WIP Beta released The Tennessee USA Roane County 0.71 Beta Discussion/Suggestion/feedback Thread 19.3.1

I think the water density may be just a tad bit too high, my T-series was floating.

Great map though, the size is impressive enough, but the detail you put into it is incredible.

 

Thanks for the kind words! Always appreciated here - because yes, there's 500~1000hrs of work on this (I have 100% lost track).

Yes, the big truck will float a bit. It works great with the cars over 90% of the time though! I have it tweaked a little high because I used to live near a creek between two mountains, that used to flood often in Pennsylvania, used to flood over the main route all the time and I'd have to slam the car through the high water. I spent an hour or two over the course of this map and So-Cal (which has the same really-high-density water mind you), and took the time to replicate 'boating a car over water'... just like I used to have to do, to get to and from my house :x Don't try this at home!
With a modern car, if you hit the water at highway speeds, you'll actually boat over the water for a bit until your momentum isn't enough and you get dragged into it a bit. I'll most likely drop this enough to make the truck sink in the future however as I have noticed this myself.
In the past, I hit 3~4' of rushing water over the roadway, at about 65~70mph... I would estimate, about 20~25' of the roadway lengthwise was flooded. I made it clean over it with a 100$ '92 r-titled Sable Didn't do a darn thing to that trusty ol' Merc.

So, yes, I will 100% find what the water is supposed to be set at using ECA as reference, so that your truck sinks properly.

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On other notes, I actually just this week had to go out and buy a new video board because I was absolutely sick of the choppy gameplay my other radeon 7850 2gb (that's over 3 years old and was on discount when purchase in 2013!) was just too slow.
I picked up a Rx 480 by XFX and it works fantastic. Entirely recommended, no coil whine at all, and the fan noise is tolerable, and while it gets pretty toasty, it doesn't go over 83 degrees C, so it should last. They even have swapable clip-in fans on these.
Where to get one cheap? Why, you're local Best Buy has a sale this week - so hurry in before Sunday to catch it. They actually undercut Amazon by about twenty bucks for the same models as I checked!
While the 1060 6gb may have more performance, all my Nvidia boards in the past have screamed like dying rats in a trap with the exception of one custom Gigabyte board, so I am not going that route anymore... just not having it.
The funny part about going to get the video board is that I had to drive down the part of US Route 40 that I put into this map to go get it! Boy was that weird. The part where I always crash off the Eastbound side of the highway at the top of the mountain in the game, the guard rail was missing/obliterated on the real highway. I said to myself 'HAH I know how THAT happened...TOO FAST!'

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A big shout out to the forum Ops like @synsol today for going out of their way to help get this added to the repository in the near future. I have a week or two's work to do on it yet before-hand, but It should be up in the next 10~14 days or shortly following with a new version - no more Mega links will be needed.
The developers and forum Ops here @ Beamng.drive are like no other I have experienced. Thanks for being there, and thanks to the beta testers who've sat patiently through all this since the very rough 1st version release. This has come a long way - a LONG way but slowly and surely it's getting seen through to completion.

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Also, shout-out to @Occam's Razer for the driveway models he sent me. Thanks a bunch, now less folks have to park on the street. His Garfield Heights map is getting an update soon so do be on the lookout for that here on the Beamng Forums.

--Cheers!

 

I may be able to help with this. Any general styles for the houses? also got any examples of signs i could try to make? no guarantees, but i figure it cant hurt to try

 

If you google up Rockwood Tennessee on Google Street View, it'll show you.
Some nondescript 1960's brick boxes, ranches, even a few newer homes made from vinyl siding.
Some rowhomes for the city, that'd blend decently with the ECA downtown setup (The ingame map East Coast).
Some commercial properties which you could find possibly on the sketchup workshop (google?).
Textures should be sent along with them, dds textures preferred but you can make them any type and I will convert them over by text-editing the collada files themselves if needed. Please make sure they include collision data so that I can use them in the forest brush natively otherwise I won't be able to use them (forest brush items don't go against the object limit, which I am near!).
Credit will be given appropriately of-course to anyone who contributes things. Though, if brands/trademarks or whatever are used, I will de-brand it and instead use my own made-up logo or something (Like Sprawl-Mart instead of Wal-mart, or the Burger World instead of Burger King). I don't mind doing this and it's actually funny to make up names.
We could actually use a ton of commercial properties come to think of it. Anyone want to make a Dollar Corporal (Dollar General) or a Bargain Basement?

