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

Hi, I'm editing Los Injurus in F11 on my end. Once I save it. Is there any way I can undo the changes? In other words, could I uninstall and reinstall and have it not save my changes to it?

 

Your saved changes will be confined to documents\beamng.drive\levels\TSH\ - knock out the TSH folder and you should be able to revert to your copy of the map from the ZIP file.
If you extracted the map manually (advanced users) before working on it, make sure to have a copy of the zip handy to replace it or work / load from, otherwise you'll have to re-download the map again.

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Still alive here, back is getting better, had it fixed last week and it's not going back to being broken as quickly as I thought it would.
Hey whomever mentioned that my map is 'too clean', and such, and hence hurts some of the immersion due to not having that bit of imperfection for realism... you're in luck. I've been working on acquiring/purchasing and working on graphics that should slowly be able to make this map a little better to look at - or at-least make it a little more realistic and immersive for the users. Got a LOT of new concrete textures, so all those poorly tiling 'meh' quality graphics should be more improved looking next time around (as I get the graphics in, some are drop-in replacements, some require redoing some of the models, which will obviously come later).
So sorry for the quiet spell, I just didn't have anything to show for a bit.
Graphics as I mentioned... source graphic (non-tiling) on the left, finished product (a portion of it anyways) on the right. This layers over the existing graphics and creates the blending where buildings/walls/fences meet parking lots or grass. I'm actually glad someone mentioned it (though it was 6 months or more ago! I didn't forget).
The checkerboard background just represents transparent areas.
So we should end up with graphics 'somewhat close' to GTA V quality, though keep in mind, I must keep the graphics for the ENTIRE map loaded into VRAM, along with the models (cars too!). So if things get much slower for anyone, knock graphics (but not mesh) detail down a notch - especially possible if you have a 6gb card like a 1060 6gb or 1660/ti/2060 6gb. Medium should run on pretty much anything with 2~4gb of VRAM, High detail will of course require 8gb cards.

If you want decent FPS and have a decent CPU (Haswell or even Sandy Bridge* or newer) & 16gb of system RAM, and only have 100$ or so; grab a used RX 570 / RX 470 8gb model (or a 480/580) off of your used marketplace of choice. They're not the best, certainly far from the fastest, but my RX 480 was plenty good running 50~60fps+ anywhere in this map on high with 8gb of VRAM aside of glitches in drivers (affects some more than others). Skip the 4gb models if possible, with how cheap used 8gb cards are getting, even a 1070 8gb is plenty.
Eventually when models are back-ported to Roane County, that will receive an upgrade of awesome proportions - but require 8gb VRAM - also. Games using 8gb of VRAM are really nice to look at. I'd like to be able to make out the stones in the road surface, or the broom-finish marks in concrete slabs - or even the grain of the brickwork I pass by. Mud textures (like when I used my 2gb 7850 on LOW last December) are just... sad... I couldn't even see the lines painted on the roadway**!
*A first-generation Nehelam i7 (socket 1366) can run this, though it lacks AVX acceleration instructions, so might not provide the highest FPS, and may not be able to take advantage of anything more than an RX 480/580 or Nvidia 1070 in the video department. This includes XEON 54xx/56xx processors for that same platform - which are better - but unless clocked to about 4ghz you may have trouble keeping 60fps. So while Haswell or newer is best, Sandy Bridge will do just fine if that's all you have.
**I will manually edit some of the mip-mapping (lower res textures used further away for the last 20 years or so), so this doesn't happen as much early in the spring or over this coming winter - that won't make THIS public update but it may make the next one.

 

Finally got a texture made for the side of Cabrini-Green building here. It began as a purchased texture, that didn't tile, and wasn't even power-of-2 dimensions. After hours of work it not only tiles, but looks the part that it needs to. Blends in 100% on the first try. I have a just-slightly-less-dirty version, too.
My apologies if anyone is 'offended' that I am modeling sub-standard public housing built shortly after World War 2 in America - but know this: We must not ignore or forget the history of America, and the mistakes that were made, lest we repeat the same pit falls of the past - we must learn from them and be better than the generations that came before.

 

Thank you for answering my question earlier. I can hardly wait for the update to come.
Just curious. How do you feel about the south in general?

 

As in living in the south USA, yeah it's great. It's a lot better than up north where everyone was RUDE, selfish and distrustful by default in the city (in the country, up there, people were still fairly nice). Castle doctrine where I live is more generous down here than it was up north, too (can protect you & your property better).
Long story short, generally going to stay in the south.
It's the America I was promised, but never found - not until I came to Tennessee.
If you live up north, and feel that way, well, maybe it's time to consider moving south into one of the many states down here.

