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?
Maybe you can devise a custom gizmo for the spline nodes in your network graph. So each gizmo has an Area3D which monitors for a collider in the intersection nodes, and registers a connection when hovered over said intersection. You give two of the these gizmos to each of your ~~intersection~~ spline nodes for start and end, and you're gucci.
Yeah, I'm trying custom gizmos, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to detect if I'm hovering over a something when committing a handle.