[Free] Simple Road Tool

Hi,

I created a small road tool some while ago. However, because of a bug in the current (and maybe some future) releases of the engines code for Linux I am unable to use UE4 at the moment. Nevertheless I remembered this small blueprint and thought It could be useful for other people too.

The main Idea behind it was to create an actor network which could be used on anything, not just terrains, but to be able to create crossroads and other types of intersections on any kind of mesh. The blueprint is kinda messy but it can do the following things:

Features

  • Create plain road
  • Randomly use different road meshes (for example broken road bits)
  • The ability to change the percentage of randomness
  • Add “End Meshes” like crossroads
  • Add new “linked” road-actors to this “End Meshes” via a Bluetility script
  • Connect a road actor to a specified socket of an “End Mesh”
  • Connect the start of a road actor to a specified Socket of an “End Mesh”
  • Align spline points to the underlying ground (via traces)
  • Change influence size of the road when applying to landscape
  • Apply road to selected landscape (only one per landscape)
  • Use a landscape-material where the road is applied

Of cause there are bugs:

  • Applying to landscape sometimes creates strange hightmap “scratches” (seems to be an blueprint/engine bug)
  • When connecting to an “End Mesh” the incoming spline is strangely deformed (you’ll have to play with the tangent length to fix that)

Things you’ll have to do to get it working:

  1. Move the .uasset file somewhere withing your content folder in your project directory. For example /Path/To/Your/Project/Folder/Content/Blueprints/Tools/
  2. Make some own street meshes and export them (or download the example Blender-file for reference
  3. Replace the following meshes in the variables with your own: StreetMesh/SplineMeshComponent EndMesh/CrossMesh

Technical information:
The “EndMeshes” should have their 0,0,0 (origin) at the location where the parent spline should be connected. I Included a Blender file in the attachment for you so you can have a look how I designed some of my roads.

For the people who are wondering. The tool is in the .zip within the attachment. You should be able to copy the .uasset into your project.

Other Stuff
I also prepared a small video to show you the intended workflow/some options you have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31SIyEPOen4

Here are some pictures of a road network I made with it. The network uses usually two types of roads. One for the “soon to be” city. And one for the countryside. I also made bridges, some off-road tracks and walls. I was inspired by TDU2 which I liked for the big road network and the social interaction.

Pictures:

Thanks for reading and happy using!
If you like the tool and want to give something back, have a look at my CGTrader page. Maybe you like one of my scanned models or textures.

-Siebencorgie

2 Likes

waiting for the video :slight_smile:

Added the video to the main post.

This looks awesome cannot wait to use this :smiley:

looks awesome, thanks for sharing it!! I surely will make use of it

Hello - I am very interested in giving this road tool a go, to see how well it will work for our project. However, I’m unclear as to where EXACTLY the .uasset file is supposed to be placed. In the video, your content browser window shows a folder within Content, labeled ‘Blueprints’, then a sub-folder labeled ‘Tools’, and yet another that is labeled ‘Rapid Road Tools’. I have tried 3 or 4 different options to have the .uasset file show up in the editor, but so far, no success.

I know very little about computer tech; just enough to be dangerous :slight_smile: So any assistance you can provide is appreciated!

Hi,

you’ll have to place the .uasset somewhere within your “content” folder within you project for example: \Path\To\You\Project\Folder**\Content\Blueprints**
The folder structure you see in the content-browser is mostly the stuff below “Content”. A thing you’ll have to do as well for better user experience is to replace the meshes from the variables End Mesh/CrossMesh and Street Mesh/SplineMesh with your own meshes.

However, I’ll add a Blender scene with some example meshes so you can see how they should be build. Just give me a moment :slight_smile:

I added some more information about the setup of the tool. I also added a Blend file to the attachment so you can have a look how I did my street meshes for that tool. Have fun using it!

Hello Again - Thank you for your quick response to my query. However, I am still not able to get the .uasset file to show up. I created a ‘blueprints’ folder in Contents, then a ‘Tools’ folder within ‘blueprints’. I extracted the .uasset directly into the Tools folder, but it does not show up when I start up the editor again. I’m currently using 4.12 and 4.13. Is it compatible with these two versions?

This looks excellent! Is this compatible with 4.14?

Thank you for sharing this! Great starter point for me as I’m wondering how to deal with roads in my upcoming project. Much better than default engine stuff, devs should pick on this, improve and incorporate it to engine, terrain without roads is just terrain…

+1000 for picking up by epic devs and improving it

That could be the problem. I am using 4.14. Maybe you try that version. You also don’t need to create the blueprints folder. You should be able to place the asset anywhere you want within the Content folder.

Haven’t looked at the code yet but would be great to fuse a road tool with the OpenStreetMap plugin to generate real roads and be able to edit them. That would be mega!

Its more like an simple blueprint and by no means professional. But I think it could be possible to translate different points in the OSM data to spline points and cross roads to “EndMeshes”. Than an algorithms just have to connect all the “EndMeshes” to the nearest spline points.

Really nice tool!

THX for sharing :smiley:

Made a post at my blog :slight_smile:

One of the files is 92.1 KB, the other is 111.2 KB!? Do you have all the models and the textures? (I’m sorry for my bad english.)

The smaller one is the .uasset. The bigger one is the Blend-file. However there are no textures included. The textures I use are for selling on CGTrader, so I can’t publish them for free.

May i use the models and bp to create tutorial content in C++ for ue4?

Sure! If you use it and you remember me, let me know where I can find the tutorial :slight_smile: would love to see what people do with it.