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

I agree with the climate change piece you said, I live in SC (im not saying where) but its getting bad and were almost underwater everytime theres a king tide down here, we need to do something because the place I love most on this planet is to hot to go outside in during summer and drowning in water. Please PLEASE LET CHANGE HAPPEN! but on another note sorry the road architect tool isn't working out for you man I hope it works out in future updates cause it seems like a good idea.

 

Yeah a lot of coastal paradise is going under because of the water level slowly going up (to be fair, ocean level has been rising for the better part of 70,000 years, according to science, but the same science says humans also made it EXPONENTIALLY WORSE, way worse). I never used to hear of NYC flooding before 10~12 years ago when Sandy hit (2012 IIRC?). What was unimaginable once is now almost a yearly event in some places... guess this is the new way of living. So yeah if there's beach-lined paradise to visit on your bucket list, 'git er dun! On the bright side, even though I live the entire distance of Alabama itself from the coast, plus about 80~120 miles or so of the state of TN, if I don't manage to get away to the shore soon in the next few years, it'll come to me!
Oh wait, that's bad. Yeah about that. We don't want that to happen anytime soon. So I try myself to be energy-conscience. I still live life, "but waste-not want-not" the older generation would tell me.
That stupid road tool. I'm not going to use it for as much as I was trying to use it for. The worst part of it, I found, was because whenever I'd save the info for it's state (the road architect save feature) into the level folder with my level (Los Injurus), it'd re-load that with the level anytime I'd start, and it'd add those node locations to the same road chunks that were in the level, causing all kinds of weird stuff to happen including the ones pictures. Each time I loaded the level, edited it some, saved it, it'd add MORE mess to the works.
What a wreck! I'd like the crashing simulator not to crash my brain and my sanity, for once. There's enough stuff out there to do that without this thing doing it, too.
I managed to waste more hours on this, and I will likely be banking the corners a bit here more than they are. They're fairly level but not banked right now, and I believe mountain roads SHOULD have a bit of banking to the turns. At-least the graphics are fixed up nice.

I don't have barriers nor the banking in yet, but I am showing the pictures to show I'm getting somewhere and also that I'm slowly working the terrain into something slightly better. It also shows that these fancy road textures I got two or three years back (they cost good money) are worth every penny when used properly.
When there's banking, barriers, signs as needed, and of-course a building here or there and some trees periodically, and maybe a small stream here it'll look a lot better.
In all honesty it took much too long to get this far.
Oh, and I fixed my mower only for it to turn over once, not start, no longer want to start, and now something else is broken (?!), it's not the battery, but at this point I'm just going to say to hell with that thing for right now. I'm not letting it bother me, and if the lawn gets too long I'll pay for a lawn service to come do it... it's October, I'm entirely done with that stupid pile of junk for the season and I'm NOT about to spend 3000~5000$ for a new one. At this point I'm content with sitting back and watching the wasps invade my family room because it's getting cold out... they don't really bother anyone anyways and the cats love their new-found flying toys. It's all good until one of those flying bumblers goes and lands on the precious tacky + decorative things on shelves out there... with a cat in hot pursuit. BASH SMASH CRUNCH! Beats the giant bug I found in the fridge (only in Tennessee), yes it was still alive. Yes I put it outside. I don't know what it was, some type of beetle thing, and why it was beetle-ing in my fridge I have no clue.
--That is all. I hope. I really don't want to discover the rest the way this week is going. You know, the whole 'if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it...' deal.
-The Bob
Can I just stay in here / hide in the house and not go outside for a few days?

 

Added some more road details to the road textures, and also added most of a block of houses to the area. Updated the speed hump texture a bit, added some angled parking (there will be a park near here to warrant it and some multi-family homes), and some concrete gutter texture.
Most houses here will use street parking as it's half single-family and half multi-family, so don't expect a lot of garages here as it's mostly low-rise but dense on this side of the freeway.
The road going up the mountain is slowly getting more detailed... but regardless that it's taking too long "HEY HE ACTUALLY [BLEEP] WENT AND BUILT SOMETHING THAT'S NOT A ROAD, HOLY [CENSORED]!" ... yes that. Entirely THAT.
That new road also now has AI on it, too. Just for those that know, that I've had trouble with getting 4 or 5 lane roads to transition into 2-lane bi-directional ones, I think I've got a strategy that works now.
--That is all
-The Bob.
P.S. Yes that's a jump, a pretty big one actually, that points straight into the air. Have fun on it.

