Road networks are always a hot topic when it comes to Houdini and Procedural modeling and Procedural Environments. Mostly because they are quite complex, laborious to set up by hand, and a fun procedural challenge. So over the last year or so I have been messing around with different ways of creating road networks with road intersections, road lines, sidewalks, props, etc. I should also state that I did watch portions of the Dokai tutorials about road intersections, and though they were great, I wanted to find a different solution that wasn't so performance intensive for the Houdini Engine. Plus we want to take advantage of instancing prefabs and materials within the Game Engine itself. So with my goals in mind, I set out to create my own solution to road networks that can be used in any Houdini, Unity or Unreal project.
Currently the series is on Patreon where I upload a new section as I get through the different components of the road networks. We are on Section 2 right now, and if you are interested in learning how this is done, definitely join us through the making of the entire course!
Join Indie-Pixel on Patreon! - www.patreon.com/indiepixel
Here's a little preview of the system as of Section 2.
The way it works is by looking at the intersections of each curve with the other curves and creating a point at each of those intersections. These points then become the centers of each of the intersections. From there we re-sample the curves and remove the points that are within a radius of a intersection point. Once we have the points removed we find the end points from each road curve to the center of each intersection point and process them into final geometry. Its a very basic explanation of how the intersections are created but gives you a nice high level overview of what is happening in the network.
The plan is to develop the system over the next few months and as I finish each new feature, I record a section and upload it to the Indie-Pixel Patreon site. Once all the sections are complete I will release it as a full course either on Udemy or on Gumroad. But if you want to follow along with the development of the system and see how everything is set up, step by step, then definitely check out the Patreon page! The next section will cover how we do the lines of the road, and then the next tasks are to develop sidewalks, signs, and props.
Let me know what cha think! Thanks so much! :-)
Kenny