World Building EasyRoads3D v3 - the upcoming new road system

Hi Bill,

Did you try this procedure again? Does the same problem happen? Does it also happen when you import the package in a new project (just as a test)? It is easy to deal with the error message but it would be good to know what causes it.

Yes, repetitive error messages can make scene view navigation / toolbar icons become unresponsive.

Do the custom crossings / connection prefabs you created work as expected? Can you connect roads to them? What are the error messages and when do they appear? Does it happen with all custom connection prefabs you created? Does this also happen with the custom connection prefab examples part of the beta package?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Hi Raoul, roads were distorted after running "Refresh Road Network".
I did not or have any terrain object in Scene Settings>Mesh Terrain.
Will look into this further along when road network is more complete.

 

Hi Gus,

Ok, but what exactly do you mean with distorted? I know you mentioned that it looks similar like in the very beginning, but it is kinda hard to match that with recent posts. Is it related to (older, beta 6.3 specifically) crossings again? Are these roads connected to crossings with sidewalks switched off on the right or left or on both sides? Can you try deconnecting the roads first at both sides and then reconnect them so the geometry structure gets refreshed?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Raoul, I now have my road network more or less complete.
I am not sure with how many roads you have tested this beta
Up to now I have used 114 Connections and 197 roads.
This goes to show the power of your EasyRoads product.

Tunnel Option.

When you create a road that you would want to be a tunnel, EasyRoads will cut a trench in landscape and remove the terrain geometry above this road.

How difficult would it be to implement a system that could save the terrain data above the trench as a separate mesh object that can be used as the top of the tunnel to hide the trench thus creating the appearance of a proper tunnel?

I think this would make your product even more attractive as there are only a couple of addons to create tunnels available for Unity terrains.

Thanks

Gus

 

Raoul I think probs are related to connections and road made with 1st ver of beta I used.

Its only a couple of roads so I am leaving till the end when I will go thru the whole network again to make final adjustments.

How-ever for de-dugging purposes, I will try to reproduce later this evening and send you more details.
G.

 

Thank you for the Info! I don’t have clear benchmarks yet but our development project includes hundreds of roads and crossings. In theory the limitations should match Unity’s limitations. Updating roads / crossings only affects the directly connected roads / crossings so it should be relatively fast regardless the number of roads / crossings in the scene. I have tested OSM files with thousands of roads being generated automatically from this road data.

The tunnel option is on the list. I experimented with this for v2 about two years ago. Generating the tunnel geometry is relatively easy, you can use side objects for that. Simulating a hole in the terrain is the difficult part. There are several ways to do this, I don’t want to use the shader option because that will involve a custom shader. Many people already use custom terrain shaders so I don’t think that is an option. Using masks kinda works but I haven’t been able to implement a 100% reliable solution that will work on all angles with the terrain and higher terrain heightmapsscales. That’s why it is not activated in v2.

Your solution, a terrain mesh overlay, is how we did the caves demo on our website. It works but can result in heavy geometry depending on the length of the tunnel and the terrains heightmapscale.

One thing on the list is to see if/how the RTP shader package tunnel solution can be used for this. There are also some threads related to changes to the Unity terrain object with the Unity team participating, I belief support for holes in the terrain object is being considered. That will certainly make all this easier.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes using RTP was the other solution I had thought of, I have already purchased and looking in to the 114page manual, but seeing Easyroads was already doing the task of cutting the terrain this could be used again.

I understand how the resulting mesh can quite large but could it then exported to simplify if required or optimized in any other way? The seam would be crucial though!

Anyway was just a thought

 

The only known bug that could be related to this is the beta 6.3 bug where manually disabling sidewalks in the scene gets overwritten by the default sidewalk settings. You can see that by selecting the crossing, especially when the middle sidewalk handle was disabled as well. The middle sidewalk will be grey (disabled), but the outer left or right handle is green. This should never be the case.

This bug is fixed, for 6.3 crossings you can simply click these handles once again (also when the middle handle is green) so they get updated according the new code. Make sure to check this on crossings at both sides of the road.

Please let me know if this unrelated to your situation.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Yes, you could indeed optimize the mesh. Texture seams should not be a problem. But if I remember well, what can be a problem is the normals not matching and as far as I know it is still not possible to overwrite the terrain normals in those areas which would solve that.

