WIP Beta released A new *CITY* map - LOS INJURUS 2023-12-20

bob.blunderton, I think I heard you say something about "no-truck" signs. Are you going to add them in this upcoming update? If you're not adding them yet, that's fine.
Also, have you replaced the video card yet?

By the way, sorry that the video card thing has slowed you down a bit. You are doing a great job working on this map.

 

Yes I am planning on no truck signs. I will have to make some shortly if they're not already in the resources (I think I have graphics for this somewhere). I will surely need them near the 11-foot-8 bridges I do not know however if these will be in before or after the beta. It depends how long fixing Nevada Interstate takes (the fps gets hit while rotating the camera some times, it's not always, but it'll hitch consistently when rotating the camera around the vehicle on powerful nvidia cards). Nevada Interstate is getting future-proofed and an updated graphics format where-needed. The changes won't generally be visible to the end user though, and only folks with marginal system ability and folks who previously experienced hitching at high fps will see a benefit.
Please check the repository for a transparently updated Yellav Valley by Ouerbacker. I have updated the map's graphics format so that the fps is a tiny bit better, and the map is a little more future-proof, and also fixed the forest issue. This update is now on the repository. I try to maintain Ouerbacker's maps due to the fact that he's not often on the forum and is very busy, and without him Nevada Interstate and it's awesome loop of highway would have never been possible (it was made from his 'black hills' map with permission).
I have a video board on order. It should be here before mid-month. I got this model 2070 Super, but not from this retailer https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-rtx-2070-super-08g-p4-3071-kr/p/N82E16814487456
To be honest while they're on sale everywhere, not everyone has stock. I think they sold a LOT of video boards on black friday / cyber monday. Didn't get a Radeon Vii or 5700 XT due to the folks who support the map and depend on it for income (it's not just me), via YouTube videos having Nvidia hardware primarily, so it behooves me to run the same brand of GPU they do so I can eliminate surprise bugs. It was 'the GPU' to get right now, as it offered a good bang for the buck (not as good as the 5700 XT though), and should be fast enough to power through the next 3 years of content creation with ease. I don't want to spend money to get something barely capable of doing what I need it to, where the slightest increase in required/needed performance would put me at a loss. I didn't grab a used model as you really don't save that much, and when you spend more than 100$ on something, you NEED to have good warranty. We don't need to go through this (it blew up!) situation again any time soon. Hopefully the coil whine isn't atrocious (hence the reason I haven't bought an nvidia midrange or high-end card since 10 years ago). I could have had a 2070 Super Zotac mini in my hands by today/tomorrow for a little less but they run a little hot due to small size (even the dual fan model), and I don't need more fan noise here if I can help it.

The kind staff here is having a look-see at my terrain and the issues I'm currently having on it (it's not going to break the map, but there's issues that cause normals to break sometimes and some other stuff behind the scenes), so I should be able to get to the bottom of this by the next release.

The reason behind future-proofing the maps is due to aforementioned hitching issues (micro-stutter almost), many with non-compressible graphics, and since we got a graphics format update a few versions back, some old graphics in older formats may refuse to work much longer if they still work at all as game versions progress in the future. This saves me from a pile of one-star reviews, a messed up workflow, and a flood of messages when it inevitably breaks in the far (or not so much?) future. I am even handling maps that aren't mine, and fixing those, as-requested by YouTube personalities.

That is all. I hope you guys have a good rest-of-your-day and do enjoy what the current Los Injurus you may have has to offer.

 

Thank you for answering my questions

 

Okay bob.blunderton, I have a question. Have you made any more progress on this map?

 

Yes, actually I have. I got the video card issue sorted, and *FINALLY* have fixed the terrain issues, I hope. After hours and hours... such as this 'new' worn tan-ish pavement coloring.