 

Spent over AN HOUR trying to fix what the editor SCREWS UP. The road architect tool is useless, should not be used under *ANY* circumstances. Actually it's about two hours.
So thanks to that tool, it's about 4 hours of wasted work just in the last 10 days or so.
Tried using it to make guide-rail and the guide-rail doesn't even connect pieces together and I can't set it to perfectly connect them because it knocks my settings back to another value constantly (wtf?).

Had to delete stuff I made because it kept screwing stuff up even without having any preset states in the level folder. Might have to delete and make everything from scratch again that I made using this. Not looking good.
It's leaving objects in the editor tree from the road architect tool, that screw up badly if you even slightly move ANYTHING made with it. It's a NIGHTMARE.
Out of all the features that have been put in this driving simulator and it's editor, this has to be the most broken, janky, bug-ridden, problem-causing, hair-pulling exercise in setting daily record amounts of swearing that I have ever had the mispleasure of experiencing.
Sure, I appreciate them trying to make new features; but if they're going to come out like this PLEASE NO MORE.
or... SOCIETY. WILL. COLLAPSE. Then again, if they own stock in mental healthcare sector (and I'm thinking they must), maybe this is just more for the cause and quite a way to bolster one's stocks.
For those that wanted billboards in the level, I think I'm going to make some before the next update.
All those billboards will be advertising ALL THE BROKEN STUFF that they've not fixed, or things like this that are really pushing my buttons lately.
You know, broken stuff such as...
1.)
Terrain (grass) billboards are off ~1 meter and all over the edges of the roads. (I'm not fixing this in-game, this is their bug and they need to FIX it, I'm not going over the entire damn thing for every level I've ever made, I would DELETE all the random-spawning grass before going over the entire level).
2.)
Vertically projected terrain textures (mountains) don't work and have been broken FOR A YEAR, so if the mountains don't look right where they're steepest, that's not a bug on my end it's their game-engine shaders.
3.)
There's still no tiled terrain support, which I've asked for since 2016. It's nearly 2025. Probably won't see it in my lifetime. Look at how big games such as the JUST CAUSE series or even FUEL or any Bethesda open-world game is...
4.)
There's still no 'hole in water' like there are holes in terrain (which don't even show up until you refresh the area), so you can't make tunnels below sea (water) level when you have a water plane. Water blocks aren't an option and are very heavy in hit to CPU performance and rendering engine when you have several of them overlapping, compared to one water plane which is universal, renders in one shot, and covers infinitely everything everywhere to a certain level and never are accidentally left too shallow.
5.)
Loading themes aren't support. Pfft. Only just about EVERY OTHER GAME ON THE PLANET that has loading screens leaves some music. About 95% of them anyways. You know, so people know it's working + it's calming?
6.)
Streaming textures is supposedly a thing here, GOOD, that includes loading AND unloading; but I've still got nothing for that when it comes to people running out of VRAM on objects / meshes in the level (and thus dropping to 1/3rd or 1/4th speed in FPS, e.g. near the big airport).
7.)
DOCUMENTATION, it's sparse, and often completely lacking on features - especially new ones. Even little things will help like 'Terrain layers won't work if the terrain graphics are from outside of the terrains folder'... do you know how long it took me to realize this? YEARS. YEEEAAAARRRSSS!!! So long I don't remember how long ago it was I tried to get the 4 broken terrain layers working and couldn't. Plus, the new version of the terrain format requiring all layers to be identical sizes with all other of the same layer, added a nice big fat 500~700mb to Roane County just because of that one requirement. Yes. That sucks. I'm not paying for the server bandwidth though.
Terrain used to be CAKE to get working. It was one of the first things I figured out how to do. We're surely heading backwards in that department. Toying with the terrain textures for SO long (especially with Roane County being broken) actually has burned me out of messing with adding PBR textures in general (though, if we got ray-traced headlights for at night I might re-consider).
8.)
A way for this game to put my hair back in that has fallen out due to stress or me otherwise pulling my hair out.
9.)
A way for me to express my current honest opinion without getting an swift, immediate, perma-ban from this forum.
Ugh.
Okay maybe the last two of those aren't essential. The rest are, however.
I CAN'T EVEN EXPORT MY TERRAIN LIKE IN THE OLD EDITOR. I just noticed this recently.
So me wanting to work on this terrain outside of the in-game editor and it's limited tool-set, and refine it to give it the professional touch can't be done. AT ALL. Not unless something can read the game's format for terrains natively, and I have absolutely positively NO CLUE if that can be done or what programs can do it.
It's stressful. I've been waiting for these things to be fixed, but pretty much all of them, I think I've given up waiting for them and just excluded feature from this project because of it.
At-least the shared objects and shared textures, and what is in them, no longer have to be included in every last level. It was years ago I mentioned this, it even makes it easier to not run afoul of DMCA rules, too.

