Based on curves

160+ configurable settings at your fingertips.

Check out more high-resolution samples at TheRoadsMustRoll.com

Made for Cycles

"The Roads Must Roll" currently works with Cycles only, as not all materials seem to work with EEVEE.

Current Limitations

Conversion

While it’s possible to convert the road into a mesh and then export it to other software, there are currently some limitations.

For more details, please see the FAQ on our website

All materials with road markings won't properly convert  to a mesh. And most materials are unlikely to successfully convert to another software package.

Material Preview in EEVEE

The Roads Must Roll is designed to be used with the Cycles render engine.
EEVEE is not supported.
Since the 'Material Preview' mode in the 3D viewport relies on the EEVEE render engine, it’s not supported at this time.

Traffic Simulation

You can easily animate cars on each road object individually, with adjustable parameters like the density of cars, their random seed, spacing, and speed. Each road object is based on a single curve. Wheels rotate, and an optional low-poly driver is available.

However, this is not a full traffic simulation, as vehicles do not interact with traffic lights, intersections, or each other. The vehicles are not rigged with a suspension system.

If you want to animate cars driving through an intersection, you will need to do this manually with the included 'Traffic Animation' procedural asset.

Custom Lane Width

The lanes are currently fixed at a width of 3.5 meters (11.48 feet).
I plan to make this adjustable at some point in the future.

Automatic Traffic Junction Creation

Traffic junctions and crossroads are not generated automatically. Instead, you can start with one of the available presets or design your own junction using the procedural assets provided. Each asset can be adjusted in the modifier panel.

Everything included:

Main Road Modifier Highlights

• 170+ adjustable settings
• Switch between a ground road and a bridge with one click
• Roads can go up inclines and down declines
• Supports 1 to 10 lanes
• Optional bike paths, both on the ground and on bridges
• Animate cars and traffic (not a full traffic simulation)
• Vehicle settings like headlights intensity and an optional low poly driver
• Turn on car headlights and street lamps with a single click
• Choose from 6 different parking lane options
• Performance options with proxies for a faster viewport experience
• You can make all materials wet with a single click
• Multiple adjustable settings for the wetness and puddles
• For the 4 main surfaces you have multiple materials to choose from:
  - 3 asphalt materials
  - 19 sidewalk materials
  - 2 concrete materials
  - 8 green strip materials
  
• Use the 'User Material Slots" to use your own textures for the most important materials
• 11 types of bridge pillars
• Control road markings, including yellow stripe options
• Optional crosswalks and bike crossings
• Trees along the roadside
• Various streetlight options
• Overhead signs with customizable panels
• Roadside traffic signs
• Multiple crash barriers to choose from
• Pillars that adapt to your landscape
• Low poly cars available
• Use your own car collection
• Yellow lines option
• Green strips
• Sidewalks
• Optional: generate the white lines on the asphalt as geometry
• Can be rendered with motion blur

Procedural Assets Included

• Bike bridge based on a curve (3 different widths)
• Bike lanes/green strips/sidewalks based on a curve with optional trees
• 4 types of traffic lights with customizable lightboxes
• Crash barriers based on a curve (W-beam or concrete)
• Overhead signs (adjustable width; panels from 3 geographical regions)
• Traffic Animation (up to 10 rows of cars along a curve). This is not a full traffic simulation.
• Pedestrian and grass islands based on a curve
• Road markings (2 types of arrows, icons, words and numbers)
• Asphalt base surface (with or without stripes)
• Zebra/bicycle crossings based on a curve
• White/yellow lines, solid or dashed, on a curve
• Individual pillars
• Overhead pillars
• Traffic signs (for the moment only round)
• Split signs

Vehicles Included

• Astopia Break I
• Astopia Coupe I
• Fiat 238
• Lada 1500
• Toyota Landcruiser FJ60
• Volvo 240

Preset Traffic Junctions Included

• 3 types of 4-way crossroads
• 3 types of 3-way crossroads
• 2 types of roundabouts
• 2 types of bridge on- and off-ramps
• 1 type of ground on- and off-ramps
• 1 giant highway interchange

What's New?

Upcoming: Version 1.50

Release date: To be announced

...

Version 1.40

25 March 2025

Major Updates

• 10 New Bridge Pillars – Choose from 10 new carefully designed pillar types for supporting bridges.

• Motion Blur Now Works! – (Important! For Blender versions before 4.4: Do not enable 'persistent data' when using motion blur due to a known Blender bug.)

• New Intersection Presets – Two roundabouts and a T-junction are now included.

• New Procedural Asset – Create pedestrian and grass islands using a closed curve.

• Low-Poly Proxies for Performance – Use low-poly proxies for vehicles and trees in the viewport while rendering high-poly versions for the final render, significantly improving performance.

• Optimized Texture Workflow – Display low-resolution textures in the viewport while using high-resolution textures in the final render for better efficiency.

• Vehicle Modifier for Better Organization – All vehicle and traffic-related settings are now grouped into a separate modifier. (Do not change the order of modifiers.)

• Adjustable Vehicle Light Intensity – Control the brightness of vehicle lights.

• Separate Light Controls – The global 'lights on' setting has been removed. Instead, lampposts and vehicles now have independent light toggles in their respective menus.

• Animated Vehicle Wheels – Wheels now rotate when vehicles move. (Note: Vehicles are not rigged with suspension.)

• New Low-Poly Drivers – Option to add a low-poly driver inside vehicles.

Other Updates

• Better Randomization Control – Adjust the random seed for 'pick vehicles' and 'distribution over curve' separately for more precise results.

• Improved Traffic Control – More control over the number of vehicles on the road and their spacing.

• Enhanced Low-Poly Vehicle Design – Improved models that can also be used in final renders for a stylized look.

• 5 New Light Intensity Options for Lamp Posts – More flexibility in lighting setups.

• Customizable Traffic Light Poles – Adjust the color of traffic light poles.

• Traffic Light Brightness Control – Set the intensity of traffic lights.

• Optimized Concrete Materials – Improved material efficiency and appearance.

• Better Installation Instructions – Updated text-based setup guide ('unpack resources'). An updated installation video is coming soon.

• Lampposts Placement Control – Define the start and end points for streetlight distribution along a curve.

Version 1.30

16 December 2024

 

• The option to have wet materials with adjustable puddles and other customizable settings
• Expanded material options for all surface types
  - 3 asphalt materials
  - 19 sidewalk materials
  - 2 concrete materials
  - 8 green strip materials
  
• New sidewalk pavement options
  - broken tiles percentage
  - half-offset pattern optional
  - dirty tiles optional
  - utility covers optional
  
• Improved realism in materials
• New materials for damaged surfaces
• The ability to add your own textures
• Continuous traffic flow on preset intersections (not yet a full simulation)
  
• A new procedural asset for traffic: animate vehicles on an independent curve
  
• Numerous small menu improvements
• Performance enhancements for the fully procedural asphalt material
• Super texture resolution option
• Updated procedural assets

Version 1.22

27 September 2024

Version 1.21

22 September 2024

Resolved a minor issue where the diagonal bars on the overhead signs were disappearing.