 

First, this is a very good map, and I don't think I've seen any with this size any detail. The only problem I'm coming across is that the vehicles are sort of shaking, they shake especially when they are not moving. Any idea on what may be causing this and how I could fix it? Thanks!

 

It isn't even really a bug, per se. It's a literal limitation of the physics engine, in which calculations for point-based data become less accurate the farther from the center of the simulation one becomes.

The map is so big that it routinely brings you to the edges of perfectly stable simulation, which causes this largely visual (by my understanding) shaking. It's as if the car itself is a nano-particle governed by quantum physics, and the physics engine isn't entirely sure where it is, so it vibrates between the possible positions continuously.

In short: Presently, no - since I am mostly always in motion I don't really notice it much.

 

The shaking is inherited from the Torque3d engine. It's less precise as mentioned above, when you get a good 10+ miles from the game-world center (0,0,0), it really starts to get shaky. This is also noticable on the SSRB map from Nadeox1. When you've gone 10 miles, you really notice it.

Conversely, if you start in Rockwood on my map, you won't notice it much, as that's the closest town to the map center (which isn't far from Rockwood).
Start in Harriman or Default / Burger world / Waterfront Park & you'll notice it more, same goes for the Airport.

I can't change this, and it also cannot be fixed currently, it's just a knack to this game. It's only visual and won't hurt anything, it's also not noticeable at speed.

--Cheers!

P.S. A bit Shout-outz to @RedRoosterFarm for some fairly awesome sign models. No more round poles on common street signs. I'll have to go back and re-do some of my work but hey at-least they'll look real this time. Bang-up great job RRF! Many thanks!

Included two screenshots of the (Utah) directional chevron signs that are by the side of the highway. I took these screenshots at night while driving down the long descent from the airport road exit on my map's highway, eastbound toward the rockwood/harriman (roane St) exit.
I used google street view to eyeball the size/height/location of the signs as to where they should be and how large.

 

May still be processing -

I may be busy with school work, but I still make a point to take a break every once in a while to tear around my favorite map.

I haven't had the chance to shoot any quality video really, so consider this my relatively scenic-paced tour of the same route taken in previous videos, updated to the new version.

 

Well thank-you, I will update the video links in the OP tomorrow when I do my daily!

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Since I am typing, might as well list some more progress
Spent another hour or two on sidewalks in ROCKWOOD. They're still not done. Eventually, they will be. Eventually... ugh.
I just got a hair under 80 objects scripted into the forest brush... THAT WAS TEDIOUS AND UNFUNx10000 but it HAD to be done. It's done.
@!#$%^
This was after doing 69 forest object's scripting YESTERDAY. I think I wore off a few more letters off my keyboard in the process.
....
Oh well, thank goodness I'm super-duper fast at this data-entry stuffs... and 1/25000 unit error ratio. Sheesh
...
On another note, the new XFX Radeon RS RX 480 4gb decided it was going to RAAAATTTLE and really aggro me... so it went back.
Replaced for 22$ more (pricematched @ a local brick and mortar!) with a XFX Radeon RS RX 480 *8*GB XXX edition card.
This one runs 10~12C cooler, uses 2.5~10w more power, maxing at 132w under continuous 100% load. It also doesn't RATTLE.
MORAL OF WHY I SAID ABOUT THE GFX CARD, ALWAYS GET THE BETTER MODEL!
It's not just clocked up, it's a better yield of chip (okay, I know this, but being serious here!).
Do not worry, I am not going to cram so much gfx into this game map that no one can run it. The only gfx that will be present that aren't the last time, is a driveway graphic for the new driveways
THE MAP CURRENTLY USES 3500MB OF GFX CARD MEMORY ON LOAD; MAX 3750MB AFAIK.
@Occam's Razer sent me (thanks!, i just got them scripted in now), and the new signs @RedRoosterFarm sent me (those i scripted in yesterday, with the addition of 3 more today)... maybe it was 2 days ago I did them, I don't know, my short term memory is shot from the PTSD.
I try to remember stuff as best I can... like YES I am doing wash, or NO don't dry plates in the clothes dryer because it works faster (KRUNCH!!!).
Spincycle isn't the answer to everything. Tumble-dry is not going to make good life-long friends with your dishes...
This ends today's life-lessons and map work stuffs. I have to get back to working on it.