Sorry for the rant. When I want to work on this project, I want the work to stay, not glitch out and self-delete or be so scrambled that I have to delete it and DO IT OVER AGAIN AND AGAIN.
So yea, that's why progress is not only slow, but also it's hamming my update schedule royally.
This will be out when it's done enough to release an update, works, and is not full of graphical glitches.
Right now each time I close and re-load it, it re-breaks itself again and glitches up the roads I made since 0.33 update.
I REPEAT: DO NOT USE THE ROAD ARCHITECT TOOL, YOU ARE ASKING FOR IT IF YOU DO.
I THOUGHT I COULD FIGURE OUT THE BUGS AND WORK AROUND / FIX THESE, THIS IS NOT THE CASE AND I REGRET EVER UPDATING TO 0.33!!! IF YOU DO USE IT, NEVER EVER MOVE EVEN A SINGLE NODE FOR ANY OF THE GRAPHICS IT PUTS DOWN OR THEY WILL GLITCH ON EVERY LEVEL LOAD, AND DO NOT RE-ENTER THE LEVEL EDITOR WITHOUT SAVING AND CLOSING THE GAME OUT AND THEN RELOADING TO CHECK FOR STUFF OR CONTINUE WORKING, OR IT WILL DUPLICATE ALL THE NODES AND MAKE PRETZELS OF EVERYTHING ON THAT ROAD. ARGH!!!
--That is all!
-The Bob.
P.S. Guess THE BOB is going to have to learn how to code things himself in the future. The old adage 'if you want it done right, you must do it yourself' has never been more true, but I've known this most of my whole life.

 

Hey Bob do you think you can fix that freeway tunnel near the airport. Its super laggy every time i try through there.
Also love the progress youve been doing to los injurus, keep it up man.

 

Either it's a VRAM-not-sufficient issue or there's something else over there causing an issue. Consider checking out your VRAM use in that area (VRAM is the memory on your video card). Can also check by turning texture detail down one notch, and then restarting the game, seeing if it still does it. That tunnel is 'expensive' when it comes to VRAM as are some of the airport (runway) textures. I will work on optimizing that (but yes, that's why the airport and that tunnel is in the corner).

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Big changes to some of the terrain (of course it's no-where near done, and has it's general shape but needs some naturalization so-to-speak, erosion / random bits).
Got most of that portion of the roadway done up to it's highest point (there will be another road which was originally part of this 'level' back when it was So-Cal Interstate, that will be replaced for the most part, which will be nothing but winding bits / tail-happy corners a plenty).
Don't have more time for description right now but it'll be good. Deleted anything that was causing issues with the Road Architect and manually recreated stuff.
Got sick of the BS with the Road Architect and stayed sane for the moment, surprise surprise.
--That is all!
-The Bob.

 

those roads look amazing cant wait to drive on them or crash depends on my driving
also have you made the devs aware of those problems you're having with the road editor, or could it be something with the map since its so old by now ?

 

Nice everything looks great hope you get better

 

It's the editor. Checking the logs it's a lot of vulkan crashes, a few issues with the road architect, a bunch more issues with the road architect, even more issues with the road architect after restarting, some decal editor crashes, can't leave it minimized for a while or it'll crash out (such as overnight with physics paused).

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Got a ton more done with building homes, was doing this for 6+ hours. Full block and then some.
I am sure you'll appreciate it as much as I enjoyed doing it.

Got nearly 40 decals scripted in and working (including re-working one of the graphics). That took 2 HOURS! What a pain in the butt.
Sheesh!
Oh well, at-least there's that new tunnel in the 2nd last shot. Wait, tunnel?
--That is all!
-The Bob

 

Nice bob

 

A construction site, and some finished homes were placed along the higher parts of the road that was just re-done. For anyone who's worked in constructing new homes, this should be pretty spot-on.

Last two are just shots off the porch of the highest-elevation home that's here, viewing what you can see of the city (even though the water is disabled in the shots due to the nature of me working the terrain via wire-frame earlier, the water-plane when enabled gets in the way and I can't see the wire-frame easily).
Nice views. I will try not to obscure too much of it with trees, but there will be some non-mature trees around here.