Sure, all stuff you've seen before, right?
I DARE you to compare to old shots.
I now have concrete slabs drawn directly on the terrain, I also have 'seal-coated' pavement texture for parking lots (last 2 shots).
The terrain has been desaturated a bit as it was too colorful.
The rock used around the edge of the cliff-faces now blends a lot better and looks more like rock (3rd last shot). It's also much more detailed if you get close to it, just like the asphalt is.
Stone gravel (used around highways) and asphalt base (used in a few of the shots like 2nd last shot for the road itself) is re-colored and 'pops' more / looks more life-like and immersive.

I spent HOURS and HOURS over the course of DAYS fighting with this terrain. It's still not quite done yet, but I'm getting closer.
There's now a varied choice of SIX different asphalt driving surfaces (see the shot below).
Worn asphalt,
worn asphalt variation (to get mixed in with the former for lack of repetition),
concrete slabs (for large parking-lots, some highway stuff, large side-walks or pedestrian malls and so-forth, even runways eventually, in the 2nd last shot the lot has it),
seal-coated asphalt (for privately owned lots and some gov't structures, see last shot above),
common asphalt (2nd last shot above for the road surface, your typical old grey stuff),
terrain blending asphalt for roads that have the 'edge' graphic built in, so you don't see grey bleeding out from under the road (for rural decal roads, this is terrain-colored but provides asphalt traction).

Lastly, as I mentioned above, in the shot below you can see we have a close up of the improved rock texture. It gets used around cliff-faces, and it no longer looks like I stole 1990's rocks.

The terrain will be improved much further within world machine in the coming months, but I had to work on it as I was having weird errors breaking things. It's enough to make you batty.
I will also have a new variety of row-houses to show within the next few days as they're modeled / complete but not into the game yet. I will be doing more varieties of these. I also have a grocery store that's roughly 75% complete but still in the modeling phase.
So no worries. Sorry about the lack of posting, I've been very busy lately (I had to do leaf-destruction today as the yard looked like a bomb went off / looked like our house was abandoned, and it's going to rain tomorrow, then had to go to town and get gifts for the family, plus I had to mind my sister and her boyfriend's kids for a bit this weekend). So I've had my plate full, but rest-assured, there's lots and lots of work in-store.
Nevada Interstate update is complete, it will go live in a week or two. I had to update the graphic formats because they're not going to be supported too much longer, and were causing hitching / micro-stutter on Nvidia drivers.
As some may know, I updated Yellav Valley's graphics last week. That update hit the repository, and the forest disappearing act issue was fixed, too. So go check it out (it will look like Ouerbacker updated it, but that was me). It's much smaller than this map, but rest assured there's still some fun to be had, and the AI should work well enough.
There will still be a supporter update after the week is through, sometime next week for LOS INJURUS. This will be followed several days later (if all goes well) by a public update to bring everyone else up to speed, too. That will be my Chris Mess present to y'all, though before this all happens there's still much work to be done.
This new video board means I don't have to use LOW graphics settings anymore for this map and Roane County (and sometimes medium on the pack-in maps that come with the game). I couldn't even see the road markings more than 50 feet in front of my vehicle on the old video card. I am stashing some money however, for a copy of Substance Designer which I will pick up before the month is out, as it is 33% off! This will help me exterminate those pesky poorly-tiling textures on some of the buildings with better stuff here. This means better textures for everyone else, too; as a lot of people have been asking to use the objects/buildings in my map (feel free).
It is now pouring as I type this. Glad I got my yard mangling done for the day.
I need to convince or possibly bribe someone to do missions for this map. Need to start building a career mode for it (which is planned for 2020!). Can't wait for the 'chased by several angry vehicles while hauling a load of stolen pianos' mission
--Cheers & hope everyone has an awesome holiday.

 

Hmm... 1990s rocks you say? Doom theme starts playing. time for an Easter Egg!

 

I will make a maintenance / bug-fix release that (while a bit shy on new content) fixes A LOT of bugs, tomorrow or Wednesday via Patreon for supporters. There will still be another release later next week for supporters, too, which will have more content as y'all are used to.
Please stay tuned for details

 

I will have the update for 0.18.x that fixes terrain bugs etc, as soon as I figure out why my rocks won't work. They refuse to work in 0.18.x. I have renamed the textures in the models and everything, after several times verifying the files were there for the default names. They just REFUSE to work. I think there's a game bug but the staff says it's not. worst-case scenario is all the rocks will be removed and I will make my own stuff up at a later date.
STUPID TECHNOLOGY!

