Time for a fresh thread, I think. NOTE; If you are looking for a release of this map, This version will not be out for some time. HOWEVER, The current release is still up at the original thread; http://www.beamng.com/threads/foothill-mines-v3.12517/ Now, With that out of the way, Lets see a few of the new things I added; Above is a closeup of a brand new section of the map. Originally intended to be a port-like area, its now more of a small industrial complex. Here is another, not so clear image of the industrial complex. With most of the new addition covered, Time for some of whats from V3 you can expect to see in V4; The all so familiar spawn area. The place where your truck is greeted with a rude awakening(I still have not figured out how to adjust the spawn area. Sorry guys, Ctrl. R is all I can say for that right now .) The Can Opener bridge. It actually opens trucks now since I lowered it, although its more than just a little scratch on the top of the truck... I will be posting more screenshots soon. Between v3 and v4, I have changed and added a few things; The start town has been slightly adjusted, with the positioning of a few buildings being moved. I added in clouds, which are an interesting touch to the terrain I think I added in a TimeOfDay object so now I can set a time cycle for the map. One thing to note; The roads are hard to see at night with headlights on, mainly due to how bumpy they are and the angles the roads are at, and thats the main reason as to why I didnt add it sooner. watch this video and you will see what I mean by visibility; Work on smoothing the roads out; The roads, as anyone who has used V3 knows, are not really vehicle friendly. its really hard to control anything other than the T75 on these roads. I have worked a bit to try and smooth out some of the roads, but at this point none of the terrain smoothing tools really want to work here. More roads; I added in 2 trails, and the industrial complex to the map. All the new paved roads are down by the industrial complex, and the trails are located by the industrial complex and by the cave next to the can opener bridge. Current Credits; BeamNG.Drive devs. for the use of the default textures, buildings, Trees, and smallgrid map(As a base for this map) DoullPepper for the Canyon of Speed textures.(His map is really great too, Go check it out!) And credit to all who have assisted me in the testing of this map. And of-course, more credits to be listed as I develop this map. Here is another video of the map so you can see what I have done; I will list some more videos soon. If you want to see more screenshots I can provide some, and also the V3 thread has a couple videos. Want to help on this terrain? Here are a few things I will need/need help with; *More static objects(The stock buildings are good but there are not enough of them.) **UPDATE; I have found quite a few static objects over the last couple weeks, And have received the permission to use them.** *Packing the terrain into a .ZIP file; I need a bit of a refresher course on this since I have not packed a terrain since like March or April.**UPDATE: I have figured out how to pack terrains again! Thanks to my friends for helping me out with this!** If you have an idea for the map that you do not see in either the V3 thread and version or this version, Feel free to post it!
Added some videos to the first post. I will have more in the next few days, as I work on the map more.
If anyone here is willing, I would like if someone could help me with static objects. I would appreciate it if anyone here has some spare time to make a few fitting static objects I could add in another update to this map. Road signs, and anything you think might be fitting. Im not desperate for it, but if you want to contribute, you can, and it would be greatly appreciated. And sorry for chain posting here, but no real activity is here to break up my posts a bit.
Im working on adding in more vegetation and more textures. As of this moment I am trying to fight off a cold so its really hard to get work done on this terrain D: I will update this post tonight with pictures and possibly gameplay video with the new textures and vegetation!
I am currently waiting for a reply from my friend to see if my terrain works correctly in BeamNG. This terrain will not load on my old laptop, which is still running .3.7.7, so until I get the O.K from my friend that the terrain loads error free, I wont be putting the release up. I will try to upload a few more pics today though.
The OP mentions that you need a refresher on how to pack the terrain. What are you rusty on? the folder structure inside the .zip should be ./levels/your_level_name/* I use 7z (free / open-source) to get the lowest filesize. WinZIP (pay-for) would also work. In 7z I create a new archive with these settings: zip/Ultra/Deflate/dictionary=32KB/wordsize=258
WHen I last packed the terrain was in like march or April based on my files for the older versions. I know the structure still, but the game saves files all over the place when you use the terrain editor. These files must be packed into the terrain's folder before it will work. A ton of paths also need to be updated aswell each time I use a new thing like a static object or a texture. AND everything needs to be in the folder. I am positive I have packed it right, but since I cant test the release with my laptop due to it not loading the .forest file when I play with the map on the old .3.7.7 version(And since I dont want to update that version through steam quite yet,) I have to make sure the map loads properly. I could put a beta up here, but since I have been having issues with the forum's attatchment system, I would need to use my Google Drive to host the file. I will look into 7zip, Since I do not like to put stuff on my Google Drive, although I am used to using WinRAR for packing and unpacking stuff.
I have used WinRAR and it is a fine tool as well. I do not own a WinRAR license and I am happy with 7zip, but you don't necessarily need to switch if WinRAR is giving you comparable results. I'd install 7zip and check to be sure. Your paths being out of whack and folders being everywhere indicate that you're "doing it wrong". Easy to do right now with the lack of documentation so far. You should be doing your map development in the \BeamNG.drive\levels\your_level_name_here\ directory. Everything should stay in that directory and play nicely (*.mis, *.ter, *.forest, *.prefab, etc). As you add static objects or textures which you need to distribute with your level they should be placed inside the \BeamNG.drive\levels\your_level_name_here\art\-whatever-\ folders. Importing or exporting terrain heightmaps & terrain texture layers can still cause "files all over the place" or get a little tricky. Just using the terrain editor once your level folder is setup correctly should definitely NOT cause files all over the place.