Ah yes, and the tunnel. I put this in yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to make the road on the other side of it yet (the other side's tunnel entrance is done though), so the road currently only goes for about 15 feet out of the tunnel and then there's a sheer drop-off a cliff. I will get to that shortly.
This road will likely lead you out to near the Cabrini-Green project buildings (it'll take you to the 11-foot-8 bridge also if you go for another block or three, since this is the same road that comes out behind the mall next to the MOIST grocery there). MOIST!
--All in due time.
-The Bob

 

So yesterday when I was working on a new mountain road to replace the one eaten by a game update back around 0.18~0.23 versions many years ago, the road architect ate my guide-rail on the road I made last Wednesday.
Will I take the time to fiddle with it and re-make it? Maybe, maybe not, I couldn't care less at this point because this editor is so broken beyond belief it's amazing I get anything done at all.
When you make a SECOND road with guide-rail, and you are tweaking settings going in and out of render mode to see the previews of where it goes, it'll often eat all the other guide-rail in the entire level. This is why I use big concrete things.
Hopefully the new strategy I am using will work for this, and it might not happen anymore, but I can never be sure.
Stupid Technology!

Last picture just shows you where this lets out at.
That is all for right now. Hopefully it doesn't scramble all up or get messed up some other way again.
If it does, well, then it's just going to be messed up I guess. I can only do so much damage control on this without it entirely defeating my motivation or even my ability to even get anywhere.
Complain to the devs, not me. Please DO NOT use the road architect tool. YOU WILL BE SORRY IF YOU DO!
--That is all
-The Bob

 

you dont know what memories you just brought back to me, bob!

just have to make it night time give it a slight cold blue filter and put on Ekstrak: Hard Drivers on the speakers

i always wanted to ask for roads like these but i didn't. those already feel like a dream come true

also i find it hilarious that you have beef with the road architect tool

 

Just got done putting new guide rails back on the road I made wednesday. I was MAD when I found out it got rid of them, AND I backed up the registry of level objects THREE TIMES (where guiderail is stored as it's placed in the object editor not the forest brush) as I put it back - this way if it kills my other guide-rail, I can put it back the way that ALWAYS works - the text editor.
EDIT: YOU WILL BE GETTING A *LOT* OF ROADS JUST LIKE THESE, AS FAST AS I CAN, AND AS MUCH AS I CAN MAKE THEM WITH THIS EDITOR. THIS TERRAIN LENDS ITSELF NATURALLY TO IT.
Yes, I do have issues with it. There's some serious bugs with it. To be honest, I LOVE / WORSHIP the dev team. I would do nearly anything for them, even things I wouldn't do for the majority of folks in my family.
However, this Road Architect is the bane of my existence. It is the main antagonist. But I don't give up easily.
They made THE BOB ang-er-y. The Bob has faced unsanctioned / unwarranted wrath of groups of people (including corrupt law enforcement and private investigators) and survived easily despite their criminal and even murderous intents (to be honest I didn't see most of it and survived it not much different than Inspector Gadget survived stuff in the 80's, the same as Maxwell Smart did in the late 60's or early 70's on Get Smart!). Yes, my life would make a great novel, or even a B-rate (made for TV) action movie (parts of it at-least), so I'm not about to let some stupid bunch of computer code ruin this, not once I've walked away from the computer a little while until I felt like I didn't want to beat the crap out of the tower anyways. No, I don't hit the computer, I did backhand it once or twice though only lightly, but over 5 years that's not too bad and that did literally nothing except make my hand red. The tower is one of those huge ones, rather heavy. Put it this way, I just hope I don't have to lift this thing anytime soon. So onto this editor... this bloody editor.
I have been determined to figure out what breaks and when. ...and so I found one of the bugs...
The 2nd road you make with guide-rail or other mesh objects, as you go back and forth between working on the values to fine-tune object placement, to render mode, and then back again to fine-tune, various bits of mesh objects from the FIRST road will get randomly sucked into the sim-group (folder in object editor) of the 2nd road. Except, if you don't see this ERROR right away, it will either not be re-saved correctly, get deleted, or do strange things like not showing up on the next level load, or otherwise get really screwed up.
At one point after I went in and out of the render mode the 2nd time to edit the 3rd (or 4th) time, to fine-tune the confusing/cryptic values (yes, very), it had EVERY OTHER PIECE for the first half of the FIRST new road stuffed into the group for the NEW (2nd!) road. If I hadn't caught this, I'd have lost literally every other piece of guide-rail off the first-half of the 1st road I made.