 

Los Injurus bug-fix update will be out tomorrow (Wednesday) for supporters and folks on 'the list'. It's merely a bug-fix it's not much for content however. MOAR content comes next week in another update, as I should have the stuff I'm modeling completed by then. I've mostly been modeling and doing graphics when I'm not chasing bugs (I spent the greater part of 7~10 days on bugs, ugh, but they're FIXED, I hope...).
Again, bug-fix this week, regularly scheduled content goodness will still be out on the 20th~21st or so, as planned (well, a day or two later than planned but that's what game releases do to you).
Public update should be a few days before Chris's Mess, as previously planned (and will include both the 2nd content release and the fixes in this bug-fix).

 

Beginning upload. Do know supporters will get a notification tomorrow afternoon (as it's almost 600 hours here!), for a mostly-bug-fix update to this map, as well as a little content and some polish here and there.

The mall (sort-of-out-of-shot) in the last shot has a 2nd entrance, now. I will be building more in this area. Fans of Gary Indiana rejoice, as that's what a lot of this (and abandoned Detroit) will look like here.
Bugs:
Sometimes textures reflect in odd colors in the mirrors of the vehicle (only there though). Lots of work is being done to the textures / rendering back-end in the game engine right now, and this map is work-in-progress as usual, so bear with me a while for right now.
Turn warning signs that are bi-directional still have collision. The will EAT you. DO NOT hit them. The collision will be fixed 'soon'.
There is still yet another update around the weekend before Chris Mess, this is MOSTLY just to fix odd bugs with 0.18 and this map.
--Cheers!

 

Achievement get? WhyBeAre reviewed the map recently.

 

The slightly-less-buggy patreon update went out to supporters just now.
The mesh roads don't save in 0.18 and I did not see that until testing while I was uploading, wanting to go to bed, at 6am... So please know that the current supporter update will be missing some OLD bridges no-where near the city for at most a week or so, this only affects the outer loop and some rural roadways in the less developed areas.
Also included was the Nevada Interstate update in that post. Merry Chris's Mess. There will still be another supporter update next week, I just 'rushed this one out' because of the game-engine update.

 

Fixed window textures glitching on the buildings especially the tall ones from a few blocks away, and odd shadow bug here and there (shadow bug should be fixed already on supporter beta). Also fixed the glitching on the horizon where it's got a dark line where the fog quits rendering before the mountains quit rendering.

Thanks @Nadeox1 for mentioning how to fix that. Appreciated! Guess who's getting an extra copy before Chris Mess


Added the last bit of guide rail in on the highway below (where there was a missing section in the supporter beta as mesh roads got eaten, along with the mesh bridges in rural areas) and also will be working on the area in the background of this shot.
Will be making a love-letter to Detroit MI and Gary IN with what's going in here. We've got the Packard plant, we've got a tribute to 'Rolling Acres' (it's getting a sign soon, I have the source materials ready just need some editing time), we've got the Frank Douglas towers, all from Detroit. We need to give Gary IN some screen time with things like the Palace Theater and maybe a run-down abandoned old school building. I have been learning photo shop more and can now take a picture of something and make it an almost-perfect game texture.

(let me know if the above image doesn't work, so I can fix it, it's working here)
1st shot is an example of a random picture of some abandoned buildings.
2nd shot is an example of straightening it out good enough to slap on a 3D building.
3rd shot is making it 2:1 or power-of-2 dimensions (including filling a portion but not distorting the image x/y ratio) and correct formatting in Direct-X format.
I will make sure to get appropriate permissions / credit anyone who's images I use, unless they do not wish their images used (in which case I will replace them before I start sharing work with them in). I've taken a lot of time to learn the professional software I've purchased here. I am extremely sorry for the awful textures I have subjected you folks to in some places. Awful repeating and generally low-res stuff. I'm working on this to be sure!
While as a one-man army funded by a little over a dozen wonderful folks, I might not be able to rival GTA's looks, but I can sure try and make as much fun packed into a free-roam (and eventually career driven!) map as possible.

