Making a road /UVing them

[frozenfire2]

since there are no road tools in UE3 like those in Cryengine sandbox.

What are you guys' best way to make a road and align the UV nicely.
Currently , I manually import them as static meshes using 3DMax and UV them there.

Does anybody have a better way to do it with brushes without external applications?

[gannonroader]

Theres some examples of roads in the editor, and they're just planes with a road texture on it that can be pieced together seamlessly. I'm guessing it's just a plane that's uv'd in max

[mslaf]

Currently , I manually import them as static meshes using 3DMax and UV them there.

I think it would be the fastest option. You can create a base terrain/ground, then export it as e reference to max to model the road more precisely.

Another solution I could think of - technically similar to the one in sandbox - , would be to use another terrain mesh on top of the base terrain. However aligning or matching them could be time consuming operation.

[JoshuaC]

The Cryengine 2 is very specialized. It can do 3 things really good. Large open areas, Trees, And roads. For anything else it's very lacking.

Personally I'd keep with what you're doing.

[ThePriest909]

Second on Mslaf's and JoshuaC's opinion.
I would create a road simply by shaping a terrain layer. But if you want to make asphalt roads with marks and all that stuff I would go the 3ds Max way.
As for CryEngine... The only one who shouldn't be fired by its development team is the guy who makes the shaders. The rest of the CryEngine is a big waste of time and computer power.

[Springare]

you could use texture masks and paint roads if you want.

[frozenfire2]

thing with UVing the road manually with 3dsmax means a separate mesh for each piece of road, and with many many different curve/angles for road means many many different static meshes. I'm hoping there's a better way. Not very feasible for a 'road-rich' environment .

you could use texture masks and paint roads if you want.

I've thought of this. but exactly how do you paint with 'direction', like the white lines on the road , it has to point towards certain direction. Because i'm not just painting the black tar part, I need the white lines too

[Thurman]

How is your topology? Do you have a flat terrain or variations in height?

[musilowski]

Where are the roads located? A city, wastelands, desert, forest, or? You could simply skip the road paints if the context allows you to.

For a new city environment this obviously isn't an option. But when thinking of a barren forest road, most of the time I don't even notice its missing the white and yellow stripes.

[gannonroader]

thing with UVing the road manually with 3dsmax means a separate mesh for each piece of road, and with many many different curve/angles for road means many many different static meshes. I'm hoping there's a better way. Not very feasible for a 'road-rich' environment .



I've thought of this. but exactly how do you paint with 'direction', like the white lines on the road , it has to point towards certain direction. Because i'm not just painting the black tar part, I need the white lines too

Theres an example of road in the udk. It's one plane, with a texture, and pieces together seamlessly. It seems pretty easy, other than finding a texture that pieces together so well.

[Dregoloth]

You could try decals over you're terrain, but I'm not quite sure what the memory footprint would be since I've only dabble with them

[jaLAlaBA]

As for CryEngine... The only one who shouldn't be fired by its development team is the guy who makes the shaders. The rest of the CryEngine is a big waste of time and computer power.

Cant agree with that, it does well what it was meant to do, large nature environments with lush vegetation and some buildings.
Yes i agree that CE2 was not very good for city environments like UE but that will change too with CE3 and C2.

Also i tried to recreate one map in UDK i made in CE2 and to be honest, CE2 runs a lot more smoother and with higher framerate while having more tris and objects on screen and also looking whole lot better.

On topic: I am also plannin roads on my map but I dont think that making country roads/gravel and such) as separate mdoelswould be either good looking or sensible idea? How about decals?

[maxicod]

For me the solution was modelling a 2X4 plane, then uvmaping it and made a concrete texture in photoshop
These are the results:

I still need to make variations of the road like courves and slopes

[ThePriest909]

Cant agree with that, it does well what it was meant to do, large nature environments with lush vegetation and some buildings.
Yes i agree that CE2 was not very good for city environments like UE but that will change too with CE3 and C2.