I put the eaten guide-rail back and it's better, slightly. There's just a car-width of space along here for those that pull-over to take in the beautiful view... of what, abandoned towers and a ruined mall???! There is a certain beauty to abandoned buildings, just not really the ones in this city (yet! I plan to add a little detail to the next bunch, due to game-engine advancements).
At-least the direction the rendering engine is going is the right one, and that, in and of itself, has made enough advancement over the last several versions to be a worthy version number jump in it's own right. They're finally doing a bunch of the things that I asked for - some of them - but I don't know what's going down in the future. I just know that with all the people that bought this game, they had the money to put some GOOD EXPERIENCED coders on the engine - which is exactly what is needed.
Shared assets - this guide-rail and some of the road-set-dressing textures are some examples along with some signs. This is something I've told them to do a LONG time ago, around 2017~2018 or such in the form of "Don't you want to put the assets in the game in such a manner that we can just pull them from any level we create, without having to add them in one by one and duplicating every asset into our own level from the stock game, wasting drive space, bandwidth for us and the SERVER itself, which costs hosting money, making downloads longer and making players wait more, and even making game-updates (render stuff) more difficult to absorb by requiring those creating levels to repeatedly service the level and re-upload it (thus more user-submission staff approvals to make) to keep it current?". Okay so 6~7 years later they finally got that ball rolling. I'd imagine it'll keep rolling that way, because I still see some more things that can be updated to the shared system, and we're not quite to the level of DOOM yet.
That was another thing I said "Things have been able to grab base-game assets for a start since (1993) Doom, is there a reason why things aren't this way from the get-go?" Most 3D artists (fancy name for you the level maker! Or me in this case if you don't make levels yourself - hoarding all the sanity for yourself I see) would be just fine with stock assets unless you need a totally different setting or are making something completely off-base - like a moon base or something similar. There's certain times reinventing the wheel is great - this physics engine for example - but there's other opposing times it's equally as STUPID to reinvent how things are done - such as not taking cues from Doom and all the other iD-software MS-DOS/Win9x days of easy modding and small resultant file sizes. Not only does it bring all the benefits of a smaller file (the scripting for the level, all the registries, indices, configurations and such, is all of <20mb zipped up, it might even be that unzipped - the lions share of it is 11.x MB when I back it up), you also get the benefit of most of the REALLY DIFFICULT work being done for you by the game. Considering EVERY user who makes a level, especially all the new folks and EVEN ME, would benefit from this, I mean why not? If someone thinks that's a bad idea, frankly, they need to be bonked on the head for the 2nd time, because obviously the first time didn't do the trick.
This game engine can be a wonderful thing. I think the devs have seen the light. They ARE doing the right thing, but like everyone else - most of whom don't say so - I will come right out and say I wish there were 10x more of them. I saw the vision for what this game engine has become many years ago when I was still making Roane County. When it first became possible to make a city, I knew I could finally have a chance at realizing a city, a real city, in a game better than (1993) Doom / (1994) Doom II for once. I just had to put it together like a puzzle and get all the stuff I dreamed up for it working together in harmony - about as realistic as cats and dogs living together - especially when you include the current rather insanity-inducing state of the level editor - but I'm trying.
Sure I come on here and rant like a little whiny [censored] but hey something's getting done.
I suppose this is better than nothing. It's better than silence. And sometimes the witty banter I put out is slightly entertaining, too. Well, plus you might just learn something, something more than the seemingly daily as-of-late 'Oh boy, The Bob is mad now! I can't wait for tomorrow's episode!'.
Today's tip: If you're done using the road architect for this session, go into the object editor view (pencil icon, should be one - if not THE - right most icon in the level editor, and look on the scene tree view. Go in and open up the ROAD ARCHITECT ROAD folders (should be near the bottom of the list) and make sure it's expanded. Take the things out of that folder (it's a group, click one item at top or bottom and go to other end of objects in that sub-folder while holding shift and click, should highlight them orange) and drag them using the object-type icon in the list until it shows them going with the list of other objects in the main folder hierarchy or just any other folder that's not a Road Architect folder. This includes mesh items, decal roads, decals, decal data, lines, set-dressing such as patches or weathering/wear etc. Empty that folder out. NOW it should be safe! *HOWEVER* This does not preclude this artificially unintelligent pile of nuts and bolts (and circuit boards) from mixing up last week's guide-rail with the one you're trying to make, so periodically re-check your object editor to see that your old guide-rail isn't getting grouped in with the new stuff. If THE BOB can make it work, then even a monkey or 20~50% of people can do it. Just don't try to get an actual monkey to do it, or it'll possibly try to commit suicide or more likely than not go insane and break everything.
DO MAKE BACKUPS INSIDE YOUR LEVEL FOLDER OF THE *MAIN* FOLDER, THAT'S WHERE THIS DATA IS STORED FOR THE MASTER OBJECT LOOK-UP TABLE / REGISTRIES / MISSIONS / FOREST BRUSH VEGGIES. Or backup the whole level, but this way is much quicker. Just drop the ZIP in MY DOCUMENTS or something similar and let the OS use the option for sticking a (2) or (3) after the name as you go, so you can keep tabs on when it was made more quickly and don't have to solely go-off the date.
I REPEAT, YOU MUST AND I MEAN ABSOLUTELY MUST MAKE FREQUENT BACKUPS USING THE ROAD ARCHITECT TOOL OR YOU WILL GET SCREWED OVER BY IT, AND YOU WILL BE MAD OR JUST REALLY DISAPPOINTED.
Murphy's law: What can go wrong, eventually will.
This is turning out somehow worse than me previously trying to be an intern at the dynamite testing facility.
--Stupid Technology!
-The Bob
Below illustrations are just for kicks, and sum up how I feel about the new editor feature...
If you do use the Road Architect, be careful and double-check often. These above tips might not solve the road architect issue with decal roads upon reloading the level, where on edited roads it sometimes doubles the nodes and makes a pretzel out of it, but you can sometimes click the first node (it may not show it's selected, ignore that for now) and then hold shift and click the end-node, then hit delete and see if it un-pretzels itself. Though you'll have to do this for each one, it can sometimes be quicker than re-making it. Try moving things out of the road architect folders in the object editor / scene tree before saving to see if it solves the issue for the next reload. GET BACK TO ME IF THIS STUFF HELPS SO I CAN CONFIRM IT IF YOU MAKE/EDIT YOUR OWN LEVELS.