Raoul

 

Raoul, while I have been working along with EasyRoads I have been making a list with some more ideas which I think might make life easier to your users...

• Side Walks as side objects.
  
• Ability to re-connect roads together after cutting or to each other.
• Decide from which end of the road you can extend from.
• Ability to adjust road width once connected to connections.
• Ability to lock road elevation.
• Improve RoundAbout working.

Also the addition of a dynamic Y connector prefab would allow connections which are currently not possible please see image.

 

Is it possible to create part of a road below terrain that will not deform terrain and create a trench?
Would bridge segment work for this?
Thanks
G.

 

Yes, you can use the marker option "Bridge Segment" for this, it will not flatten the terrain for this marker.

Raoul

 

Bridge option does not affect terrain below the road but unfortunately it does remove the terrain above it.
Is there another way or is this a bug?
Thanks
G.

 

Thank you for the suggestions!

You could already do this. But you will lose the interaction (enable/disable) with sidewalks on crossings

That is on the list just like changing multiple markers at once. At the moment you can only select one marker. Once selecting multiple markers is implemented these options will be added.

That is also on the list. The tricky bit is when the start and end marker are close to each other, to which to connect the new marker. Another thing on the list, which will solve this, is the ability to pull off new marker from start / end markers. This is also useful for fx type of roads not interacting with the terrain.

Flexible road widths adjustable per marker is on the list just like for the Shape side object type.

How should this work? Snapping markers to the terrain is already possible by keeping “control” pressed.

Making editing roundabouts is on the list (see Known Issues / Troubleshooting in the manual)

More dynamic crossing types will be added. Regarding the screenshot, it looks like what you need here is the existing T-crossing option with flexible angles. This will be looked into for the next updates. For now you could export the T-Crossing to .obj adjust the specific connection angle and import into the system as a custom crossing prefab.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

The white surfaces are visible. When Bridge Segment is active for that marker, the white surfaces should not be visible for that part. I just double checked this. It seems to work fine. Does this not work for you?

Raoul

 

Yes I understand, but toggle off/on Bridge segment marker does not affect this.

This was also an old v6.3 road.

Anyway I cut road a bit before this point and added a T connector then drew a new road from there.
I changed markers to bridge on this one and it seemed to work.

I have one more tunnel to make.
Let you know the outcome.

 

Perhaps a way of turning off pavements at markers, currently as I understand the only way to control pavements are at connections.
Or maybe an straight "I" connector where pavement controls are available.

Super!

Great!

Looking forward to it.

Perhaps a toggle in front of Y Position Dial to lock this value. This way you could adjust position of road from any angle in scene editor without moving the height, for use when Follow Terrain Control is not in use.

I know but I really want them!

I'll give it a go.

Thanks for your help.
G.

 

Ok, so now activating “Bridge Segment” does remove the white surfaces correctly? Did you get error messages on the older previous road when toggling on/off Bridge Segment?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Ok, so you are mainly looking for away to start/end sidewalks somewhere on a road. I think indeed an "I" connector will be the easiest solution. I will look into that.

Yes, I will have a look at that. This makes the Move handle (M key), which we generally prefer, also more useful from different angles.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Raoul I reproduced error with refresh for you.
As explained this was an old road made with v6.3.
You can see that one of the markers is not attached to the road which I believe caused this.
I deleted and replaced this road and refresh completed.
In case this info is useful to you I have included here...

 

Hi Gus,

Thank you for the clear feedback!

Yes, this seems related to the T crossing issue in one of your first post, indeed the one with the heavily deformed road (I remember know). You can see the road is reconnected to the non existing connection (straight part of the T crossing) after the "Refresh", hence the warning message "The angle with the crossing is too sharp", the error messages and the floating marker caused by the road not updating due to the error message.

This should no longer happen with recent betas.

If anyone is experiencing similar issues with older T crossings, I can implement a fix in the "Refresh" process for this which will update these T Crossings created in older betas. Refreshing the T crossing (by for example toggling Off/On a sidewalk) and reconnecting the road should also fix this.

Deleting a road in this type of situations shouldn't be necessary, by disconnecting the road from crossings at both sides the road should rebuild correctly. Afterwards you can reconnect the road to the crossings. Before beta 6.4, disconnecting was not possible because of the road not updating due to the error message, but now disconnecting a road from a crossing can also be done by selecting the first / last marker and "Undo Connection" in the Inspector or Shift + D.