As YBR said "This place is just LOADED with jumps" ... give me a reason it should be anything but that Do watch that review, it's on the resource page.

@GotNoLimbs! thanks for letting me know on that YBR reviewed the map (finally), hope to get some more coverage from him!

Anyone who wants to make missions in completed lots or routes in the town - feel free! I will make sure to notify anyone if sections with their missions change, if humanly possible. In-fact, I'd like to see some *cough* piano hauling missions anywhere heehee.
That is all for right now. New models coming in the next few days time, stay tuned!
Doing the absolute best I can over here to deliver the map we've always wanted, for the gift of this game that just keeps on giving.

 

I've been busy starting a project over on the other side of the map (namely because 0.18.x destroyed my long arched bridges here, and I have no desire to rebuild them of the old materials, only to have to rebuild them again with the good materials!).
A lot will change. In the end there will be a much more professional map. What you remember on this area is no more (don't worry, the dirt track is untouched) Please stand by. I am switching gears from the '???' area to work on this and get some route 1 concepts into the map, before the update.

So, definitely stay tuned for some new roads incoming, and lots of new adventures on them!

 

Looks nice! What did the bridges look like before they were nuked?

 

There were some structural arch bridges that the game update ate. It also ate my small streams but not the main water plane of the map. I will re-do them eventually. So since the game decided to snack on my bridges near here, I'm tearing the whole area out and re-doing it. A few bridges here were just the standard bridge you see everywhere, but the water-way wasn't here before. So I've added this stream here and now I will add more bridges as-needed, and there will be more miles of road in the map, and a more logical / meaningful layout to the roads themselves. In the end it will be a much more interesting map.

 

Totally making a meme out of this brb

 

Hey bob.blunderton, Besides the bridges and water stuff, have you made any more progress on the map?

Man, Nadeox1 sure is awesome

 

~10 seconds of effort for a shitpost meme @bob.blunderton
hope you enjoy

 

We have 3 cats, and boy do they love boxes. It's a real challenge not wrapping one of the cats up when trying to package Chris Mess presents up... Thanks for that, I got a good laugh out of it. I've been mapping for EIGHTEEN hours straight (10pm Wednesday~4pm Thursday) with only bathroom breaks, food breaks, and got a shower. I did 10~12 hours straight the night previous, too. So I've been very busy prepping the map for more upgrades.
@GWMan
I've made gobs of progress upgrading highways and re-building bridges, which took lots and lots of time, but from what I've tested, it's working great.

Had some bugs with default-textured decal roads (which I use for AI, they're normally invisible this way), where I couldn't select them in the editor the next time I loaded the map. Luckily I figured it out in about 15 minutes of messing about. The map is currently uploading, look for something by friday or saturday evening at the latest. I had to cut it should so I can have the repository version updated after the Patreon supporters have it for a day or two. If there's show-stopping bugs, the repository version will land after Chris Mess holiday is through. If there aren't any show-stopping bugs, it should land on the repository a few days before Chris Mess.
The Nevada Interstate lag fix is also going to get updated on the repo (it's been done I just haven't had time yet to post it up), near the time when Los Injurus gets updated. This is the release of Nevada that Patreon supporters got hooked up with that I put up earlier this month - so if you already got that (has an SNES cover mock-up for it's level select graphic as Los Injurus now also does), you don't need to download that one again.
I took the time to start converting some way-point raised roads / highways to the new 3d AI decal roads now, that we got as a feature in 0.18. 4 of 11 are done.
Los Injurus by contrast has quite a bit of rework near the dirt track highway interchange, but I haven't gotten my Route 1 California mock-up started yet. That should be a hoot when it's out, and I'll try and make it a real sweet place to drive in the following update to this one. So stay tuned!

Only one picture because my internet is busy. You'll have plenty of time to check the map itself out though over the holiday.