Also i tried to recreate one map in UDK i made in CE2 and to be honest, CE2 runs a lot more smoother and with higher framerate while having more tris and objects on screen and also looking whole lot better.

Every engine requires a different way of doing things. So trying to recreate a level you 've made in a different engine is not really expected to work the same way. I've came through 4 different engines to learn that the hard way.
CE is a very nice looking engine but it lucks a great deal of performance optimizations, in my opinion.

Now... On topic... Especially for the gravel kind of roads, I would strongly recommend using the base-terrain for the job. Give it the right shape and paint it.

[VinnieMc]

I also tend to disagree with your statement on CE2.
If you looked at CE2's texture system and seen how it adjusts texture use, depending on the rig it is running on, you would know that CE2's optimization techniques even running on low end machines runs smoothly...
I have worked on both UT3/UDN and CE2 and the more I delve into the differences in them the more CE2 seems to push ahead of UDN.
The tools and special functions in CE2 far surpass anything the UDN has to offer. The lip sync and FaceFx alone on the CE2 engine blows away what the UDN offers.
Character editor,vehicle editor, weapons editor...Making roads/rivers are just clicks away.
No rebuilding levels for any little change.(WYSIWYG).
The environments and overall look of CE2 far surpasses what the UDN offers and with no real time lighting for day/night cycles is just plain "lacking".
The UDN does have a great mesh import system and is easier to import models into the UDN engine but so far that seems to be the only plus over CE2 that I have encountered over the past year or so...


VinnieMc

[ThePriest909]

Guys there's a major difference between a game engine editor and the game engine itself. When I refer to CE I'm not talking about its editor.

[frozenfire2]

guys thanks for all the feedback, i THINK i've finally got an idea of how to make this work and a very neat innovation on this. I'll post something in WIP as soon as I got some time on my hands

[jaLAlaBA]

Now... On topic... Especially for the gravel kind of roads, I would strongly recommend using the base-terrain for the job. Give it the right shape and paint it.

How does this method works exaclty, could you explain a bit

[BloodReyvyn]

I think he means to just paint an asphalt/concrete/road texture on the terrain, which is what I would suggest.

For the lines, you could have various masked materials (Straight, Curved 90, Curved 45, etc.) and either Decal them onto the terrain or make them static mesh planes and set them 1 UU up off of the terrain so that they can be culled for performance.

[ali rafaty]

cryengine 2 it's the best in making fps game and when cryengine 3 coming....

[ali rafaty]

cryengine 2 it's the best for making fps game and when cryengine 3 coming....

[Xendance]

No rebuilding levels for any little change.(WYSIWYG).

Now that is completely false, or haven't you ever built ground textures/sky accessibility in Cry Engine 2 editor?
High quality build takes hours.

[KazeoHin]

For pete's sake, Stop this Cry/Unreal bickering.

Also:

Use Spline-loft actors on a road Static mesh then build blocking volumes. Simple as that.

[Xendance]

Btw, does the spine-loft actor bend the static meshes too? Or do you have to use short road smeshes so that the road can bend without any noticeable corners?

[KazeoHin]

I'm sure Spline-loft actors are designed to bend static meshes. So long as your road mesh has enough verts, the bend should be smooth.

[Havoc89]

I've made a fairly complex dirt road with lots of twists turns and forks using decals. Only really 3 decals (fade at one end, middle, fade at the other end) Works pretty well though it is a pain staking solution. It does have some fairly good results. Although I dont think it would be a good idea to use them for paved roads, for that I think it would be best to create the geometery in a 3d app, UV it and then export it into the engine.

Here is what my decal roads look like, I've emphasized them a little bit so you can see them. Hope it helps.

[Fartuess]

I guess you can create roads with base straight road model (with more edge rings across model) and spline tool (look creeper branches on building in GDC map)

[frozenfire2]

ahh took me a while before I got back doing this road thingy. I've found to make very nice road , and good performance, totally without any imported mesh. Not sure if anybody might find this useful, but it sure would help me if someone would have taught me this earlier.

