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

Fixed/lowered draw calls by re-doing these pieces in a mosaic (all in one texture) with reflectors included. The new pieces are from the car to the left, old one to the right (in front of) the vehicle.
The best of the change is at night though! No more ugly seams (you can still sometimes see them but it's much more difficult to see them now, and they're much improved).

This buys the map another 5+fps or so in the most intense areas, but that fluctuates from run to run, sometimes. Curbs are MUCH less likely to eat tires now, too!

"But Bob, those pieces were done already, why did you do them AGAIN?"
...Well, good point, but look at one of the old pieces - a slope piece I haven't done yet - here:

See that lighter more speckled one, without reflectors, that's how bad it looked at night, and this is why.
The piece also won't look bad if you rotate them 180 degrees and connect them, for example, with a driveway on one side, the center turn lane texture will no-longer mismatch from one piece to the next.


This should be much more eye-pleasing!
Correct FPS this time, was 61~63 FPS (I'm running two screens atm) yesterday, now is 66~71.x FPS.
Definitely have some draw calls issues I'm sorting out. I had one spot I found that was up to 5500!!! That's way bad, about 2000 units too high. That's what kills FPS. More goodness on the way in the coming days.
For those waiting on pieces of the modular road kit, it'll be another day or two. Hopefully by Saturday night I can get some of those pieces uploaded. Shouldn't take too terribly much more to finish that set.

It's almost below 4000 draw calls here, which is the goal, over 4000 = bad!

 

the new roads looks way better than the old ones, IMO definitely worth the time and effort. The transitions being visible was very noticeable, so that being solved will make the aesthetic much more pleasing to the eye. cant wait for the new update, still waiting on new CPU and GPU (hopefully coming in today)

 

dose this map have rail ways for trains?

 

Every time I check in on this map, it keeps getting better and better. Can't wait man, haven't been this excited since the game first launched and new content would appear almost daily, lol. Keep it up!

 

The Bob can't possibly agree more than he already does!
Yes they were very noticeable at the joints! I really didn't like that - and on-top of that, the new reflectors will make it much easier to drive at night as you can see further ahead. Reflectors might be hard to see without 1080p - or even with, sometimes they don't show up very readily as they're but a pixel or two at moderate distance. Hopefully 4k gets mainstream sooner than later! I have to smooth some of the edges on the slope pieces, but that should only take a few minutes (I may or may not be able to get the edges 100% on those), but at-least the joints won't be bright (or really dark) lines at night or whenever using headlights. I will be working all the pieces to be like that in time. Reflectors will also be built into more pieces on the next version as I go through and double-check for superfluous draw-calls slowing things down. Driving at night looked AWFUL at best and ABSOLUTELY INEXCUSABLY HIDEOUS at worst - okay for 'free' but *NOT ACCEPTABLE* for a community funded project. Where I would have scoffed it off as 'oh well' before, I can't do that now. I'm not the 'Mr. Haney' of mappers (kudos if you get the Green Acres reference, the show is hysterical if you watch enough of it) here to pawn rubbish onto a vulnerable community. This is supposed to be 'The real deal' here, not some shady car lot sham, so rest assured, I work hours a day on this, and doing the utmost best job I can.

---

These pieces aren't just for this map, they aren't just for my maps, they're for everyone to use when this map hits servers. The MRK (modular road kit) pieces are basically donation-ware. If I let you realize your dreams as a mapper, donate to it, that sort of thing, but if you're under-age and obviously don't have credit cards or a bank account, well, who's to knock that as I was there once (I always worked, even as a kid though, but most aren't unlucky enough to be born into a family concrete foundation construction business, during hard times). We sure earned out 1980's and early 90's Nintendos though, and we always had some cash in our pockets. Too bad there was no internet until I was about 14 though.
I want for the pieces in this map, to basically allow anyone to be able to build a city of their dreams, or to be able to even reconstruct specific intersections as close as possible, to re-create vehicle accidents (even for court room demonstrations or insurance purposes). Basically, this kit is to improve the community. It's so that no one else has to go ahead and make a 'better' one in the future (unless they really really want to) and so that I can use it as building block(s) in the future, for even better things. It needs a good start though - or everything else is rubbish. I've learned a lot in my 6 months of doing modeling, and now 3 years of mapping (as it was December 2015 when I first started deliberately buckling roads in Desert Highway to launch cars off of like in the video on Youtube). It's time to put that to good use and really make something.

