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

I am now uploading the supporter beta, and the weather is going to be clear for the majority of the week (well up to Wednesday or so), so a good time to release this 'while the gettin is good'...
Expect a notification somewhere in 10~14 hours or so, depending on how long I sleep, IF I can even sleep, or if the internet goes belly up for no reason (which it can and will randomly do), etc.
I think the sign texture is fixed (I tested it, they seem to be working - who knows. They shouldn't have broken in the 1st place, and there were no errors in the log to indicate something was wrong).
Let me know how it goes when you try out the supporter beta.

This seems suspiciously too easy... it's just one of those moments, where you know something will go horribly wrong, sooner or later ...

*cautiously watches the ground around himself for a large, piano-shaped shadow, growing ever larger*

 

This post is only here to ask what I should work on next in Los Injurus! What do you think Los Injurus needs?

Some examples include the following:
*More different houses, make some new ones!
*Make more low income housing developments / Work on filling in various parts of the city.
*Expand the run-down area that's like rust-belt cities in America that's past their prime, over by the abandoned mall / old Packard Plant.
*Make more of those bouncy un-level intersections that infest parts of the city which launch vehicles going of 45 mph, because I own stock in a suspension company.
*Make another race track somewhere, in whatever surface / material - or even make a destruction derby arena (give a location example).
*Finish the civilian airport by adding it's larger runways (to the water-side of the airport), and the road details by the terminal which is currently plain concrete.
*Optimize the map more / fix the old houses and road models that originally were part of the first phases of the city to make it run just a few FPS better if possible.
*Make more hidden areas (these will come eventually anyways).
*Finish another phase of the route 1 project.
*Insert your own idea here!

The reason I am asking, is by the end of the month, I would like to get together the next version that will eventually go public, and go on the Repository after the supporters have had a small number of days to check it out & test it. I have about 3 weeks until I am going to pack up the map and upload it again, so I'd like to know what's top priority in all your minds (even if you're not a supporter) to work on 1st.

Let me know folks. The options above are merely suggestions/ideas, and not all-inclusive. If you've got better ideas, feel free to throw them out there.

Other things on the to-do list... are some more townhouse developments (I have another model in the map data that isn't used yet, that is going to get about a half-dozen re-skins to make varied-looking townhouse developments). I will have other ones planned (of course, there might be another 1000 buildings yet to be built in this map, it's going to be HUGE, and the game engine had to be modified a few times to support this map's extensive use of... everything).
I have to work on my canal textures (the huge Flood Control Canals in the far side of the city from the default spawn, near the 11-foot-8 spawn point, the textures are hit or miss, tell me what ones you like and what ones you think suck, seriously tell me!).
I have to fix a few texture glitches and generally add a bit more polish to some of the newer areas, and add in a lot of traffic lights yet before the next beta (which is why it will come at the last week of this month).
I will try and add some industrial buildings - even if they aren't that fancy, down by the new curving tunnel that's in by the civilian airport, as that's what the tunnel was made to go 'under' and bypass.

So entirely, so much to do, but let me know what you folks think is highest priority that should get in before the next release.

 

how about an oval race track? there’s a Nascar track in Fontana (which is perfect because it’s in Southern California).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Speedway

if you can, include the alterative layouts in the infield.

 

An oval track, and figure-8 variation, is planned. They will be two separate tracks (possibly) near to one another due to AI pathing constraints, so the AI doesn't get mixed up (if I had made it all one track, surely it would, it'd go all over). These tracks will both be asphalt in decent condition.

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Remember I said I had more townhouse developments planned? Well I've been up to something (this picture is very rough, it's just the start).

Lots and lots of cheap 1970's ~ 1980's boring box-shaped housing. There will be a LOT of townhouses and multi-family units in this map. It'll look nice, and they don't crank on the draw calls too hard, so they're good "fluff" or "filler" between the more interesting stuff out there. There's about 7 different variations of color/exterior surfaces, that should be enough of a variation not to get too stale while you go way too fast down a road full of speed humps.
Yes. Speed humps. A long mostly straight road full of them. Don't worry, there will be a suspension shop right at one end of it all. Only the best for the supporters - a veritable HOA hell, that's all too common in Murica.
There will be a Sprawl Mart across the highway from here (the highway is on the left side here behind the homes). It might not make the next beta, not sure.

I added a new culvert, which you can drive through, similar to the one nearby that lets out at 'Moist Grocery' along the highway. This one is about twice as long, roughly - so it's about 1/3rd of a mile or so, at a minimum.

Really need to make some custom entrances for these guys one day soon. Not a hurry on that as this will do fine for now.

 

I would like to see more work done between Beaverly Hills and Best Buy. That downhill smooth curved nice road you got. Something more in that area. Perhaps a fancy restaurant, park, some nice trimmed hedges. I spend a lot of time the opposite direction, between Beaverly Hills and the cozy little development beneath it by the gas station. Would be nice to have some more interesting things the other direction. That little neighborhood to the right side of the picture I attached (when you exit the tunnel at the top), I spend a lot of time there. You really nailed the look of that spot. If you are interested in building more houses, perhaps some elevated houses like in the Hollywood hills where they hang off of the little cliffs with stilts/supports.