 

Okay. Cool. Btw, I accidently saved the Los Injurus while editing it without a backup copy. If i want the map to go back to the original. I'm guessing I delete it and redownload it, right?

 

So I haven't had as much time on the map as I would have liked, a bit behind now - more like A WEEK behind, at-least. Real-life matters + back being hit or miss and unable to plan ANYTHING even a day before-hand have been wreaking havoc on my schedule.
I'd like to still get a supporter release out towards the end of next week however. If I sent it now, you wouldn't know what I did (as it's mostly behind-the-scenes stuff with graphics and resources, and some optimizations).
So to save the dung-flinging that would result, I've decided to wait a little bit longer to offer something more fulfilling and worthy of such a huge download.
That said, I'll try to have some pictures of what's being done before the week is up. Lots of rain this week here so trying to put up content will come whenever I have a decent internet connect and the rain clouds don't thwart my every attempt. It's supposedly going to clear up next week, so keep fingers crossed!

 

So what happens during all those times when THE BOB isn't posting things or showing off stuff (please excuse if any of this is a repeat, I've been working on textures for a while now - on and off for weeks).
Simple. I can spend *HOURS* on doing a single texture - even if I purchased the source texture(s) commercially, sometimes they still need A LOT of work.
You may have seen this one as part of the preview from the derelict housing project's side-walls - you're right - sort of. I did add more weathering via layering to this since then.
Layering and then combining those layers before runtime (or at runtime using layering / color shading available in the game engine - sometimes this saves drive space / VRAM especially for re-colors like brick or siding).
For the picture below, please keep in mind these are zoomed way out, the finished texture on the right is also 4096 x 4096 pixels for example.
Left is the source texture I purchased, from Textures dot com - it does not tile and is not a power of 2 or even the right format. Right is the finished product, which not only tiles / repeats perfectly (the original did not), but is a power of 2 dimension, and has the tone/weathering/aging on it already. This not only will go on this building, but when building a city, concrete is the de-facto most used and most versatile material in any city - game or real life.
Just look around next time you're out in a city, and look at how many different things are made of concrete (hint: asphalt is a form of concrete too, though more flexible and less strong on compressive strength, it's sometimes called 'asphalt concrete'. Basically, for sake of argument, replace the lime that makes cement - cement is an ingredient of concrete - with tar/liquid asphalt and you get the stuff you see on roads every day. It's not always that simple, but for sake of brevity I will leave it at that).
Never-the-less, I had a lot of texture work to do in the next 8 days before I upload this Friday evening (a week from now) as a preview build for what will become the public release.
Click the picture below to expand the image, keep in mind the textures are zoomed out to about 1/8th to 1/6th their intended final size (this image has been formatted to fit your screen and all that).

 

Nice concrete.

2 Questions. 1. Can you still save your changes even with TSH gone? And 2. Where is the forest area gonna be in the new update?

 

When you save the changes to this map, the directory \documents\beamng.drive\levels\TSH will be created by the game-engine if it does not exist.
There will not be many more trees in the next update. There's a small forested section that's currently already in the last supporter updates for a little while now (since summer), atop the re-done mountain next to the large airport. I am only listing this as I do not know what your current version is, if you're on the last mainstream public-facing version, it will be 'new'. Versions for simplicity sake in the last year or so have just been dates it was released (date of the zip always works, too). I like to try and keep things simple when possible, even if only for my own sanity sake.

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I will still be uploading this on late Friday evening into Saturday morning, regardless of progress. This release could be prone to a few strangely dark graphics in spots. If you get any of those, be sure to report it if so. I will try to find the source of that bug before I upload. This way I can get these things fixed IF they occur, before the next mainstream public release in a week to 10 days; date is dependent on if all bugs are fixed or not. Don't want the public brand having weird bugs.

 

My version is the newest public one in April.

 

I know you said you wanted suggestions, so here are a few of mine:
Some more varied buildings in the Hollywood Hills area would be great. Also, I don't know how you plan to separate out the city, but it does seem a little strange to have that area right above some of the most blighted areas of the city. Maybe consider putting some run-down low-density there and have a more Hollywood Hills- style area on the other side of the lake, which sounds like it is planned to be fancier?
A downtown shopping area with high end brands and restaurants like in downtown Hollywood could make sense to have below.

It would also be great to see more suburbia around the outskirts of the city. I know most of those areas are unfinished, so maybe this is already planned?

I know you had mentioned wanting to do some small towns and areas outside the city. Here are some ideas I had:
Outside LA, in the Central Valley, there is a large farming area. It would be nice to see some farming towns, barns and rows of crops out in the countryside and far reaches of the map. Maps feel much more alive when their areas have a purpose and this could be one nice way to give some of the small towns a purpose!