---

Put some more work into improving the road kit for the Collector roads. I will be doing the pieces for the non-delineated set that matches tomorrow or Sunday, and giving the intersections the go-over if they need anything, then (I hope they don't they could take a day in and among themselves). The overlays for left turn lanes (to convert center turn lane near intersections) need to be done yet, too. All the straight, slope, and driveway (lot access) pieces are done however. They surely *DO* look worlds better and are almost at the 'professional AAA level' from my eyes, and that's not jaded by me making it.

There's no left turn at this intersection because there's a giant mountain there, oh and no road (to the left, it's just a T intersection, to go straight or turn right onto a side-road). Smashing into the mountain is totally up to you though.

There's a joint between the first two sets of reflectors, and you can't even see it. You can just make them out though on the slope pieces, a little finessing and they'll be just fine though.
Each piece thus far that I've re-done is completely down to *one* draw call *AND* the normals and specular graphics are already done and in-place in the game. This is helping reduce the CPU-load within the map's developed areas (actually everywhere but more-so in busy spots), while looking even better, and the road striping (read: lines/delineation/lane demarcation) is no-longer off-scale (it was too small/narrow before).

Other fellow mappers that want this specific road kit should strongly consider contacting me in the near future, to get on the mailer for the 'Collector 5-lane road kit' when it gets uploaded.


As an added bonus it even looks nice in the daytime (though the reflectors may seem dark in the daytime, they light up when headlights shine on them at night). They don't 'emit' light they only reflect it back, as just like in real life, they mirror the light back at the player (as they 'face' the player, even though they're technically a flat surface on this road set). The highways have 3d surface-applied reflectors, where as the city road kits they are the typical type that are placed into a specific groove that's milled into the roadway for this purpose (those are used more commonly in the northern states, so snowplows don't remove them from the roadway).
--That is all.
--- Post updated ---

Yes, yes it does have railway for trains - and 2+ miles of subway (I'm guess this distance, it's close), with two underground stations and one sunken station just at the far end of the tunnel. It functions 100% to the best of my ability to test it, and it has rail crossings that won't eat tires unless you try really hard and drive the car in the direction the train is supposed to go, in-stead of perpendicular to the track (as the road goes). There's even angled crossings, too. It's the same track width/dimensions as the existing rail tracks in this game & Rig of Rods.
For any skilled mappers, there's kits of this track available on this website uploaded by myself a few months ago, you'd have to know how to work with materials.cs and set up your own map, though.
There will be much more subway, and different stations, when I am further along with this project. Trains are available in the forums>mods>vehicles>land portion of this website.

---

Thanks buddy, it means a lot coming from you (not that others are less important by any means), but you've been with my projects a while, since near the beginning (or even then) of when I started mapping. My things have come such a long way since Nevada Interstate. No one would have ever known I could or did mapping in this game if Ouerbacker didn't let me mod and publish the old 'Black Hills' map into Nevada Interstate. That map will get some good TLC one day though. One day when I have the time. I don't just keep a full plate, I keep an army's worth of rations flowing at me by the truck-load.
I am giving it my best shot here, as I want to do this for a living one day. In 2016, what I am doing now, was like every day for the past 30 years since I played my first video game (Donkey Kong in the arcade cabinet, at a Perkins around 1986 or so). I could only have dreamed of making a video game. Now if I can just get all this goodness out of my skull and into this game, everyone will benefit. Much thanks goes out to this community. I will gladly put myself through pain and misery that is game development without much documentation (I'm not upset, I love doing this), for those grateful folks who have been following along this thread. The gratitude and generally awesome community/developers here make it all worth while. Sure beats just playing games, that's for sure.

