time.
Other than that, the results of a laborous manual adaption to terrain has flaws:

I guess, when you do 5 kilometres of terrain adaption, you sooner or later get careless, or give up alltogether...

[Edit: Yeah, updates would be great, thanks for giving us hope...]

 

@skyfly, I have no idea why you're gunning for me. Looking at your comments on other threads you seem like a nice person but here not so much. I don't think i have done anything to warrant such treatment?

 

The people who complain the most about something are usually the people who are most invested/interested in its development and who are frustrated that they can't use it yet; they're the ones who want the product the most. It's a hard lesson, but it's one that everyone selling stuff needs to learn eventually. Keep that in mind.

 

Hi OhiraKyou,
I know this and I know you're one of them. But being civil about it is going to get better results rather than sarcasm. These are requests, not bug fixes and the product was released without advertising it could do these things. Yes, it would be a better product with them. Yes, I'm doing my best to get these features implemented. But making me feel like crap is not going to make anyone feel better (I hope).

 

Sorry, I didn't want to come across that mean.
I was just concerned, if my spontanous 24h purchase led to owning an unsupported product. When I saw, that the last date for an updates (' I'll look into patching that this week.) was almost 3 month old, I couldn't help but to see a pattern. There's plenty of abandoned assets on the store.
I think you will prove me wrong in this case
I hope...

 

Just a friendly note here...

Anyone of us that has children knows that it changes everything. Everything!
It takes time to adjust our schedules to accommodate working on assets, projects, etc.
Having children is one of the hardest and most beautiful things that happen in our short lives.
Sleep/rest/concentration... are things of the past.

Dont worry people, just a little bit of patience!

 

@nukeD - thanks man well said.
How about this guys?

No terrain support yet though - that's not going to make this version...

 

Very cool.

 

Looking forward

 

Hi,

When will this update become available?

For terrain support, have you considered generating a height map for the race track, then adjusting the generated terrain to match the racetrack height map?

Feature Requests:

1. A simple format, possibly JSON, for specifying track data.
2. Run-time race track generation
3. Generate waypoint objects (to export for use with racing AI)

 

@cl.9
"When it's ready".
Just kidding, hopefully next week depending on how much time I can get on it. I'm working on getting the upgrade path sorted as the new Undo system in Unity 4.3 necessitated rebuilding some elements and unfortunately breaking direct upgrading from the current version to this new one. It shouldn't be difficult though.
For terrain support - yes. I've considered heightmaps but I'll probably just generate straight data. The main issues I have are how it would blend with the current terrain and how possible it is to have it work in realtime rather then have an update button like other packages do. Another issue is how it handles the data you made against what Track BuildR generates. Should it just overwrite all your terrain as you move the track points or should it remember what you made and go back to that when the track doesn't affect that part of the terrain anymore?

1. The new version has XML import and export - hope that satisfies
2. Yes! It's essentially doable right now - the XML import tool will show how a track can be generated and with a couple of tweaks it could be done at runtime.
3. Would waypoints be useful? Track BuildR gives you access to it's core track data like track directions and positions. Maybe that would be more useful, I don't know what other AI packages need.

 

Great news, looking very forward to the update.

I think both approaches would have their advantages, but re-generating the terrain per update would probably be the fastest/easiest to implement. Another possible approach is having the track conform to a terrain or mesh collider with ray casts.

Great news.

Yes, for racing AI packages such as Racing Game Kit, being generate a series of empty transform waypoint objects that contain positions and directions would be great, especially if the waypoints are equally spaced.