It would be nice to see some old mines in some of the more arid and dry areas. They could be a cool place to explore and would be a nice detail to stumble across while driving! Utah already has a few so some mine assets exist for reference.

Some more forested areas and trees would be nice to include for realism and detail although I know you said they weren't easy on FPS. I know you mentioned doing a redwood forest. Redwood forests are very much a Northern California thing but if they were to be included, it would be nice to dot some small towns and cabins throughout as more of a vacation getaway sort of place. An area in that part of the map could include some forestry as an excuse to add some more dirt paths and mudded areas as well!
These were just some ideas I had, feel free to use/not use them as you wish!

 

There will be the following that you've mentioned:
Farming areas, rural places, large public parks, interwoven by sparse sprawling homes and a few run-down rickety shacks here and there, and a few small towns to give the highway purpose on 'that side of the map' (the undeveloped half).
Run down tenements, high end shopping areas, and so-forth is all planned. I won't say for certain what is going where as sometimes I don't even know (yeap).
Suburbia, oh there will be lots and lots of it, just you wait.
Old mines, including ones you can enter, are planned (not including the strip-mine that's half done that's already in and has been in for a number of months). DavidinArk first suggested mines a few months ago. He wanted some you can enter - and I wanted some, too. I was one of the people who asked the developers to consider some 'enter-able' stuff for maps like in Utah with the mines.
Some of the high-end shopping will be near the Worst Buy / Line City & Moist grocery stores that are already in. I just haven't had time to make a lot of the fine-dining restaurants yet.
So yes, entirely there's so much planned - I could be doing this for years (though user contributions inherently speed up the process at which I am able to acquire models and textures).
All good suggestions here, definitely keep them coming. It will surely take me a LONG time to complete the map but I enjoy doing it. A screwy back slowed me down quite a bit - but that and even a ton of 'pre-winter' things that needed to be done if you're a home-owner will slow me down but never stop me.

I'm still going to cut-off progress on late Friday night, and upload this map then for beta testers / supporters on Saturday in the wee hours of the morning when data caps are much less restrictive and my speeds are better here. If things are too buggy, there will be a second beta a few days following. When it's buttoned-up nicely and not so many bugs, I can then consider uploading it for public consumption. If it was just any map project, I wouldn't mind as much; but I want to raise the bar with this project, just like Roane County did with it's sheer size and road mileage alone.
Always strive to be better. Good enough isn't a fulfilling achievement, but making something that out-does most of the rest out there is something to be proud of. I want each and every person who takes time or money to support this map to feel GOOD about knowing they supported a fun map with lots of things to see in it.

My Cabrini-Green model should be in sometime today and I might be able to get some pictures of it tomorrow when the lot is closer to done. It'll go over by the mall in it's mostly abandoned state.
That is all for right now. I get to go back to fighting with textures for now.

Edit: figured I throw another texture on here I was working on. Didn't tile, wasn't power of 2 or right format. That's all taken care of. Now it's a 4k x 2k texture (the checker-boarding represents where it's invisible).

Trying very hard to keep this fitting into 8GB VRAM but you WILL need an 8GB card for high detail this go-around. There's going to be a LOT of texture additions this time. The textures are going to be about 2x to 4x the typical resolution of GTA V textures - so if you ran this at 'medium' it would look pretty similar in regards to texture detail. I was playing some GTA V (the story is pretty good on it), to see how they approached a lot of aspects of map design, and noticed a lot of things this go-around that I didn't notice when it first came out.

 

I will be uploading this sometime tonight / early Saturday morning before I go to bed unless the internet gives me flak / issues.
I've been working on updating around 1 GB of textures, things are wrapping up today though on all that - which I got most all of it done.
I am putting the last-minute texture changes onto the map. So expect a notification for a supporter beta sometime Saturday / Sunday.
I will re-sync my improved collector (5 lane with shared center turn lane) road textures and make sure those textures match the rest of things AFTER the supporter beta but before the next public upload. There's a little bit of odds and ends that will be tied-up / done after supporter beta, so everyone please be-sure to download the public release when it does hit.
Replaced or updated most bridge railing and jersey barrier textures.
Replaced the mall lot texture and updated the curbing / concrete / sidewalk stuff along (all) the roads and most buildings to have a more realistic coloring. Will try to re-color the highways a bit but that might come after the beta. So for everyone who mentioned (and there were a few of you!) everything shouldn't be nice and new, this is your ticket.