 

Thank-you for the compliments, and even-more-so for the VERY USEFUL FEEDBACK. Amen, this is what beta testing is about.
First off, that area is due for fill-in when I get more houses made that suit the area (part of it was needing to finish up some other areas with assets I already made, and getting the route 1 project well underway). The houses will be EXACTLY what you've mentioned, nice 60's~80's ultra-modern style homes with large expanses of glass in the back (private side) of the house, overlooking the cliff/hills, on supports sometimes or properly cantilevered. I don't have all the textures in place for various windows (but I am working on those!), and some other bits and pieces (props for the fancy houses).
One of the patreon supporters sent me a "house to model" a while back, for a gated community, that will be going in that general area, too.

I lost way way too much time on that tunnel. But it turned out great, and was totally worth the entire MONTH I spent on working on it. Just needs a little widening to be perfect.
I lost way way too much time doing the first phase of the Route 1 concept, and it's still not done (it'll be most of the length of that 'side' of the map it's on). It's really really far from done that area.
Excuses? No, not a bit. Actually I ended up setting the bar a LOT higher than the GTA San Andreas level of detail I was originally going for.
It wouldn't be a Bob Blunderton map if The Bob wasn't drowning himself in work that's way way over his head and quite possibly could take years to do. However, let it be said that "who wouldn't want to basically make their own GTA style map?".

---

As always, if anyone can draw houses, draw them up - pencil and paper or on the computer software of their choice, and send some scans/screenshots or 'real pictures' of a home to me - don't include address numbers/street name if it's your home (I don't need/want to know where you live, that's private). Try to include all four sides for proper perspective, so I can do it properly. Even if it's just shoddy drawing of a house, maybe I will be able to put it in. You can use the 'start a conversation' feature to private message me with said pictures, or you can always attach a few photos on this discussion forum. Heck, even pictures of other game's houses might just do.

HOA sufferers, town-house residents of America, and speed-hump lovers/haters will unite in the next update, among other things, where there's a mostly flat, straight stretch of side-road that has tons of those pesky SPEED HUMPS in it. Because... because I can, because they're supposed to enhance safety, by doing away with speeding cars flying down the road, and replacing them with flying cars, flying down the road, rolling, garaunteeing complete loss of control every time


Rolled it several times but it just keeps going! Keep in mind I haven't sloped the driveways up yet to the front doors.

Also a little work is being done on the area below. The drainage culvert on the far left is the one I made the other evening, that's a 3rd of a mile long and can be easily driven through. The bright orange 'no texture' thing on the top right of the shot is where another road will go through by the next beta. Not sure if there will be anything 'on' that section of road though - but it'll be paved / striped properly for the most part. Ignore unfinished stuff and graphic glitches in road textures for now.

I've increased the variations of the townhouses in THIS development from 7 to 11 total. This does not include any of the ones with the different windows / slightly different shapes from the last development (these are meant to seem just a little bit newer).
The space in the center of the last shot will be for retail / shops. Not quite sure what will be there, but there WILL be something there of-course.
So soon, you'll be able to crash about in this area, going way too fast over speed humps because WHAT ELSE DO YOU DO WHEN THE CITY PUTS "A JUMP" IN THE ROAD, basically.

...coming soon to a PC near you...

 

Bob, do your houses use a single texture map, or separate ones? Also what polygon limit do you try to stay under for each home?

 

Houses do not generally use mosaic (combined) texture maps, though a few of the purchased models do (most purchased models like this haven't made it into the map yet).
Mosaic textures are done however, with signs, windows / doors, with as many as I can fit in a single page before resolution falls off too much to where it looks bad.
I prefer to use single dedicated textures, for ease of switching them up, tiling, etc. It's just easier - much easier - to work with textures that aren't all combined (roof, walls, concrete slabs, doors / windows all in one per-building), especially with things like the town-houses where they randomly share some - but not all - textures with one another. Using mosaics to combine all different textures into one texture per building would push the size of this map up about 5-fold, due to just how many different buildings there are.
I don't have a hard polygon limit for buildings, but I try and keep it 'reasonable' unless it's a centerpiece or special-purpose buildings (Police department w/parking garage, Airport terminal, the recent tunnel models I did, things like that), where I might use more.
While 25~12 years or so ago, graphics cards were more triangle-fill limited, to where you used to use textures to make up some of the detail; now it's different/the opposite where you want to use triangles to make up your model detail and cut down on the amount of different textures you have to use. Now that we regularly have graphics cards that will do 5 to 10 million triangles per frame (main stream gaming to enthusiast gaming segments), and have no issues doing this 60fps or even 100fps. The real sticking point is draw calls. For each new section of the model that doesn't use the same contiguous texture over various triangles/face, you end up with a new draw call. This game engine is very much limited by draw calls - going over 6000 is going to bring the majority of folks under 40~60fps. Generally, 4500 draw calls per frame (considering the vehicle can be as much as 700 draw calls, and is included here!) is a good limit. This is exactly why WC USA gets slow, and is a bit of why Italy gets slow, too. In the future, maybe the engine will run better for the game, but I can't promise that'll happen soon. So hence, where I can duplicate (batch) faces, and stitch together (sew) UV's, to keep draw calls down (batched textures will render at the same time, no penalty), I do. Basically, you want to avoid breaking up the model more than necessary, or making details that will prevent you from doing quick easy renders. This is also why a lot of the houses lose trim so fast when you back away, this keeps draw calls down - cpu use down - and FPS / GPU use up. Draw calls are always done on the CPU via a single core, so everything paces to one core of the processor, even if it uses many cores to process physics. So I can't go crazy with the detail as much as I'd like to, but I can however still make a fairly detailed city for everyone to enjoy.
I can't wait until the later Nvidia 3000 series cards to come out with 16~20gb of VRAM (twice what's coming out for the 3070 and 3080 cards at launch, which are 8 and 10gb respectively), even though the 3090 is coming with 24gb at launch, and a high-end Quadro model is getting 48gb. I can use a 16gb card like yesterday, basically. I hit VRAM limits hardcore when I was working on the tunnel. However, for the conceivable future, this map shouldn't require more than 8gb of video ram (VRAM) to run (editing it always uses more).
Those of you who have the money to buy Nvidia 3000 series cards, DON'T. Just wait until they release the models with more VRAM later on. Take it from someone who knows 8GB - while enough for right now - will be a serious bottle neck, when it's a year or two down the road. I am already getting hung up on 8gb VRAM limitations here regularly.

