Released Rainbow Crossing 1.3.1

Giraffinator updated Rainbow Crossing with a new update entry:

Update 1.2

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Giraffinator updated Rainbow Crossing with a new update entry:

Update 1.3

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

I AM AWARE I'M BUMPING!
No need to yell at me.
Does Anyone know how i can fix a issue that make seeing buildings far away say no textures but when i get close it goes back to normal house textures.
I would appreciate if someone could help me and not yell that i am bumping.

 

The reason it's happening is because I didn't copy over the impostor/mipmap textures when adding the ECA buildings. Instead of actually copying them, I fixed it by setting the forceDetail value to 0, so it would always load the highest resolution texture. It seems like recent updates have caused that feature to no longer work. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, but as of now, I'm going to set the mod's status to Outdated. I'll see if I can fix it.

 

Just re-copy the assets over, the reason "force detail" isn't being supported is because you shouldn't be forcing detail on things, for performance reasons. When you get further away from models, they have progressively less surfaces (triangles) and less different textures (each surface that has a different texture, or a texture apart from other surfaces of the same texture, is a new draw call, draw calls eat CPU resources for breakfast and are your worst enemy). When you get far enough away, it uses the imposter billboard texture to display a sprite that looks like the 3d object, while hiding the 3d model. This makes the entire object one draw call, and one or two triangles.
A modern video card will have zero issue pushing 4~10+ million triangles out (divide by 2 to get the amount of square/rectangular surfaces), but a modern CPU even at 4ghz can start to get slow at 4000-5000 draw calls (even the fastest cpu's out there will have trouble keeping 60fps on the video board at 5000 draw calls, regardless of video board used).
A draw call is the processor telling the graphics card to render X amount of connected surfaces with an identical texture. These UV's (textured surfaces on a model) must be sewed together inside a modeling software program in order for each surface even with an identical texture to not be a new draw call. Good modelers sew their surfaces together as they go, it can make things easier, or when it's all done (depending on the model, the latter can be easier!). Forcing the game engine to render at full detail even a few blocks of houses in a city would bring most any game-engine to it's knees rather quickly. LOD's work wonderfully (that's what the progressively simpler detail as you get further away is called: Level's Of Detail or LOD), to help retain immersion while not running the simulation like a slide show. No one wants a slide show, now.
The game engine also had recent updates and as-of 0.15.x now batches surfaces a lot better (rendering identical surfaces simultanously) and hence speeds up drawing the scene greatly.

So yes, re-copy your models back over into your map. See what you've used, and what you didn't, and re-build your map assets until you don't get any more errors in the console.
Clear your cache also helps to rid the orange models (from only far away) once you've added the textures back in.
The game automatically generates new imposters for any model with the class bb__autobillboard## in it (a two or three digit number where ## is). That's the 2d sprite I mentioned above. It's just like a MS-DOS DOOM graphic was way back 25 years ago (yes it's been that long, since when I started mapping, was exactly 25 years ago).

I hope some of this helped.

OH YOU BUMPED THE THREAD, THAT'S IT, NOW YOU'VE DONE IT, NOW YOU GONE-DONE-DID-IT!
GRRRRR!!!
*growls ominously with not a whole-lot of teeth*

Actually, the map maker just needs to rebuild his assets, mostly copying the art/shapes/buildings folder from ECA over after removing the old one, and changing the materials.cs file paths again will likely help. Just so long as he gets all of those materials.cs and doesn't miss any. Notepad++ to change the paths saves a LOT of pain.

 

I apologize, i just noticed that the mod was outdated. That would be cool if it could be fixed.
Thank you.

 

Good news! I was able to fix the texture issue. Thank you for the information @bob.blunderton. Turns out all I really had to do was to copy these files (seen below), escpecially the materials.cs file, as it contained the code that enabled the buildings to have level of detail, into the art/shapes folder. I was hesitant on rebuilding the file tree as I was worried it would remove the buildings from the map.



I'll upload the fix very soon, and it'll hopefully be up for download tomorrow.

 

Thank you this is a great map for 4 way accidents and its weird to see orange houses in the background. Not so realistic but thank you for fixing it.

 

It's all good - and you're very welcome.
Just make sure you've bulk-updated the paths to reflect YOUR MAP in materials.cs, it's an easy step to miss, and it will end up with no-texture everywhere on other's computers when used as a ZIP file.
Your buildings - if they are in the forest - are within the folders in /main/ usually in a subfolder like FOREST or something obvious. The forest data for file paths is usually in art/forest/manageditemdata.cs but the actual buildings you have placed in your map, the size, position, rotation, is under /main/forest-something-or-another-I-forget... It's pretty self explanatory though.
Objects you've placed in f1 object editor, decal roads, mesh roads, and other things like terrain, player spawn, sun / sky, water block and such are all under main/missiongroup folder structure. Sim-folders that are called 'sim groups' inside the f1 object translate into folders under main/missiongroup folder.
This is all inside the map's main folder /levels/mapname (where MAP NAME is whatever you named your map).

Check your console for errors, make sure you didn't accidentally sculpt terrain at 0,0,0 world coordinates AS STILL HAPPENS even just now for me in my map, and zip up, clear cache, test as ZIP without your level in /levels/ (move to level folder to desktop while you test after clearing cache), then check it out. If it works, you're golden.

3 years ago I was in your position. I knew nothing. I started mapping Dec~2015 and actually showing map work in Jan 2016. Last year I started making custom models. Now the sky is the limit, so maybe you can make a goal of that on your 3 year anniversary of mapping.
--Good luck!

 

Giraffinator updated Rainbow Crossing with a new update entry:

Update 1.3.1 - Texture Fix

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Will this map grow in the future or is it at the end of the RAINBOW For it.
But either way this is a great map for realistic cross accidents.

 

There's a possibility, but I'm not sure. The last time I updated the map was in October 2017. The reason I stopped updating it was that I got discouraged from continuing it after the main folder was added, as I feared it would break the map when I would try to convert to the new format. But now, I am considering continuing it, but again, there's no 100% guarantee.

 

Well i hope you consider continuing it, I forgot about this map, But after playing it i see that its fun for collisions. I see potential and if you do continue it i can help give you ideas. But i am not worried either way. Its a fun map either way.

 

If you have questions, post in the CONTENT CREATION sub-forum. New format just spreads out the objects into separate files now.
If you're not sure, make SURE you've backed up your map, and then feel free to try things.

 

Oh, this map after watching this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers_(TV_miniseries) now that got me thinking, one only would need to add sound from distance that becomes stronger and stronger for an hour or so, fact that map is not too big and floats in space is really fitting to that theme, there can be a story to get imagination going, "can you escape before...?" Scary is not what you know, it is what you don't know

 

Hey Giraffinator. This wouldn't happen to be the rainbow crossing in northern Alabama would it?

If so. I know this road very well, and you did a good job of recreating it.

 

You are correct, and thank you! I went through there once and became inspired to recreate it.

 

Hi, just a message to say that it's one of my favourite maps, I even have "my house" in it where I like to modify my cars :3

(it took me half on an hour to find which one I'll choose x3)

Hope you're still creating beautiful stuff ! :3

 

If this is the Rainbow Crossing that I know ( the intersection of U.S. Highway 278 and U.S. Highway 231), then i must say that you did great with this. I live in the area, drive both roads regularly, and I thank you for such a realistic creation. I was questioning myself at first, pulled up satellite images to compare from top down, and you've got it spot on. Any more maps like this coming?

 

Oh, thanks! I've had some ideas for other maps, but I don't know if and when I will start them.