So the new barrier texture is definitely a keeper. I am slowly putting details and aging on things, and there's a lot of purchased textures now that will spruce up the map something serious. Basically, any in-game texture that's still in this map will slowly be phased out in favor of better textures, when and where possible.
I'm definitely getting close to the VRAM limit though, so if possible, I will make edits, reduce resolution (if it's not noticed, I don't need a 4k x 4k manhole cover texture for example), and so-forth.
While this isn't a night and day difference, every bit helps the immersion, and THAT is what matters most. When I get more textures set up to not look all-shiny-new etc, it will be even better.
*The open railing texture is a little stretched on the horizontal pieces, I will fix this later on, for most/all models.

 

Remove the directory that is created when the map is edited and saved.
I mentioned which directory it was in the last reply.

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More texture goodness, though still some bugs (human error, surprise!), so I will need just a little longer to polish this. I need to do a little more of the following:
Match highway texture to the new 'weathered' concrete textures (the older highway matches fine - the one with the reflectors on the road surface, the 'newer' looking highway needs to get just a little bit more tan-colored, for a little age). Would like to replace the mall brick exterior texture(s) due to just how horrible it looks, I already have better replacements in hand. The exterior stone texture needs to be fixed up.
Little things (just so you know I'm not pushing this off) like this need to be fixed yet:

In order: Improper beam texture (only affects the two-lane 'side road' overpass usually found in rural and residential areas),
AWFUL window texture on the schools (and one other building visible in the last shot) - I'm going to spend an hour or two re-doing that one as I'm sick of toying with it so many times - the normal mapper plugin doesn't get along with it and is quicker to just replace,
terribly mismatched road textures that ruin the immersion - the road is white/grey colored and the walls and sidewalks take on normal concrete colors,
...and a culvert that just looks bloody awful (it wouldn't have even passed the 'GTA San Andreas' level of quality/detail I started at for this map), in fact it looks more like old CRT TV static than concrete.
The culvert pipe texture needs to be adjusted, too (read: replaced, it's an ECA texture).

So when I readied my Cabrini Green model after spending a little too long making what should be a very simple object, the dual-layered UV's turned out at-best like rubbish and completely broken. I used a backup (costing me more time) and skipped the dual layer UV's (I was layering the 'grunge' effect, I'll just do it with textures later) entirely. While the texture is dark on the window-sides of the building, you can at-least finally get to see it.

The window walls of the building always look dark like they're in shade, will have that fixed as it's a texture bug, prior to release. Will try to get some facsimile of a lot made for here, too. These buildings adjoin the old Packard plant across from the mall. It makes sense for them to be here - same for the dead mall across the road, and the abandoned factory bordering both lots.
I will have a second beta going out mid-week or so, to supporters, to test the new terrain layers and such, whenever I get them in. If those work, I will take a day or two to implement them and ship a public update for everyone to enjoy. The more terrain layers I have, the more I can do without requiring a TON more draw calls for mesh-based lot objects. Also, the updated collector roads will go in between the two betas, so that can be tested, too.
Sorry it's been this long - normally I just push back adding or changing things in the map - but I'm not taking no for an answer on getting things working, this time.
I hope you guys agree the small 24 hr delay will be worth the immersion factor. If you're angry about the delays, feel free to say so - I deserve it this time.
It's just so hard to set a deadline and keep it when there's so many different little things, and so many things go wrong (like yesterday's OUT OF SYSTEM RAM error... with 32GB of RAM and the game wasn't even open), and there's only one of me.
So keep a look out sometime Sunday for the beta, I am working hard on it, but making daily backups in-case I really muddle it up good, being in a hurry.

 

Just curious. Is there gonna be anything new by the hanger/military base? Also, It's okay if you can't, but do you plan on getting the public version released before December or no? Oh yeah, and the new textures look cool.

What is that area? It looks really cool.

 

Public release SHOULD be this month, towards the end of the month - if there's no catastrophic bugs etc.
That area is a new area with lots of winding roads going up and down the hills/mountains there. If you go from the default spawn past the Worst Buy along the highway, before the highway makes it's big curve to the right before it goes up the mountain, at the beginning of that curve there's a development off to the left above the highway (it's not there in the current public release, but will be in the new one). That road is on the side of the hill there, and winds back and forth as it goes up the hill. There's lots of those roads over there now - plenty of them. Enough to keep you busy and certainly plenty to make circuit races out of any number of them.
Glad you like the new look. You'll probably love the new version. I will have it up ASAP.