If anyone has other questions, I'll periodically be around this weekend to answer them (as always).
Next Beta, When???
No, there will likely not be a beta out until after we get a game update (two weeks? I am hazarding a guess here, I don't know more than the developers told me from their posts here though, and nothing's a promise in game development). I'd rather not upload a map beta within a week of a game update. This game has a nasty habit of updating within a half hour or hour of me starting a several-hour-long upload. From the best I've heard from the developer's posts, it should be worth the wait and packed full of awesome. Keep fingers crossed!

Those who sign up for this map's Patreon early-beta access, between now and my next upload, will get the current version that came out about two weeks ago until the new one goes up. Will do best to get a new version out before Chris Mess or New Years, but that's dependent on when the game-update hits, and how much it eats my map.

 

Let's just simply say that if you want to wake THE BOB up in the middle of the night, just cause an EARTHQUAKE AT 3:15 AM CST.
That thing's epicenter was a mere 30 miles E/SE from me. @#$%! Shook for like 20+ seconds here enough to rattle pictures then tapered off in the following 10~15 seconds.
FWIW My Roane County TN MAP, if you free-cam down to the very south-east corner of the map, right near where it says 'MID-WAY' written on the map, is the epicenter (or within 1~3 miles north of it).

I mean, no one got hurt, nothing's busted, nothing is ruined except a good nights sleep. That being said, I can promise Route 40 has a few new heaves in it between Harriman/Rockwood exit and Airport Rd exit... and they *just* fixed part of it (it slides down the cliff-face about an inch every time we get a magnitude 3.x or larger). Not sure anyone will notice much as it's full of holes anyways.

So much for having a good & normal sleep schedule!

 

looks sweet, cant wait till you release it!!

 

I'm really happy with the way this is coming together and it's seriously reminding me of Los Angeles, speaking of which you should in the suburban area create a kinda deprecated commercial zone with businesses and stuff like that but it's a lotta concrete and it's all broken up. This is what most of LA is like from what I've seen and from the vibes I'm getting from this map I gotta say that it'd be a great addition.

 

Consider it noted. Yes I've myself notice blocks after blocks of shopping malls, stores that line main routes, occasional parking garages, and the such. Will keep my eye on some of the maps for some cool stuff to make to give it the 'LA' or 'SF' vibes where necessary.
This map won't only be California, it'll have some other sections of the USA sewn into it, to give it more variety, and a better backdrop for a larger variety of things, but there's plenty of room so I'm not too worried there.

---

Doing my best here - thanks a million! It means a lot as I try to wrap my noggin around all this stuff.

Progress may not seem to be moving fast, until the game-update this month (which is supposed to be rather large and rather quite a bit of changes especially with the rendering engine - e.g. the thing that renders ALL the models in this map), so until I know what I'm looking at, I'm not trying to do TOO much with models this month until I know I won't have to UNDO it all next month.

What to do until then? Well if things on these servers here with mods and all can't keep y'all occupied, there's always my personal recommendation (if you're of age) on MOD-DB of GTA UNDERGROUND. I've submitted a few bug reports of it myself, so consider checking it out if you (like everyone else) are hungry for more mods.

I've got a couple mappers testing out some pre-release stuff on the MRK (Modular Road Kit) right now. So maybe in the near future, you'll see the road kit pop up on the forums, and in the months following, you can get to see it integrated into maps.

 

Awesome stuff as always!! Thanks for the updates.

 

The new performance AND content update for BeamNG has landed with *LOTS* of extra FPS for this map.
I mean that.
LOTS and LOTS more FPS. I don't know what they did, but they sure fixed up that rendering engine something beautiful.

GREAT WORK DEVELOPERS! Hooray!
40~55FPS ---> 80~90FPS
70FPS ---> 80~90FPS
55~60FPS ---> 100~130+FPS

WOW. I'm shocked. I am at a loss for words.