What may seem like 'not much progress' is all the little stuffs that is behind-the-scenes, backstage, that makes the whole show look good/better.
217638 character forest brushes file and managed item data is like 105477 characters long (they're both part of the forest file and make it work).
THATS OVER 323,000 CHARACTERS. THAT IS A *LOT* OF TYPING AND ERROR CHECKING. So YES this takes a LONG TIME.
This is also why when THIS map is done, I will eventually churn out TWO more maps of about this size to the EAST and WEST of this map's location.
This way I can make much use of all the assets I've been scripting in... So yeah - back to working on ROCKWOOD.
Got the 'roane street 1 mile' exit sign in, got the MIDTOWN + arrow sign in. Seen it driving past 2 days ago I was like OOPS. GOTTA ADD THAT. It's in.
So to the guy that said something about a MIDTOWN exit in this thread, D'OH! That's fixed now...my bad.
*fixed, numerous decal road textures, various back-stage typos and other things no one noticed (i hope), going to fix the decal road at the 4-lane railroad crossing on pine-ridge road <1 mile north of US40 intersection. There's a few other decal road errors I have to check out and fix too.
Most of the decal road errors are actually the v0.7.x update changing how decal roads are computed. Not sure I like working with them as much now...
--Cheers!

 

Very much impressed by your effort. I really enjoy this map and happy to see the updates to it when they come. Sounds like a good idea to make use of the assets to make more maps. I guess thats the way big studios do so it makes all the sense.
Please make repeated backups of your HDD, atleast this map, would hate to see something happen, can really kill a big project like this.

 

I backup FREQUENTLY. My drive c: is a SSD raid0 - so this IS A MUST (I am on MLC-based NAND SSD's here, but i need the sequential speeds). DO NOT WORRY, everything AND I MEAN everything is backed up here, with unplugged drives (offline drives), connected thumb-drives (always in), and online backups. I am REAL picky about backups. I am going on 35 and still have my Windows background I made for my Windows 95/98 computer in '97 or '98 when I was like 16~17. I didn't just sit there and give my Windows all-cartoon sound effects (heh), I read about how to back them up (I mastered PC's in Vo-Tech and have some certs from back then and also have continued to read EVERYthing about PC's since then and still know quite a bit about hardware...including the fact it can FAIL without warning at ANY time. My sister's computer's motherboard just went to motherboard heaven, the PC is 8 years old I built her.
I know these things... I have been there, done that, etc. Even with corrupt confidential informants trying to murder me, I still didn't lose my important data.
No worries, I can raw-read the drives if I must in the event of Windows failure, or copy it off from linux. If the drive(s) fail, I will lose at most 2~3 days work... tops. It's usually every 10 hours work so sometimes it's a daily backup.

Even if my house explodes, and someone makes off with all the leftover non-sploded bits, and an earthquake opens up the earth and swallows anything left... I WILL STILL HAVE THIS MAP (and my synthesizer, and other game mods, software & hardware keys/receipts/proof-of-purchases, etc)...

On other notes, there's lots of turn markers on the turns now on the highway, and Roane St between Harriman and (unfinished) Rockwood has all it's turns marked, so you'll be able to see where the road turns here and there further off when zipping along at night.

Any type of release is AT LEAST another 8~10 days away, I just can't get anything out before that time. Doing the signs is very time-consuming, but this is normal for this stage. It's easy and quick to carve out some roads and plunk down miles and miles of them each night of the week, then plant trees and plant houses (okay they're in the forest brush), and have something to show for it... but it takes much more time to go through and 'finish' up each section of road.

Drive along a few miles of road, like 10 miles of road, and count every sign you see. Don't crash while doing it, and if you're still alive @ the end of it, you'll see why it takes soooooo long @#$^%...