Raoul

 

Hi Raoul!

I have a little problem with runtime. (Only main roads are premade like settlers7, no problem with them).

The runtime itself works like charm! Since I do not use any t/x/o connections with it.

How to do it is a quite simple.

- Player settles a house to terrain. After that he clicks a start-road icon over house outdoor
and start to drag a new road.

- When user clicks a mouse button over plain terrain (while "roading") it creates every time a
new "waypoint" to road. If he holds "tap"/button long enough (or hit ESC with standalone
version), the last waypoint will be deleted and user can drag a path to other direction from
previous point..... (Every other points between waypoints are calculated on the fly by Apex
path finding routine to avoid obstacles)

- When he drag road over existing road and clicks a mouse button, the new road end point
will be set -0.01f (or so) than existing road and road will be finally baked. With this method
the connection looks just fine with proper texture. (Sand / stones / bricks).

BUT! How to heck I can disable that white surface TOTALLY! I do not need it at all. Right now
I check if it exists on constantly while user is building a road and I have to disable it by script.
This gets the road path flickering time to time. I can live with it, but I know that I will get a lot
feedback from this behaviour.

Suggestion for runtime: As I told, I end the new road a little lower than existing road to get it
look nice. Could you consider, that the new road end mesh will be (can) modified by code (just CUT
mesh with proper end angle), to sit tight against old road edge.

rgds:

Jari Kaija
http://www.thecolonizers.com

 

Hi Jari,

Glad to hear the runtime API is working in general for you!

Completing the main editor functionality for v3 has priority at the moment. The runtime API currently is being implemented based on requests.

"Hide White Surfaces" is and editor option. I will add it to the API.

Do you mean the new road should nicely continue where the other road ends? Can you show a sceenshot example? The question is, since there is no reference to the other road, when should that happen?

An option to check for start / end markers on other roads within a specific range when a new road is started and link the new road to that other road, will that work? The spline shape of the other road will be used at the start of the new road so both roads smoothly connect.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

http://thecolonizers.com/Web/pictures/development/ScreenCapture_120.3957.png

(runtime created oversized road with oversized texture without splat maps for clarifying connection)

As I said. Now I dive to under old road. But, if the runtime could check, is there an old road under new end, the new
road end could be cutted to same angle as old road's edge. Then I don't need to dive + terrain will not lowered for nothing.

BUT.... Your suggestion about markers.... If I can add marker LATER on the old road... hmmm, restore old
road network... get mouse position, add a new marker to that position (have to find somehow, which are
the opposite markers on both paths end on an old road for the new marker to solve a marker index value for adding...). Build old road network again and after THEN link to new one to old one...

(OR (mobile devices warning) add a huge amount of markers by script to premaded (editor) roads and runtime
roads to get markers enough for T-connection purposes.... noooooooo ;-) )

 

Cutting the edge to simulate a T crossing potentially is unreliable, what if the road slightly bends in that area? This looks more something for a T crossing connection.

You mentioned you don't need the white surfaces at all but you also mention restoring the old road network. Do you actually require terrain deformation? In that case you do need the white surfaces but you can still hide them.

But if you do not require terrain deformation, building the road network is not required and you can always access all markers (change positions) on all roads through the API.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

And! How about, when user wants to delete road to get space for new building or similar...

Does the runtime automatically remove the t-connection and restore the old road.

And what then, if user choose to delete part of the old road after the T-connection...
How to connect old and new road... what kind of connection should be that curve ....
Naah. That isn't a problem. Just creating an one new road piece for that connection purposes

So many questions, but C# is so forgiving for my grazy ideas. Requires only enough
coke (had to move Zero one) and cigarets. And an sources for edit . Or I think so, atleast...

 

Yesyes... just hide them. Sorry if I didn't wrote clear enough... en/us-notmymotherlang...

Unfortunatelly I need that terrain deformation too. The game arena aren't flat
enough to play only with x/z values.

 

Damn! That's true. Didn't test it over bended roads. So... have to start to find method to search closest markers between road for the marker => T cross adding purposes.

 

About next runtime:

- Are you going to include t-crossings to it?

