Automatic digging (Original height data saved on first run)
Side Objects (Actors and Meshes) Placement
Snap on terrain
Crosses beetween splines
Swap socket beetween road on cross output
**Road network configuration : **
Dedicated Editor
Auto Crossover
Digging setup for cross (continuity)
Side Objects Setup (Actors and Meshes)
World Composition Compatible
Cross and Spline instance customizable in Editor Runtime
Fully optimized for cooked game (Only actors and meshes)
18 Meshes for starter content (4 side objects), fully textured (except extrude for your landscape material) and 5 LODs for each mesh. A default road network configuration for example.
This looks much better than Epics attempt, and I really like the merging and crossover. Im just wondering if there is the ability to copy the splines, as well as have meshes spawn along the side of the road at set distances? For instance if you wanted to have street lights following a segment of the road, could you automatically have them spawn a certain distance from the center or edge of the road, and have them spaced a certain distance away from eachother? This would be beneficial for stuff like guard rails, lights, sidewalks, ect.
Copy spline not difficult to do, i will do it. For spawn on side of road and cross, yes, both mesh components and actors (with light for example), you will just need to specify sockets for location and of course frequency. (for sidewalks just take a road mesh with sidewalk, works perfectly fine)
It will be release both on marketplace and outside the marketplace, because the tool is almost done in his first version, and for the marketplace, c++ plugins
do not seem to able to be release right away. But of course i will submit my plugin to Epic.
We hope so, we can do a lot of things from this plugin, and affordable for indies.
I forgot to say in the version after the release, we plan to add rivers and bridges, so you will be able to define " side spline " for your guard rails on a road, and activate desactivate on segments because rules and runtime can have different value, even if they share similar attributes at generation. I hope I made ​​myself clear.
Plugin main object is on persitent level. All game objects generated by the plugin belong to the level of the landscape on it. So if you hide a level, it will hide the road and unload height data for the landscape i work with.
If the development is viable for me , version after release will inlude auto bridge rules and side splines. In fact it already support bridge if you disable auto digging for a road family. But you need to have a cross for transition beetween the road and the bridge.
There is a lot of plans for this tool, and openstreetmap data is in, everything about road in fact. For now we focus on release, and next, rivers and bridges with clear editor functionalities. The main goal for now is a designer tool that save a lot of time.
Is this not a god send? The tool looks really smooth and simple to use. Please keep us updated when you implement new features.
I am also working on a road editor tool with OSM integration, however I am using the experience to better understand programming, we will see how far I get and if I publicize my work.
One thing that makes your tool much more useful is for the spline to be snapped to landscape while you move it around instead of raise/lowering landscape when you move it around. So the road would follow the shape of the landscape. Do you think you can include such an option?
Yes, not difficult to do, and useful. Plugin will have a shortcut, when pressed, it will disable digging and snap selected points of a road (or a cross) on the ground when moving, so it will fallow the shape of landscape (Functions are already done because you can disable dig and snap on the terrain, i dont show all in the video). When shortcut is realeased, it will reactivate digging, if auto digging is enable of course.
Does it have the ability to adjust the width of the road mesh at each spline point as well as I want to use more basic stoney countryside roads that have a natural width variance based on local geographical features?
Also will it be able to have different road types branching off different road types whilst still using the seamless spline blending? For example, a smaller gravel track branching off a tarmac road? Without having to fuss on creating a manual junction blend?
If so then day one purchase for me as this is something that I feel should be part of UE4 default engine and if EPIC don’t do it themselves then I’ll gladly pay you to save me the time!
To be honest, i didn’t implement this for now, because scale is for falloff dig, and i didn’t want to deform UV and have strange tilling. And for clean width mesh edition, i will have to implement an other transform widget (1 - Location, 2 - Scale for falloff, 3 - Scale for mesh, and 4 - Rotation). But it is clearly possible to scale the width of the road mesh. If I have time, i will try to implement this.
If i clearly understand, i think what you ask is impossible, because you cannot blend beetween two different meshes that have not same vertices configuration (morph prerequisites is a minimum). For the release video, and default content, i will show what you can do, with one-way road, two-way road, and dual carriageway. And if you merge a one-way with a two-way, the plugin will search a “cross” to link beetween the two differents roads, even if your cross have only two outputs. So if you need to blend beetween a gravel track and a tarmac road, you need a cross in your road network configuration that link this two roads (like i show in the editor picture down on the thread). But you have to do your “blend mesh” just one time. Auto crossover will do the job at each meeting of this situation.
Yes, but Epic is mainly a game studio and they don’t do games that need a road network. But they give us the possibility to do this. So i am happy this plugin to be so useful. Thank you for your good words
Yes i have work to do.