I'm not aware of any easier way to do this. So if there is, please advise. So here's my way.

Fully BSP-based


Easy to UV. Lines seamlessly continues


Nice and Smooth Curves




So how to make the road?
Use the Curved Stairs as builder brush.
Set Step height to 0 ( this is important so the road won't rise )
Set Add to First Step, this would determine the thickness of your road
To adjust how SHARP You want your road corner to be adjust the 'Inner Radius'. More values means a less sharp corner. 0 Means a 90 degree turn.

Normally for roads, I find it nice if you use subtract BSP to cut into the shape of the ground, making the side higher and becomes a sidewalk automatically. Alternatively you can add static mesh on the sides as well.

So there you go.

[danimal']

If you're going to do flat roads, I don't think that's a very good solution both in terms of quality/control and performance. I agree with the original responses. If that's the kind of track you want, you can just make a straight piece and a bent piece, UV and texture, and then just instance it everywhere. It will perform much, much better. It also has the benefit of allowing you to hand draw/customize it, allowing you to get a much nicer piece of road than using BSP.

The real issue is if you want to do a fully 3d, twisting track (e.g., Wipeout), which makes doing "stock pieces" much, much more difficult. But if you primarily just want largely flat roads, definitely do it via meshes and instancing. Taking the cryengine bait, all you ever really have to ask a cryfanboy is this: if cryengine really is better, why do studios keep licensing unreal over crysis, it's not like they don't know about crytek... do you really think that people who do this for a living haven't investigated both engines in detail, the tools, etc, and are consistently choosing an inferior product at such a high price? If you do think that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you.

[Hboybowen]

ahh took me a while before I got back doing this road thingy. I've found to make very nice road , and good performance, totally without any imported mesh. Not sure if anybody might find this useful, but it sure would help me if someone would have taught me this earlier.

I'm not aware of any easier way to do this. So if there is, please advise. So here's my way.

Fully BSP-based


Easy to UV. Lines seamlessly continues


Nice and Smooth Curves




So how to make the road?
Use the Curved Stairs as builder brush.
Set Step height to 0 ( this is important so the road won't rise )
Set Add to First Step, this would determine the thickness of your road
To adjust how SHARP You want your road corner to be adjust the 'Inner Radius'. More values means a less sharp corner. 0 Means a 90 degree turn.

Normally for roads, I find it nice if you use subtract BSP to cut into the shape of the ground, making the side higher and becomes a sidewalk automatically. Alternatively you can add static mesh on the sides as well.

So there you go.

visually it works dunno about performance we shall see though thnx for sharing this

[freek3d]

any particular reason you watn to do it in BSP?

becouse it would probably be far easier (and more efficient )
to create a simpe tileset of roads in 3DS max or maya?

next to that you could add a simple tileset of pieces of kirb.
(so the road is no elevated,)
this will make the roads look better.
and it wil allow for curvy roads. and with higher centre like most roads have.

also static meshes run a bit lighter.

so if you are not scared of modelling, i'd do that.
(although you did emphasise without any meshes...)

anyway hope it is of some use.

greetings F

[frozenfire2]

If you're going to do flat roads, I don't think that's a very good solution both in terms of quality/control and performance. I agree with the original responses. If that's the kind of track you want, you can just make a straight piece and a bent piece, UV and texture, and then just instance it everywhere. It will perform much, much better. It also has the benefit of allowing you to hand draw/customize it, allowing you to get a much nicer piece of road than using BSP.

May I politely disagree with that, Danimal and allow me to defend my implementation. Flat roads can be flats, but they can contain many different degrees of curves and bend in a real wold example. I've tried stock modelling the roads , I realized 2 issues.