Otherwise I have to continue with my current "diving" method. Not bad with
proper textures anyway... But noticed, that I have to split old road to two
roads at T-cross point (= leg a: one piece from old and leg b: totally new clone
from old road), since if user decides to cut either one from old road legs from
t-crossing... just thinking... splines, curves when cutting.... argh... hedeache.

EDIT: Conclusion, if runtime doesn't include t-crossings in next version ------->

I will use my diving system AND I have to forget curved roads totally and
use only straight roads from mouse click point to click point. It will grow my
road network List<t>, but I can't find another solution. So. Totally cloned from
user editable S7 roads anyway

 

Hi Jari,

You will be able to do with the API what you can do in the Unity editor. It will be a matter of implementing this the way you want your system to work.

So, the API will not automatically delete crossings when you delete a road because you or the user may still want to use that crossing in a different way in the scene. But for any road you will be able to get access to connected crossings, so you can delete these crossings through the API if that is what you want for your project. And if you want to join the two remaining roads you will be able to do that too through the API.

If you need terrain deformation because your terrain is not flat then simply cutting triangles and snapping the road to the other will not work well in areas with height differences. The terrain deformation for road A will affect the terrain near road B with road B ending floating above the terrain or below the terrain in that area. This is also a reason to use the connection system

I know, many headaches

This is doable, also with curved roads, the old v3 system used code required for this. You need to find the intersection points and if more vertices exist between the two intersection points you can adjust the triangulation a little bit. The hard part is the terrain deformation as mentioned above.

Currently new betas are released every week, every other week. Implementing support for crossings in the runtime API obviously is a little bit more time consuming then for example joining two roads. I will see if I can make a start with this.

Thanks,

Raoul

 

Another thing to fix/add whatever...

When player builds a new road, the runtime includes mesh collider for road.

However. This should be selected option. There is a list what I found usefull for "road mesh object".

ERRoad.MeshColliderOnRoad = true/false;
vs.
GameObject.Find("roadx").gameObject.GetComponent<MeshCollider>().enabled = true/false;


ERRoad.MeshColliderOnSurface = true/false;
vs.
GameObject.Find("roadx").gameObject.transform.FindChild("surface").gameObject.GetComponent<MeshCollider>().enabled =false;

ERRoad.SurfaceEnabled = true/false;
vs.
GameObject.Find("roadx").gameObject.transform.FindChild("surface").gameObject.transform.SetActive(true/false);

ERRoad.SurfaceVisible = true/false;
vs.
GameObject.Find("roadx").gameObject.transform.FindChild("surface").gameObject.GetComponent<MeshRenderer>().enabled =false;

ERRoad.Layer = xxxxxx;
ERRoad.Tag = xxxxx;

Otherwise I have a huge problem with path finding process while player
is constructing a new road piece. (Collider problems)

With those modifications I'm a close enough what I want at this point
to release playable web demo.

EDIT:

Those options should be included to ERRoadType. Since those variables should
be set before any road mesh is settled to terrain. And when baking the road,
the "Baker" itself switches surface.enable variable to on state for baking phase.

 

Hi Jari,

Thank you for the feedback, I will add these options to the runtime API.

I think people also may want to have these options after a road is created so I will add that as well.
Enable White Surfaces is already an edtitor option (meanwhile also added to the API) so these objects will be enabled when building the road network..

Thanks,
Raoul

 

btw.

Could you send these pngs with higher resolution for me.

m_build.png
m_roads.png
m_prefabs.png

I would like use them with a little modified (colors) as player buttons when creating a new road

 

You are just great!

Ok. How about these, which are in the editor anyway (so you have a functions ready for publishing)...

Split a road from a marker. ie:

road.SplitRoad(string splitroadname, string newsplittedpartname, int atmarker);

or

road.SplitRoad(string splitroadname, out string newsplittedpartname, int atmarker);

AND!

road.SetMarkerPosition(Vector3 position, int marker);

And when clicking over mesh, it would be more than nice to peek by my own script:

road.GetClosestMarkerAtMousePos((out string roadname,) out int marker, out Vector3 position);

AND!

Editor have this also, and this is what I need now to get rid off from huge amount of straight road pieces.

road.ControlType = ControlType.straightXZY; (and others too)

 

Those are Inspector icons, I don't think I have higher resolution versions.