I understand that everything needs to be in the level directory When I save the level, I get a few files in the BeamNG folder under 'levels' There are the updated files for that session I saved, which I check for path errors. Then I copy the file for my terrain which is in the mods section and paste it to a folder in my desktop, then I move the updated files I found saved in my BeamNG folder over to the terrain folder I copied to my desktop, then I package it and upload it. Thats what I did with this last package I sent over to my friend to test. And its how I think I did it when I released the first versions of the terrain a few months ago. All my static objects load correctly as far as I can tell when I tested the map on my laptop which is running .3.7.7. I am wondering what the .prefab prefix is for. Always have placed my objects as static objects, not prefabs. Really what has gotten me in the past are file path errors, and the saved files being in a separate location from my terrain. I got an interesting error from my friend today, apparently he cant load the .zip by just dropping it into his mods section. And the .zip he used was packed with the proper structure to be loaded by the game automatically. (I always unpack my mods since the loader never seems to work correctly for me.)
... with all due respect, I don't think you entirely followed the point of that post. ;-) You should not be doing your level development in the \mods\ directory. That's causing you extra trouble. You seem to be saying that you are currently saving/keeping/working-on your terrain here: C:\Users\your_name\Documents\BeamNG.drive\mods\levels\your_level\your_level.ter I am recommending that you do those things here: C:\Users\your_name\Documents\BeamNG.drive\levels\your_level\your_level.ter Note that I'm recommending that you not develop inside the mods folder. Everything my level needs is somewhere inside \BeamNG.drive\levels\my_level\, when it's time for me to package the level I simply add the \levels\ folder to a zip and I'm done. There are no path errors during my development process - BeamNG doesn't get confused if you are working directly out of the \levels\ directory. Development can be done other ways, but it just causes more trouble! This is a little pedantic, but FYI anyway: prefix.whatever.suffix - therefore .prefab is a suffix, not a prefix. .prefabs are used for scenarios, they describe the location of all objects added for the scenario. Take a look here for more info: Introduction to scenarios creation. It's a great tutorial, but it's worth noting that Scepheo and I have both noticed that the instruction "IMPORTANT >> Before you Repack it's important to delete [...]" is unnecessary and just causes extra grief (see page 2).
My saved files are saving to the right directory; C:\Users\your_name\Documents\BeamNG.drive\levels\your_level\(the files are here) My level is in the directory C:\Users\your_name\Documents\BeamNG.Drive\mods\levels\foothills Reason for it being unpacked is I had recovered it from a previous packing of the terrain and I am used to unpacking my files. Doesnt change anything other than it being in a levels subfolder rather than a .zip. My level's saved files are in; C:\Users\your_name\Documents\BeamNG.Drive\levels\foothills I can follow your instructions and get the same results you are when packing the terrain. My only concern at this point is the .forest file. Once I can get positive feedback saying that the game loads the terrain correctly with the forest, then I will be able to provide a release here. Sorry if I sound ignorant or anything, I am trying to understand your posts and give an explanation as to what I am doing.
Also, IF you can answer this, I am currious as to how I should go about adding/creating road textures and decals for my terrain. I have already added in textures from other maps, and after updating the paths for the files, I have little to no errors with the files. But what about creating a texture? Whats needed?
Chiming in here, I do all map work in the main content/levels location for exactly the reasons Torsion states. Sure, it takes a bit more to keep track of things but it certainly beats trying to goose chase damn materials issues all day long and it gives me 100% control of what I am doing. JMHO.
I am completely lost as to what you guys are trying to tell me. Am I set up properly? My level, is in my mods section. This is just like if I were to take the V3 .zip file and put it in my mods section, although I have it extracted for easier file manipulation. My level's saved files are saving to the levels folder in Documents\BeamNG.Drive Maybe screenshots will help; My level(Unpacked from a .zip as for apparently a WinRAR .zip archive will not work in BeamNG) My level's saved files
A prefab is simply a collection of objects. As torsion explained, they are used by scenarios to load the objects for that scenario, but can also be used to easily add, move, copy and otherwise manipulate commonly used groups of objects. As to your level layout, read torsion's post again: it clearly states there should be absolutely nothing in your mods folder.
Heh, it's just to save you trouble! You can keep doing it that way, but it's a waste of your time and effort and it's confusing. Simply move the stuff from the first screenshot (\mods\levels\foothills) to the stuff in the second screenshot (\levels\foothills) without overwriting any newer files. Never put anything back into the first screenshot path (\mods\levels\foothills) as this is the wrong place to develop stuff currently. I'm not sure, but I think you are asking about creating entirely new textures from scratch. Is that correct?
Thank you. The screenshots did help the discussion! My developing process, since the map has its roots in an overwritten gridmap, is more of a terrain editing process rather than a creation process. And about the textures, Yeah creating from scratch and moving in more textures to work with. I mean, I can move textures, but I risk overwriting and damaging existing textures with the ones I really want to use.
