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