So I’ve been working on this concept for a bit. The goal here is to make my game’s terrain and roads in-engine, so that geometry, object spawns, traffic paths, and such are generated automatically. I’m posting this both because I wanted to share this, and to get opinions and advice.

Spoiler: more pics

Current challenge:
I have restarted this a couple times, trying different approaches. For the current iteration I have decided that I need to build the foundation properly before I bring in anything from the above screenshots.

The foundation:

The idea is to create a network of path and intersection nodes, to which I can add modifiers, such as road generator, mesh deform, or object spawn. Managing connections via editor tree became a pain very fast.

Now I need to figure out how to connect these easily, preferably via the viewport, by just dragging the path handle over the intersection handle. Any tips?

  • BezierOP
    1•9 months ago

    Thanks. I actually tried Area3D, but it wasn’t ideal.

    • I had to turn on physics in the editor.
    • Enter/exit are called when loading and saving the scene, and when moving either node.
    • It’s not enough if the areas line up in viewport, since it’s a 2D representation of a 3D scene.

    Why distinct intersection nodes?
    This division seems the most sensible option for geometry generation. Intersection stuff is contained in one node instead of being divided between all connected paths, and path modifiers are also simpler, because they only have to care about the path.

    • FeyterM
      2•9 months ago

      I mean the workaround would be to have something like a Array defined as an export variable and “drag and drop” the nodes you want to connect in the inspector?

      But I think you already had something like this in place?

      • BezierOP
        2•9 months ago

        That was the initial approach, but finding the node in the list became way too much effort very quickly.

    • FeyterM
      2•9 months ago

      Ok I guess we are talking about the same idea here. Having one node that handles “connection” and a different note handling the course of the street.

      I would only argue that a connection with only on road connected should be able to exist in order to create a dead end. But don’t know if this would make sense for your specific gameplay.

      I’m sorry I can’t help you any further here, but maybe someone else will have an idea.

      • BezierOP
        2•9 months ago

        You mean capping dead ends like this?

        spoiler

        It’s not really an issue, since adding an intersection is (supposed to be) easy, and I’d have it there regardless if I wanted to generate land patches around it, like in the post image.

        Thanks anyway, though!