1) Making road in 3D Meshes actually creates road that is elevated from the ground. I'm not sure how to explain this, basically they're ADDITIVE, you can't make them subtractive ( sinking into the ground ). To give the visual of sidewalk, either you have to tile another whole bunch of sidewalks at the side or; model the road together with the sidewalk, which will be much more messier when you have sidewalks of different size.

2) Meshes Road is also not very flexible. Flat roads has its fair share of flexibility. Let me explain, I am targeting a close-to-real City/Urban look in my map and I realized that real cities have roads with different angle bending. Let's look at one reference of a city map and see how many types of bend/curves there is.




you see, with meshes, I find it hard to tilt the road to make 'less than 90 degrees curve' or even a small curve/bend. As a result . my whole city becomes like a grid.

You see. Even small bend gives me trouble. See the pic below.

Cannot Tilt


Cannot Bend


I'm not saying it couldn't be done with meshes. but it's going to need a lot of different bend/curves pieces and then what about sidewalk?

As for this method I'm posting I can customize the degree of bending, the length of bend, even the SEGMENTS for the bend, the depth of the sidewalk. All in the editor itself.

[Pmt3ddy]

I think you can model all sorts of roads by using the spline and lathe tool on 3ds max. That way it's also easy to adjust road heights and whatever else you need.

But needles to say, it wont be easy sticking it onto a terrain or fitting road peaces seamlessly.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ9V3Y0GElo Found this Spline road modeling tutorial on youtube, It's very helpful.

[danimal']

May I politely disagree with that, Danimal and allow me to defend my implementation.

Yes you may!

Flat roads can be flats, but they can contain many different degrees of curves and bend in a real wold example.

Right, which is why I prefaced my comments with "if that's the kind of track you want". Your initial example was only a simple L-curve. As I already said, the real issue is if you want a fully 3d track with numerous angles and slopes, but since you only showed a simple L-curve, that is what I was responding to and there's no reason to do a simple L-curve with BSP.

I've tried stock modelling the roads , I realized 2 issues.

1) Making road in 3D Meshes actually creates road that is elevated from the ground. I'm not sure how to explain this, basically they're ADDITIVE, you can't make them subtractive ( sinking into the ground ). To give the visual of sidewalk, either you have to tile another whole bunch of sidewalks at the side or; model the road together with the sidewalk, which will be much more messier when you have sidewalks of different size.

Very easy to address with meshes. 1) Lower your terrain around the road, and now it's "sunken in". 2) Make the sidewalk PART of your road mesh, that way it's always rising above the road, matches the roads contour and doesn't have to be placed separately. I would do #2. Subtractive levels are a nightmare, I'd really, really re-think doing that.

2) Meshes Road is also not very flexible . . .
you see, with meshes, I find it hard to tilt the road to make 'less than 90 degrees curve' or even a small curve/bend. As a result . my whole city becomes like a grid.

First, in the end there's really not much of a difference between manipulating vertices via the Geometry Mode on BSP, and manipulating them in a 3d program (frankly its easier in a 3d program). All BSP is, is a mesh. You're still pushing/pulling vertices. Unfortunately, BSP runs far less efficiently than a static mesh and allows for a LOT less control/quality.

Second, I appreciate the "examples", but they're kind of comical. Yes we all know 2 flat pieces don't create a curve... no one's suggesting you use completely straight pieces for curved sections. There's several methods to EASILY bend an otherwise straight piece of geometry. As mentioned, you can deform a piece of geometry with a spline (curve). Also, virtually every 3d program has a "bend" deformer as well. Simply bend your straight piece in to whatever shape you desire.

The work flow is this: create a straight piece of road, with sidewalks as part of the mesh if you so choose. UV it, texture it. Then simply deform it into a curved shape using either a spline or a bend deformer as needed. This way you really only create the mesh once then simply bend it for each subsequent copy, and re-use it where possible. Use snapping options to get the pieces to snap together properly. In the end you'd only end up making 1 mesh that, again, can be a MUCH higher quality than the BSP and will run more efficiently.

