Best practices for creating roadways on terrain

Unity Engine
1

I have to create (in real world terms), 1 square mile of terrain, with roadways on top.

I assume I need to make the terrain perfectly flat, where the roadways are going. Do I just create a mesh for the roadway system?

Any help or advice would be fantastic.

Thanks,
Adam

2

I’d say thats the best bet… Maybe export the terrain and model a road using that as a template then take a height map from the road, combine that with the heightmap of the unity terrain and apply that back on to the terrain in Unity with a model of just the road ontop, maybe apply the decal shader that draws pollys slightly infront of the terrain to the road.

A bit of photoshop work combining the height map and road heightmap could smooth the terrain where it meets the road.

(Just an idea, I dont really know if thats possible)

kinl

3

My untested advice (still getting Unity down, but this has worked in other engines):

  1. Create a heightmap image of your rough terrain.
  2. Using Photoshop ‘cut’ your roads in by laying out squares and fill coloring. (you can gradient color to get a angle up or down).

Depending on the tesselation of your terrain, stopping here and just painting the terrain will probably yield poor results.

So:

  1. Create your roadway models either as pieces or by getting this heightmap into Maya and making the roadway mesh to match.

  2. Put it all it Unity and clean up / add more detail to the terrain, etc.

Hope this helps

:slight_smile:
Sumner

BTW - any easier workflows are more than welcome!