On a better less rant-y note, the all-godlike OBJECT COUNT is pretty-much no closer than it was 2 weeks ago. I've mostly got only forest-brush work to do now. When I get closer to finishing this map and have an idea of exactly how many objects I have left to work with, I will do things like smooth railroad crossings, extend railroad tracks, make more guard rails, etc... things that aren't entirely 100% necessary but add to things to help.
Does anyone have a telephone pole + wires I can add in and use in the map that will work with the forest brush (pole needs collision in the model, wires don't need collision as it'd be a waste and stick the car anyways)? Only requirements is that it's not from a commercial or published game! Credit will be given! I don't want to seem needy but I have 0% luck with these Collada-exporting modeling programs, it hangs Beam or just doesn't work, no matter how many tutorials I follow. It just HATES me. ECA has a large chunk of poles + wires, maybe you can take that apart (someone, anyone?).

--Thanks for the kind words, it always helps - though is not by any means necessary.
--Cheers!

P.S. In a day or two I'll throw some more pics up after I tie up some more loose ends. The hard deadline on this is the 3rd of November or so, so I will try to put something out by that day or so. This isn't map-completion date, it's the next release milestone date. Thanks for sticking with this!

 

Glad to hear you take backing things up so seriously! This is truly a favourite map, not only thanks to its sheer size.
Cant help you with that phone pole, had them on an old outback terrain i did but... back up issues lol.

 

Started making use of the scripted assets while building that development in Kingston (near the waterfront park, and a tad further from the default original spawn point). It's on the hill between the highway and the waterfront park spawn (north of the spawn).

It still needs it's trees, and is far from finished, but the drainage easement and swails are in, the houses are all (well most!) in with leveled plots about them, tried to grade things realistically where I could. Driveways are in (thanks @Occam's Razer !), but the texture is not what you'll see in the final version, it's just temporary.
Going to TRY to finish this development tonight, it would be nice, but so as it is this took the last few hours to do THIS (see below).

(Just for the record, I had to hold a piece of tinfoil up to get these pictures up, for about 2~3 mins) My internet reception is terrible + it's SLOW DSL.
We have really rubbish internet here in BEDROCK Tennessee... I swear FRED FLINTSTONE had faster internet!

 

Speaking of textures..... I'm sure you have plans for fixing it (it's still a beta after all) but the grass01 texture is really noticeable as being out of scale with the rest of the map. As currently applied, anyway

 

If you mean the grass near the roads, yes, that's the 'touching up' I put in to 'clean up' the edges of the roadways to blend them with the grass better so it's not so square-edged. That will be updated with the proper scale before a proper release, or failing that, sometimes before it's 'done'.
If you mean the grass that grows out of the green-painted terrain, the 2d billboard sprite of grass, yes, it's a bit short. I will have a look-see about the map terrains directory/groundcover directory.

 

You probably already have this planned out but one thing ive always tohught of is the fact thjat the ground isnt pure green, most often its brown and its the grass that is green (of course). An all green grass tex makes it look like a nice carpet. In fact the grass itself turns yellowish/brownish the closer it gets to the ground, not that visible in this rendering but you get the idea:

 

I'll be fiddling with this more as the map is getting structurally complete - though how much I am not sure. I like the lush, deep green, healthy summer grass, and any different colors I put in makes it REALLY stand out. Right now, we're in a bit of a drought in Tennessee so all the grass is brown. I may decide to add more different grass textures in the future though. Like I said though, no promises for terrain work, currently focusing on the structure and the 'map furniture' like buildings, signs etc, once that's done though we'll see how it goes.

 

I really love this map its my favourite one dof beamng currently because of the size and detail. Also it reminds me of germany somehow

 

Climate type is somewhat similar, so you'd see the same plants etc here. Also, the German Autobahn of the 40s is what the USA's Eisenhower freeway system was modeled after in the 50s, though to my best recollection, Route 40 here (the main highway), was built in the early-mid 70s - but I could be wrong.
Thanks for the feedback, keep and eye on this section of the forum for future updates.

 

Another cross-Tennessee sprint - this map was practically made for the motorcycle!

(also, finally got the time to shoot something worth watching)

Like peanut butter and jelly.