--Enjoy the map folks, and now I can go be even busier than Al Capone in a confessional.

 

So will this work with the version that I already have installed from the last release you gave us patreon supporters? cuz if so, thats AWESOME
--- Post updated ---
edit: meaning, will the FPS gains just naturally happen with the update?

 

Yes, they were done on the engine side by the engine programmers

Bob, how far were you with the railways and subways? I haven't tested your map properly yet because I was busy with my study lately...
And now I have a backlog of mods to test, stuff where I offered to help, and my own mods

 

I have 2 miles or so of subway in my map. I have an existing complete rail kit in my map with bridges and such. I will be doing much much more with those and have a lot of textures and some apps for my modeling program that should help creating more detailed interiors and such now.
Basically, what I am saying is there will be a complete subway system to rival that of most any other games out there in length/size. Most games, not all, surely something else has more of them than this. They won't all look the same either. I'll make sure to at-most use a single station layout only 2~3 times max, and design a new one. I can't afford to make each and every building unique or this will be as big of a download as GTAV or GTAIV itself, but I can manage to make a few hundred different buildings and will be doing so.

Yes the performance update happens with the existing version. I didn't want to touch too much until this update, now I can start working feverishly again.

The performance update helps so much in-fact, that I can actually develop this whole city and with basic reflections on, shadows on, SSAO on, still manage to keep the FPS around 60 or better at worst.
40FPS is my lowest that I would ever 'tolerate' with reflections ON, otherwise too many people would have to cut settings. My RX 480 8gb is middle-of-the-road and pretty common (about on par with GTX 1060 6gb cards), both the RX 480 and GTX 1060 are very widely adopted and some of the most popular on Steam, so if it runs well for me, a majority of folks with dedicated gaming machines should be able to run this reasonably well, or at-least as well as I do. Everything but the graphics board in my computer and a few of the SSD's are FOUR years old as of October, so if I can run it well, most people can run it well and are likely to have at-least as modern hardware as I have here. I sure hope I don't need to update the computer for a few years yet, but time will tell - nothing worth updating until Ryzen 7nm and intel 10nm/7nm comes to fruition/hits mainstream anyways. Updating a still-working, still-good-enough computer would be a waste currently and likely (aside of 'more cores') only net me a modest 20~25% gain AT MOST in limited situations, and in others, not much increase if any at all.
The only difference on my end VS what you guys have currently is the mall will be unified with it's lot in the next day or two and the collector road kit (with the center turn lane for both directions that I just updated to have reflectors on it) is more efficient draw-call wise. I was holding off on doing too much as I wanted to see how much the changes in the game with the next update were making, and to avoid having to go back and re-do what I would have done in the last two weeks. It wasn't too long to wait I don't think.

I've spend a few days working on the stupid mall, it's taking forever. Still not entirely sure how to use World Machine, man that thing is needlessly technical. What's the point of features if you need a Doctorate degree to use them??? Shame on me for assuming - assuming it'd be user-friendly. I will get it sooner or later though and be able to hopefully spit out a nice looking terrain with it. It will certainly come in handy for new terrains, that's for sure, and a pretty SKY BOX.

I don't have any releases coming in the next week or two but after that, entirely possible for me to get something together enough to put out. I am going to be re-doing a lot of these pieces yet again to bring them up to better quality standard (like the ones I just did with reflectors), and making a more unified highway to help with performance even more (even if it's not so important now, the pieces I have here are using a ton of draw calls needlessly). Messing with the highway won't be high priority, and will be done around the time I build more map into the area near the spawn point, so it doesn't hold up progress too much.
The pieces getting re-done will now look much better at night. I can't always make the seams 100% invisible, but I can make them look much much nicer and not so bad as to be glitchy and awful looking.