 

SUBWAY NOW CONNECTED!

Plus added a new sunken station platform.
Now you can take a train from one side to the other, though not 100% around the lake yet - only 70% or so as I only connected the two disjointed sections of track tonight.
--Just thought I'd mention it.
-The Bob

 

Hey Bob, are you planning on making multiple subway lines or just this one. It would be cool to see many lines tho

 

My machine lags with the graphics cranked up and dynamic reflections turned on in the airport tunnels, but runs perfectly fine with reflections off and the rest of the settings still on maximum.

 

Well, reflections DOES put more load on the CPU, but it pounds the GPU also. My old intel system couldn't use dynamic reflections on the Radeon 7850 2gb card from 2013, but the RX 480 could crank them out, up to the draw call limit on Roane County in downtown Harriman (the worst place for lag in nearly any BeamNG user 'level').
First off, let me know what GPU you have. That's quite important.
What CPU do you have, and what is your memory amount and speeds for system RAM if you know them?
Get an AMD X3D chip if you have issues with draw calls or minimum FPS in games in general. No one's using intel anymore anyways, so I won't give the lecture that you need an AM5 or even AM4 platform for those. Use VULKAN for best results, but I can't 100% promise that it's not something on your GPU holding things back either.
The tunnel is super complex, one of the most complex models there is, and plus it's even got translucent texture grating, so that might make it even more difficult for whatever reason.
HINT: THE 9800x3D coming out in November is supposed to be really good, for those wanting to upgrade! 9900x3D and 9950x3D chips are coming early (Jan/Feb?) 2025 RUMORED to have dual-V-cache dies. This is a RUMOR and should be taken with a pound or ten of salt... or sugar!
You may elect to wait for full review coverage on the 6th before committing to pre-purchase or retail purchases, though (and I'd recommend in doing so).
I don't drop any FPS over here though on this, even on the 2070 I didn't drop FPS until I hit the VRAM limit.
Use medium texture details IF turning down reflection details doesn't help.
What is also helpful is if you bring up the performance monitor with CTRL+F

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Got home late tonight so haven't had much time yet to put into this.
Worked the terrain a little bit and added some stream channels, these will be connected up to stuff later.