Ultimately, you can do what you want, but subtractive mode has some severe limitations and BSP won't look very good and won't perform very well in the larger scheme of things.

[frozenfire2]

I think I'm being slightly misunderstood. I am not making a 'subtractive' levels. But the I made the road with Subtractive brushes. The Main ground is additive. and the road pieces are subtractive.

Again, I agree there are 1001 ways to create bend meshes in 3D Application. But my point being is, a city will contain many degrees of bending. And unless you find a way to bend them IN the editor itself. You are going to have to import a massive amount of roads with different bending degree.

I completely understand your mode of implementation as mentioned in your workflow. But my main concern about the entire method is , I don't want to have to import like 20 different type of road bending and connectors ( which I know is based on 1 MESH in your 3D Application ).

So any way for me to bend the road slightly using Mesh? Really it's not the big bends that worry , it's the tiny 5-10 degrees bend. Refer to comical example 2, as comical as they are, with limited number of roads pieces, you literally get nightmares trying to make them seamless.

[Xendance]

I think I'm being slightly misunderstood. I am not making a 'subtractive' levels. But the I made the road with Subtractive brushes. The Main ground is additive. and the road pieces are subtractive.

Again, I agree there are 1001 ways to create bend meshes in 3D Application. But my point being is, a city will contain many degrees of bending. And unless you find a way to bend them IN the editor itself. You are going to have to import a massive amount of roads with different bending degree.

I completely understand your mode of implementation as mentioned in your workflow. But my main concern about the entire method is , I don't want to have to import like 20 different type of road bending and connectors ( which I know is based on 1 MESH in your 3D Application ).

So any way for me to bend the road slightly using Mesh? Really it's not the big bends that worry , it's the tiny 5-10 degrees bend. Refer to comical example 2, as comical as they are, with limited number of roads pieces, you literally get nightmares trying to make them seamless.

Use spline loft actors. That way you can bend the roads in any way you like with static meshes.

[frozenfire2]

Ahh okay. I'll take a bit of look at that.

EDIT : I have been looking it in UDN for a while. Haven't actually try it. But I foresee some challenges in the featureset

No collision. The spline system does not currently deform the mesh's collision along the spline.
No interpolation between spline segments of world-up.
No tiling of meshes. Each segment of spline will stretch a single mesh from beginning to end.
All meshes begin and end at the SplineLoftActors that make up that segment. It is not possible to control the position of the mesh along the spline.

will try it when I get the time to

[danimal']

I think I'm being slightly misunderstood. I am not making a 'subtractive' levels. But the I made the road with Subtractive brushes. The Main ground is additive. and the road pieces are subtractive.

My bad, I misunderstood that

I completely understand your mode of implementation as mentioned in your workflow. But my main concern about the entire method is , I don't want to have to import like 20 different type of road bending and connectors ( which I know is based on 1 MESH in your 3D Application ).

That's up to you, it's a quality thing. BSP looks worse and runs worse. I find it somewhat mind boggling to choose to do that over "having to hit the Import button 20 times", but it's your time, not mine and only you can know how to best spend it

Really it's not the big bends that worry , it's the tiny 5-10 degrees bend. Refer to comical example 2, as comical as they are, with limited number of roads pieces, you literally get nightmares trying to make them seamless.

To me, it's so easy just to make a "10 degree turn" piece, a "20 degree turn piece", etc etc and just use them as "joints" between your straight piece. There really are a very limited amount of degree/turn angles on that map, like maybe 10 if I'm being overly cautious? So I'd have to import 1 straight piece, and 10 "joints" of various degrees that are really just slightly modified copies of each other. The work would be really minimal, the importing minimal, and you'd forever have a completely modular street system of much higher quality. You seem happy with your system though, so just go for it, everyone has different goals and priorities when making stuff.

[sirtoggle]

you can also convert BSP into a static mesh.