Where/How does the new update 0.15.x make the city stand in terms of performance?
Performance is where it should be, and should have always been now, and any future updates to game engine performance will be a bonus. I couldn't figure out where all these needless draw calls were coming from and why it performed so badly before, here it was not my map specifically, it was the game engine.
So this opens up a lot more freedom in map design, and gives me a lot of room to work, but still cannot be careless with design decisions.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I will be able to make the city I have always wanted to, the way I want to, and have the majority of folks be able to run it with the game-engine being as it is NOW currently, vs what it was before.


Another EDIT:
Mod status of my other mods and this:
This mod - working with much improved performance.
Roane County TN - working with much improved performance, some gfx bugs with transparency in a few places like the motel, on some fences/railings, and a road in Kingston by Worst Buy.
Deal's Gap / Tail of the Dragon - Broken, due to something game-engine related going astray or a change in what is allowed or not allowed for the map to have/format. DOES NOT RUN/LOAD. CTD
Nevada Interstate - broken, same as above. DOES NOT RUN/LOAD. CTD

I will be trying to figure out what broke these two maps in due time, but not so much it detracts from this project. While I will surely miss Nevada Interstate and Tail of The Dragon, they'll be salvaged one day, just not tonight, not tomorrow, and maybe not next day after. The precise error is:

45.61596|D|GELua.core_gamestate.gamestate|exiting loading screen to menu
46.62309|D|Material::_mapMaterial|[Material::mapMaterial] - Cannot map unnamed Material - (here it'll say fog.cs, main.cs, or some other game engine script name here, oddly, where it should say a material name).

So take a good spin through Roane County at some point. It'll be back as good as ever one day soon, but I need to get at-least one more update on this out before I spend a week or two fixing that one up.

Enjoy your Chris's Mess folks!

 

Stupid mall is done. Finally integrated with it's stupid mall parking-lot.
Just have to make sure the names match my texture entries (<30 mins, it's just busy-work) in the map and that's it.
Why do this? Because it needed to be done, regardless, I am combining many of the scenes, so they render even smoother, though I might put more of that on back burner until later and build some more of the place up nice, like I should have been doing for a while (but waited on the update).
Not that I've really touched the mall mesh at all, I haven't, it would be an outright lie to say I have, but the parking-lot will mesh with it's pieces more flawlessly now, and it'll be a few less draw calls than if it was separate (not enough to make it worth it, but it'll be easier to work with now).
*bug: Noticed a fence that grew legs and moved a few feet in the map. Oops. Will fix for next beta preview - it's not far from Chicken Munch that's closest to the spawn point. Just an 'accidentally clicked that' error while in the editor.

Very excited with the new performance as now I can make much more elaborate scenes for you folks, instead of making long skinny strips of city bordered by unnaturally large long mountains to block view. Might be able to lose some of the N64-quality FOG in a lot of my maps, too. We shall see (I'd like that!).

 

So, in other non-map news here, last night, my sister's kid (my sister who's about 40 lives here with her almost-10-year-old daughter - my niece) locked herself in her playroom at the other end of a rather long ranch home that's been added onto once or twice. My mother - who's about 70 - banged on the door demanding an end to the child's insubordination & for the kid to comply and open-up the door, and the door completely FELL DOWN and took half the frame with it. I live here too, as I generally get along with my immediate family, don't have one of my own, and am physically disabled. However, since it's the holidays and all, I offered to hang the door for her in short order, as it's got some dings and such, but otherwise is in pretty solid for the most part yet.

No one was injured. "I don't know who was more shocked, me or the kid, but I don't think she'll ever do that again..."

So entirely, totally this:


Was pretty priceless start to my day when I found out about it. I was laughing so hard it brought tears to my eyes...

 

Thats hilarious hahaha

 

is there gonna be run down neighborhoods?

 

The Abandoned Mall (which you can go in, it does have an interior) and the old Packard Plant are just the start in the 'run down neighborhood' area.
It'll have quite a few vacant lots and a few run-down buildings here and there, with less perfect roadways. Promise not to disappoint.
Don't worry though - LOTS of opportunity for jumps in and around the old derelict buildings.

 

i suggest some buildings that have been tagged by gangs