Also added the appropriate asphalt coloring on the terrain under the new road(s), so when you zoom out the road outline is still visible.
Not sure how much time I will have to work on this tonight yet. But what exactly keeps a person so busy?

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I'm pretty beat, but I've been playing the part of a stand-in for DAD for my 15-year old niece, because the father isn't in the picture these days. That said, due to picking up her mother last year (My sister, I rescued from the shores of Myrtle Beach from an abusive druggie boyfriend on almost zero notice where she was pretty much trapped and broke), my sis has graduated from the recovery mission (a few months ago - May or June I think), and is gainfully employed now and well on her way to greatness. Sis's been clean over a year now and has a steady (non-abusive, non-drug-addled!!!) boyfriend. She's even paid me back the money she owed me (though I didn't charge her a penny for going and getting Sis, or for the dozen+ cartons of cigs I got Sis over the last year until she graduated from the recovery mission) that I lent her to keep her out of jail (she missed an old court case, due to controlling evil boyfriend I mentioned and being out of state) because well who wants to see their family in jail especially when they've come so far? Plus, my mother has to pay for enough so as it is (not for me, we split the bills here and I cover all my own expenses plus if we go out to eat at all), so she couldn't really afford to put out money for it, and my dad's been dead for 13+ years now so obviously he can't help the situation. I was the only person left, but I did lend her money for bond without a second thought on the matter, this so she didn't have to sit in a jail cell for more than an hour and could get through the court system and clear her name (here, if arrested, or you show up for court and they order bond, you might sit in the jail 30~60 minutes until a Bond agent comes and bails you out, you get bonded out and if you come to court for your follow-ups, and handle probation if required, all is well). That said the justice system was rather understanding, and while firm on what they ask and upholding the law, they did work with her and heard her out on her situation.
Plus, I'm going to be honest, that 2AM stop at an all-night Wendy's that was combined with a fuel-stop in the Carolina's immediately after picking up my sister (I told her to order whatever she wanted!) was probably the best Wendy's I ever had in my entire life. I told the really swell black guys that were cooking that they made the best fast food I ever had (also telling them what I was up to) and they were happy to have been part! They were good people, too. If I ever get back that way again, though I'm not 100% sure where it was exactly, I'll surely recognize it and definitely would stop in. If our local Wendy's was this good, I'd actually eat there, but I can't even figure out the drink machine they put in several years back (I really HATE those things, and almost punched one at a Wendy's in Nashville because I was so dang mad at the stupid contraption as I couldn't figure out how to get the drink out).
I couldn't be more proud of the solid standing woman my sister has become, and it's helping her daughter - my niece - so much. It means the world to that 15-year old girl and it shows in her 4+ point grade average and great scores in extra-curricular activities (which we fully support!). I don't have my own kids because I never really met a woman I could trust that didn't end up going into the military or something else out of my control like that, or that I didn't find out later was a total train wreck. Combine that with my unwillingness to lose my free spirit and get tied down, and loving being single / being a bit spontaneous... Basically, I don't mind having to stand in for a missing father and help out with expenses or just 'be there' for her. If it's for her future, it's worth it. So I don't pass up an opportunity to make someone else's life better, basically is what I am saying. If that means supporting her by going to her sports games, or giving her rides to see friends or something like that (I mean, you DO have to be careful and know where your teenager is at, especially girls / young women). Helping her helps my sister (her mother) also, and considering my niece lives here with us, that's fine by me. I'm already here, so why not.
I can't spoil her rotten (and won't), but if it takes me a little longer to save up for a new PC (or a large upgrade), that's fine by me (I don't finance stuff, period). If this one blows up before then, I'll just get out the parts cannon and fix it. Sometimes in life, it can be true that there's things more important than the computer, and to be honest, while this one's getting old, it's not really SLOW - but these things do NOT last forever so I like to update every 4~6 years.
So yes, this takes up a lot of my time. However, besides making this level, and playing possibly too much Metroid (the old ones), what else am I doing? I mean, it's not like I'm begging for another week of trying to fix the perpetually broken riding mower.
Ah as I always say 'Can't watch the world burn unless you leave the house and taking part in society!'.
No, really, I've been busy. Really busy. It's slowly taking a toll on my body, BUT it's helping me lose weight (to the tune of a few pounds a month), and I'm down some 30~35 pounds at the moment from starting in June.

