Ok, I've read every tutorial, the wiki, watched all videos I could find on terrain making on youtube, and I cannot get this simple question answered. Where do you put your stuff as you work your level, prior to packaging it and putting it, I presume, in the mods folder in Documents? I've tried putting my uncompressed track in documents/beamng.drive/content/levels/nordschliefe, but it doesn't work. The track isn't in the list in the game. I put it in documents/beamng.drive/levels/nordschleife and it works. But I got a rather annoying problem coming from this. When I edit textures in the material editor, and change a diffuse, or wanna add a normal/spec maps, if I browse to my objects folder inside this folder, I get an absolute path in the editor, and to top it off, the texture doesn't work, it ends up orange. I have found that if I put a duplicate of my objects folder inside program files/beamng.drive/levels/nordschleife, then it works. I can select the texture in that directory, and the game/editor really uses the one in documents. I can't explain this behavior... it just puzzles me. If I update the file with photoshop in program files, it doesn't show up in game, and if I update the one in documents, it do update in the game. It's rather annoying, since if I make a new normal map, I must copy it twice. And it just feels wrong having to do this. I tried putting the files right in Program Files, but then, if I do changes to something in the world editor, and save my changes, (NOT save as), the .mis don't get saved in program files, but the game creates a folder in my documents, and saves it there. Rather annoying as well. I believe I have tried putting the uncompressed track in mods folder in documents, but I think it didn't showed up. So many things I tried... not too sure..
When i do my tracks i have the standard track folder in "ProgramsFiles" But every time you save any changes in the editor it will create a new folder in documents with the same track name and the changes goes there. Just simply copy the folder from "Documents" and paste it in the "ProgramFiles" and then just press "copy and replace". Now you can delete the track folder in "Document". And next time you do any changes and saves it, you have to do the same thing over again. I don't know why it is like this, but i think it is if the game crash when you save it or something and the files get corrupted. You will have the "old" or backup in the "ProgramFiles" folders. When you gonna save the track. make sure that you have copied the track folder from the "documents" folder and added it in the "ProgramFiles" folder. Then just .ZIP the track that is in the "ProgramFiles" Folder and upload it. Thats how i made it. If you still have some question on this you can add me on skype, when you add me type the beamNG forum name (pleclair) when you add me so i know it's you Skype name: melkerfox
Ok, well, that's good to know then. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. Still a bit odd, but as you say, crashes are not an impossible thing, I have lost my work a time or two at least due to it. But now I save very regularly, make backup every day I start working on it so I can always revert to yesterday's progress, and I quit the game once in a while and reload it so it is more stable as well. I have found most of my crashes happened after an extended period of work, often for more than 1-2 hours. So far so good, still having to figure a thing or two, like, maybe you can help with this. As you might know, I wasn't able to make a native terrain for the track, since I would need 7782 resolution, and it's way too crude for shaping up roads of nordschleife. I even tried making a road mesh, but the road sides where too jagged in the slopes, and it didn't looked good at all.. the road seems to sink and rise from the terrain all the time. It would probably have been very annoying while driving at high speed too. So I'm using a static mesh. Actually, come to think of it, that will be two questions as I never found an answer about this either but seen it asked many times. All my terrain is driving like asphalt. I've seen many posts about this, and the answer that comes up is name your grass material, grass, sand material, sand, etc... as per groundcover. I understand that, and it works for terrain materials, as the groundcover seems to search for a *layer* named grass, not a material named grass. So I decided to give it a try yesterday, and even tho the material editor wouldn't let me rename the material, it wasn't saving it, I edited the text file, and back in the editor the material is now named Grass. However, it still drives and smokes like asphalt. I have the materials show dust ticked, but I see no dust either while running over such surface. The same for sand. I hope they let us add ground physics to different materials, and not just terrain materials... otherwise, we have a big problem... since some maps just can't be done with the native terrain. And the other question is, if I load some official maps, and do some terrain painting using grass, some adds some little flowers and wild vegetations. Not all maps, but Industrial is one of them. I really want those things in nordschleife, it would add a lot in the fields along with the high grass. However, none of the default maps have forest items with such vegetations?? I tried to figure how to add them, but I failed. I found the texture, but when I setup a new forest item, I need a mesh too... How could I add these things in my forest brushes library? Thanks for replying!
hmm. I think it will be a problem actually. I dont think its possible to make the ground different on a static object. Have you tried to rename the material in 3ds max or blender before you export it?. Any dev that can say if its possible? I think you mean the ground cover when you talked about the flowers and that. Well that will not work on the static object i think. but maybe, I will have a look on that. But! it is easy to do that in the 3d program. Here is an example that i made alittle fast. I think its possible to make so it generates it over the whole level or the selected part. First picture is the static road with out grass. Like yours (imported from here) Then i made a cross with 2 plain and made it double sided so its only 4 polygons. Then added a grass texture with alpha. (imported from here) If you have skype i will gladly help you. Then i can some some techniques that might work. Hard to explain in text and picture and it will take so long. Hope this helped // Melker S
Pretty useful question, thanks for asking and thanks the answer. Indeed, it's quite difficult to wrap your head around the way it works. Note that in my case, it spreads the saved files in the documents section over several folders; one is documents/Beamng.drive/art (where I find the definition of my ground materials), one is documents/Beamng.drive/levels/<mylevelname>, plus my original file in documents/Beamng.drive/mods. That's quite confusing... I also tried working in the program files section straight, but the updater will systematically remove your files, which is confusing too... Also note that I had to put my original heightmap and textures inside C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\BeamNG.drive\content, otherwise the import of heightmap fails. A fourth place for files. I believe that I am missing something, since spreading the files over a bunch of different folders seems quite unmanageable... Is there an "official" way of working?
My "official" way to work is put all stuff in Document/BeamNG.Drive/mods/levels/%map_name% BUT like the editor spread every file, I use a python script to move things bake into ^^^^^^^^^^ And another to delete Cache file because it's buggy too. I think when you redistribute your work, it's preferred to do it in a zip file