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OK. LOTS of changed textures tonight. Dozens and dozens and had to adjust the newer highway sets and the older highway sets. It's not perfect - but it'll do for supporter beta.
Canal textures match better now (not perfect, but 65535x better than it was - good enough for the public version). They're still not as good as @Ghost187 's canal textures, but alas, I'll work on it more.
Bridge texture bug on the beams (it wasn't supposed to be like that) fixed in the model. New one looks plenty good!
2nd last picture is where I spent a little bit of time, adjusting that interchange textures (you might not be able to tell, but look on your version of the map to compare), it's a bit more realistic without the patch texture just going 'where it wants to' and not hap-hazardly stuck on there so much.
Added darkening / tire marks from planes taking off / landing on the military air strip on the island like the civilian airport has (not pictured).
Adjusted a lot of the new textures. Didn't fix the highrise texture yet on the new housing project building yet. It can just be the way it is for now. I can't afford to hold this up any more.
Lots of stupid little adjustments all over that I don't care to mention - mostly because there's absolutely NO way I can remember it all. Oops. What's here will have to do.

Spent 6+ hours in my yard today. I am going to HURT tomorrow, but that's okay, I've already started with my own personal agony as-it-is. All the leaves are gone though, and the driveway is immaculate. It even looks like someone lives in my house now! FACT: A mower makes a great leaf blower even on the driveway, it sweeps way faster than any human can, and when used in reverse (riding mower!) it can munch up so many leaves at once I'm not even sure even burning them would make them disappear that fast. Will likely have to go to the doctor and the chiropractor because of it BUT it's DONE. Why today? Because it was right on 70F outside, and I could work in a tank top and still sweat. I can use the exercise provided it doesn't blow my heart out of my chest (pace one's self), maybe I'll be sorry tomorrow I did, but I put it off WAY too long.

I will be testing the beta with traffic on for a good hour or two, driving all around, making sure things aren't madly broken in some way, and that I didn't mess anything up.
Keep in mind this map takes roughly TWO MINUTES TO LOAD, for the first time around, while it makes all the compressed model cache and texture shaders up.
The second, third (etc) times you load the map, it takes around a minute, maybe a little more or less depending on your system. I have a generic 1tb NVME drive here (Inland Pro TLC-nand drive), it does the job even if it's not nearly as fast as the system supports (pci-express 4.0 is supported for faster drives, but I wasn't paying 3x for one of those when this one was 103$ 18 months ago).
8GB VRAM is required for full detail textures. If you have a 6GB card and it runs fine on high detail on the new version, please inform me of this! I am only seeing what is requested/reserved by the system and game. I can't directly tell how much of it that it's already using / has spare (requested, reserved for BeamNG but not used). I have to fire up direct X SDK for that and I don't have it in me tonight.

This is as far as progress gets tonight for this beta. I hope you guys will enjoy the added immersion.
I did this for all of you that loyally supported this map and even those who just dropped by to give suggestions or just say thanks. It's really starting to come together nicely here, and I just hope it's going to make folks as happy as it makes me to build / create it. Don't forget, you can make your own cities if you want with all the pieces that are in the MRK folder inside the map.

--Will start the upload shortly. If I forget or pass out (it's possible) I'll stick it on tomorrow morning. Links will go out sometime tomorrow. Would like to get it out before the rain comes in the evening.
--Cheers!

 

Thanks for answering. Also, just curious. Will that tunnel in the 2nd pic be in the new update?

 

That's one of the tunnels for water to go through, part of the flood control canal kit. For scale, it's about 10 or 11 feet tall, or somewhere around 3~4 meters. Yes, you can drive all the way through it. It might not be a useful shortcut at all, but it will certainly be able to be driven in.
That is coming in the next update. I think it's been around for about a month now.
I'd like to get the PUBLIC update out within the next week sometime (I am at the mercy of the staff here, and they have a life and a right to live it, too).
All the things you've seen up to this point including today's posts, will be in the next supporter beta and the next public beta. I will be making a few very minor changes / additions between those two releases.

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I've matched my highway colors decently enough, fixed the editor eating about half a dozen of my texture entries, and am going to package this for uploading and upload now.
Thank-you all for your patience.

An older Pessima is parked on one of the higher levels of the parking garage in Los Injurus. The parking garage here just got it's new texture (because the editor ate the old one, and I had a new one ready to go!).

 

Patreon supporter links sent. Enjoy, and surely let me know if any NO TEXTURE issues are present (I think I got them all fixed up, it deleted about a half dozen texture entries on me from using the Material editor).

Bugs currently:
Gas station store curb texture is broken, not very noticeable. Missing graphic files, texture index entry, or improper format.
Turn arrows painted on roadway do not show up in 0.20.x but works fine in 0.19.x, I think I may have fixed that just now, will do more testing.
Some minor blending issues over different roadway sets, though that's rather petty right now.