WIP Beta released Barbent's Homerange (Alpha) 0.1a

Can't wait to break someone else's ride on those mountains!

PS: Remember to back this up (to a file outside of Beam.NG) frequently. 0.33 is just around the corner and I had save data issues when updating to 0.32., and I lost ALL of my in game data. I don't want that to happen to this EPIC map.

 

Thanks for this important information! I will be careful. I have 5 different backup streams to different media. Would be my nightmare to get it all lost... But this will not happen.
Edit: I'm sorry about your data loss. I can confirm: saving a map can lead to total data loss. Saving is not safe!

 

I've just spent nearly 2 hours reading through this entire thread, admiring each screenshot and savouring every details you shared with us. I have to say it's been a beautiful trip in itself! You have some insanely great inspiration going on here, your passion shows through your words and your work. I love the idea of a "not real but convincing" diverse playground for a BeamNG map and the result looks absolutely gorgeous.
You have gold on your hard drive, sir (quite literally)!

 

Thank you very much for your feedback! I'm glad that you took the time to delve a little deeper. It gives me great pleasure to read your lines. To be honest, I think the ability to design (cars and maps) is an important part of the BeamNG game and one of the basic ideas. Of course, driving is a lot of fun, but I also paid for the world editor as part of the game! Hahaha! Even if you need a lot of technical know-how, it's just incredible fun to design the landscape quite nice and then experience the whole thing almost physically with one of the many vehicles. Even if it might take a while, I'm already looking forward to sharing it with you.

 

that looks awsome, you should be working by the dev's :>)

 

How do you know i'm looking forward to this map.

 

Update. I also had issues updating to 0.33 and lost all of my data... again.

It said I needed 200(ish) MB to transfer data, It also said I only had 70mb when I had a drive with 700+GB of space.
--- Post updated ---
Basically the same thing that happened with 0.32. Don't ask me what changed between 0.31 and 0.32,0.33.

 

I'm working since 'bout 5 days with 0.33.1 and it seems to be quite fine. I had no crashes at all. But there were some strange new glitches. For example I saw a SimGroup with all containing objects appearing twice in the SceneTree. Deleting one element led to deletion of the corresponding one. It seemed as if BeamNG was squinting . In this cases it is very dangerous to save the level. So I reverted without saving and lost some minor progress. And I don't touch the road architect within the Homerange project, cause I'm really scared of this thing! Unfortunately I cannot recommend using this killer tool. No kidding: I run backups after every step of my work and a special one every time the level successfully loaded. I feel with you "Musicman27"!

But now (thanks to "THom6502") I even work under police protection! Everything is twice as safe now!

Some progress pics, eh?


Sometimes I'm amazed to see perspectives where I've never been with the 1st person game camera before, but have always built from a bird's eye view. (The car viewed from below is the MD, not really my progress but I like the pic)

 

Hahahahaha.

 

Hi, hope you're feelin' fine

I do, cause another region has been pushed forward in big steps. It is located on an island, about 2km² in size, perhaps it could be somewhere in the British Isles. I imagine a somewhat eccentric, rural, middle-class community that has a tendency towards the slightly crazy and believes in the myths of the Middle Ages. In any case, they are passionate off-roaders. and haul everything that's not anchored...



Safe travels in the meantime

 

Again, it looks awsome, stay focust, and keep on doing the good work.

 

Thanks . I'm well-focused and full-throttled LOL. I even have to find a little balance to keep a clear head as a source of permanent creativity. It's a lot of fun working on the map.

 

Basically , Thank Goodness You're Here but isolated

 

How do you mean that?

 

Oh man this is looking great!

 

Approaching to the 1.4km long runway of "Nodehinge Hill" airport at limited visibility. Distance to touch down approx. 4.5 ~ 5km. Winds: calm .


(View: World Editor)

I decided not to use BeamNG's light sources to create the runway lights. Instead, I use special low-poly objects that have a bright glow material. As I mentioned above, these objects use BeamNG's level of detail (LOD) system in a special way: the further you move away from them, the larger they become (in steps) without any additional coding.



If anyone is interested in this effect in detail, I have attached my Blender file, which also contains a blinking animation by scaling the object instead of altering the material. This provides a fine blink transition even at very high distances.



The FPS impact is so low that I even can't measure it. Rendered light from the built-in spot or point light sources is quite more FPS-hungry. And since you can not see the emitters directly you would have to lighten the ground with them in an excessive way to guarantee visibility above 1km.

So I can happily distribute quite a lot of them on the runways hehe.

CU

PS: If you like to use such light objects in your project, you would have to add a simple full glow material to your main.materials.json. Feel free to do so + credit. PPS: The terms red/white in the filename and Blender geometries are meaningless and a product of my dumbness. What counts is the material name.

 

Hi again with some progress news:
I'm currently working on a huge (~1km²) "baja like jump style scrap can gravel pit" area. It is in direct neighbourhood with the "Nodehinge Hill" airport shown above which doesn't disturb each others in any way (cause it's BeamNG world). Crossing the runway with a 3 ton 700hp pre-runner could be something like Russian Roulette if there is jet traffic...



And again I use no rock objects. The whole terrain is sculpted and painted by hand. It would be impossible if I would use PBR ground materials, cause painting directly on the base color map is a feature still missing in BeamNG. I can not imagine a whole area, plan it and then paint it without visual feedback in e.g. photoshop. I have to see it and then the inspirations are coming and I directly try to realize it.



Also I try to give a big variety of vehicles a playground on this map. Arriving by plane and jumping in crazy trucks, then having a nice day on the baja tracks is a true pleasure...



CU soon again in this theatre

 

The work is in full swing.

But when I have to carry out urgently overdue quality tests on the progress of the work, they often turn out to be more like daredevil leaps of joy...
Let me share a moment with you before I get back to work:



I'm currently installing suitable and properly sloped curbs for the 8km Airtona race track. Aaaand these should follow the track as much as possible... (that's the challenge)

Have a nice ride

 

This is looking like a perfect area for the dedicated prerunners, but I could also imagine throwing some cheap car challenge-vibe cars around the track. Or maybe a rally-race leading through it. In any case, it seems to be a quite fun spot to be around