Normally I don't share much of my life on the internet, but I figured some folks would wonder what I've been up to. It's been like this pretty much since school started... but I'm okay with this. Maybe one day I'll have kids of my own, but in retrospect here, I'm obviously no hurry and that couldn't be more true.
I'd rather spend the time making sure she's raised better than figuring out that stupid Wendy's soft-drink dispenser machine (really, that thing has to be way more expensive, and it mixes the drinks when it starts dispensing! yuck).
Needless to say, her team won tonight against the historically hardest-to-beat county on the game roster, so things are looking good. Something someone is doing is obviously correct!

Sometimes we are called upon the strangest of challenges - or adventures - depends how you look at it, often without even a monetary reward. It's up to you whether or not you accept this challenge, and what you expect out of it or in compensation. Some people demand compensation. I don't fall into that category. However, if I pass on and meet my maker much earlier than expected, will I go out with a clear conscience knowing I did the right thing (by God)? Even for those who aren't religious, it's something to ponder. For me it's something that helps me sleep better. I think we can all use something like that.
My sister and I used to barely get along. We argued a lot, and there was some vindictive (narcissistic) behavior in the past from her. She is like a new person now, and I can actually get along with her consistently. We might not agree on everything, but she's my only other full-blooded sibling (my half-brother was the one who died last month, I have two other half-brothers still living, both older than myself). Who else do we have? I waited my entire life to actually truly have a sister that cared and genuinely felt like they loved me, and I finally have that. It's not some demented contest anymore, not that it was supposed to be in the first place. I guess hitting rock bottom will do that for some folks, I just wish she didn't have to go through it. However, she is a much, MUCH stronger person because of it. She and her boyfriend attend church every Sunday and are working their way up in life, with the love and support of the southern people here who understand what it is like to 'be without' in life, it's been a big help to her.
One thing for sure. I regret NOTHING, and it's looking like it's going to stay that way. If someone in your life needs help, there are MANY resources out there to give a whole range of help at little or no cost to you/them. Sometimes they just need YOUR help finding said resources, or recognizing they have a problem in the first place.
--That is all.
-The Bob
I can't help everyone, nor can I solve everyone's problems for them. Sometimes problems are your own to solve and only your own, if you even identify there's a problem in the first place - and that can be a mountain of a battle in itself. However, whether it's a sleeping intoxicated man in a burning car, a disgruntled gun-toting felon in a dark alley in the city at 0300 hours, buying lunch for a homeless couple back in February at the Burger King on Sunday, or my own sister who was abused, all but trapped, and nearly starved to death - you're darn tootin' I'm going to step up and help. Even the little old lady who's 96 years of age and trying dutifully to get a sweater down off the top hooks on the clothing rack at the store, yes, you help. It might only take seconds, a minute, or even an hour or more, but that time is anything but wasted. That time is invested. That feeling of seeing someone else's life improve, when you didn't have to help but chose to anyway, and seeing them thrive - that feeling is something amazing and it's something no one can ever take from you.

 

I have tried everything with the road architect.
It's still broken.
Nothing I can do will stop it from eating guide-rail.

So there's about a quarter-mile of it missing. Not sure if this will be fixed in time. I'm pretty much out of patience fixing it all the time. I don't mind making stuff, but doing things and re-doing them constantly having to double-check what survived a level reload is tedious and disheartening.
They really gotta get on the ball over there at the dev team, there is no excuse not catching this bug. A youtuber did a video on the feature and noticed it in 5~8 minutes of the video starting that his static-meshes disappeared and didn't save on restart.
How could they not notice this? By not using it. If they don't want to use it, I don't think anyone else will.
I certainly don't, and won't. Besides, I have pre-made graphics that just slap all the delineation down in one go. Road Architect: This is a solution in search of a problem, except, it's a problem in search of a problem disguised as a solution.
No thanks!
--Just a short bit. Hey, I tried.
-The Bob

 

RTX 3070 and Ryzen 9 5900HX

When I tried using the map with Vulkan and dynamic reflections in the last version, reflective surfaces gleamed way too brightly and the tunnel lag bug happened across the entire map. I will have to retry it in this version using Vulkan both with and without dynamic reflections and will report back on whether it is still laggy.

Update: This time the map failed to load at all on Vulkan and was stuck on the loading screen.

On an unrelated note, are you planning to add more Chicken Munch restaurants? I have devised my own challenge called the "Chickenball Run" where the goal is to start at the multi-storey carpark closest to the default spawn point, visit the drive-thru of every Chicken Munch on the map, and return to the carpark in the quickest time possible. Adding more than two outlets would really boost the challenge.