Raoul

 

I will extend the API so you can do these things as well.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Just wondering, how much I have to send extra money to you about all of these modifications

Hey. Just noticed about my previous message. That ControlType (spline, straight etc.) should also be inserted for individual markers too (like it is on editor). It helps alot for game runtime building processes. You will see the needs of that on web-demo later...

I'm not even 50% sure, what I can do directly with api, since there isn't manual for it? But you can believe me, that I checked almost every functions from 'roadScript' etc, to find help for my needs. Sometimes there was a workaround available, but researching all functions one by one seems to take 24h/day.

Even complete list of ALL public functions on your software will help (- registration funcs), since then it is much easier to try find a path to do things...

 

That's ok , so far indeed all your requests are similar to options already part of the the Unity Editor functionalty of EasyRoads3D, it shouldn't involve a lot of work. These functions will be part of the API anyway.

ControlType is a marker option and will be implemented in the API accordingly. You can always force the ControlType for newly added markers if you want to include that option in your project but it is not recommended. Straight followed by straight does not look good, you probably want a marker with the spline or circular controller type in between. The circular controller type is being optimized at the moment so the angle at the next marker matches the next segment. At the moment you have to position the next marker manually to achieve that.

At this stage the Unity editor functionality has priority hence why the runtime API isn't documented yet in the manual. All current options indeed can be found in the runtime example script, /Assets/EasyRoads3D/scripts/runtimeScript.cs.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Heh You got it!

I used that straight + spline option with editor for straight road what has angle > aprx.60, since angles bigger than
that "brokes" triangle's order and texture is distorted. So I noticed, if I make a road like:

straight-------------straight-spline-straight-----------straight

I can get nice curve.

But, since I haven't access (yet) to that controller, I couldn't write an automatized code for that behaviour :-(

That circle option sounds promizing.

Yeps. Started from runtimeScript and ended debugging

 

Yes, you could add this as a global road option. When "Straight" is selected you could auto set the next marker automatuically to circular. I may add that as an option to the editor functionality as well. Makes things a little bit easier for, for example, race tracks.

This new functionality of auto positioning the end marker of a circular segment is implemented. For those who are using circular segments and want to test this, please email me or send a PM with your email address. I will send a test build.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Any idea of ETA for "my" add-ons?

Btw. This road system works just fine.

(Terrain vs. road have different path cost values and carriers uses roads only, while other workers must walk over terrain too. End/start point over plain terrain -> have to, costs or not . So, your code is not the only one, what I have to modify/ask mod, to suit my needs. Apex is the other one, since it hasn't prebuild easily usable costs system, but it has suitable API for implementing behaviour myself).

 

Looking good!

This week no beta update will be released. I am currently improving T crossings, support for bending so you can turn it in for example an Y crossing. It is not ready yet. An update will probably follow by the end of next week including your requests.

If you need it urgently I can send you a test build once implemented.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

Y crossing will be very useful! Waiting for the next update...

 

I completely agree for the need of Y crossing.
And maybe...If I may so... some X crossing with 45 degree angle.
But, considering the awsomeness of the work already done,
... we will try to be sober and patient.

 

The bending currently being implemented is more related to the straigth part of the T crossing. Flexible angles on X crossings requires a slightly different approach. It is definitely on the list, I will see if this can be implemented as well for the next beta.

Thank you for trying to be patience! , nearly there...

Raoul

 

It's very cool to see this is still an active project! Are there any type of intersections available as of now? Or is there an eta on that?

 

Hi Makingames,

It definitely is active! There is no ETA for the first public release but everything you see in videos and images in this thread (see the first post) is available in betas which I can send to you if you have an EasyRoads3D Pro license, https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/469 . It won't be too long before 3.0 will be out.

Thanks,
Raoul

 

It's been a long time I'm waiting for version 3! please release it faster.

 

Hi ksam2,

On one side people have requests for more features on the other side people want it released.

V3 could have been released last year, with less features. We chose to wait, implement features we want to be part of v3.0 and make it stable and better. It should be fairly stable now there are just some extra features to add and things for the final release still need to be finished (demo project, more addtional assets, tutorials, updating/improving the manual).

V3 is already available in betas since summer 2014. Are you using the betas? Are you running into issues with the betas? In that case, could you let me know which issues?

Otherwise, is there something specific you are waiting for that is not yet possible?

Thanks,
Raoul

 

hi team,

i bought for support you !

have fun

++++