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I've started the Sprawl Mart model... this should be in on the next beta. Door texture is new, just finished it.

 

Hi there! I can contribute any of those models for your map!
You are real MVP for creating this map!
I can send you single models in dae or 3ds format but im not sure about textures.
Its done in sketchup.

 

There, this should be worthy of 'more than x 1 like' But only because y'all deserve much better for supporting the project, even if it's just to drop by and leave a comment, complaint, or suggestion.
This building, it's parking lot, and loading docks will all be in and be usable in the next beta, a long with a bucket more of town-houses. I may even be able to get a cloverleaf done off the other side of the map (near the ECA-looking concept that shares Roane County assets/ECA assets, that was built to test the use of ECA buildings and Roane County assets - most of which I have to rip out and use my 'much lighter in CPU terms' models and re-do anyways). I'm speaking of the area over by the round set of 5 towers that looks like a rude hand-gesture, heh.

There will be two or three - likely three - Walmart locations around the map. They may or may not look different from one another but will likely share the same building footprints.

Why 'lighter' models? The ECA models can use 50~100 draw calls on some of those - where my buildings are to use 10~20 unless it's a set-piece that story elements / career will center around, or something special like the Airport terminal or it's nearby fancy tunnel. These models take up KB's of space instead of MB, and all have to fit into VRAM in the end, so it's for multiple reasons. I can use better textures to add detail when need-be. Some point in the future, the ECA asset place-holders will be pruned out and replaced with my own assets (many of which are already in the map when it comes to textures, but I do need to replace some of the older models, as these models and textures shared with ECA are pre-facelift ECA things).
I can only build such a huge city in this game-engine the way it sits currently if I keep the models somewhat simple, but they shouldn't be immersion-breaking simple. This leaves me plenty of 'wiggle room' to put lots of detail on the roads such as in areas I've just worked on, and also the old beat-up roadways over towards the mall in the more derelict sections of town.

EDIT: Colors on the building are merely a place-holder, they will be tan/light brown like the typical Walmart is now, and the bollards (poles in-front of the door) will be a shade or two darker.

 

So I shrank it down to roughly 60% the width, and 75% the depth that I had it originally, so that I actually had a place to FIT the thing...

Now I don't have any parking lot or property done for it, but it's in the game now. Couldn't put it where I originally wanted it, but that's fine as there's loads of places to put stores like this.
I did keep the original full-size one, which I'll put over on the more derelict side of town. If your unsure where this is, it's along the surface road you use to access the looping dirt track, just past where I upgraded the highway in the last beta or two.
I'll now be re-doing the roadway near it so you can actually GET to it (wouldn't that be nice).
It's never too early to bring a big corporation into your suburb and run all the small local business out of town, and wonder where all the money went 10 years later.

 

Civilian Airport:
I think some large hotels may be a great addition to the civilian airport. Some airports have actual hotels built in to them. Maybe have one connected to the terminal via a catwalk.
The swankier and nice hotels should be about 10 minutes away. Maybe have some motor lodges and more run down hotel towers closer to the airport. Because it is louder. Also I think a large shipping terminal (or several) should be rather close to the airport. Drive in terminals with crates and containers would be a treat with the new forklift mod.

Downtown:
Downtown has several newer towers and buildings, but not much older existing architecture. Adding a brown stone district with narrow streets and tight alleys would be a treat. Possibly add a Art Deco commercial area near the center of town also. Also a large fire department and a courthouse would have to be downtown. The waterfront could also stand to have some improvement. I think some Lifeguard towers would add a bit of depth. Maybe a small canal system and marina.

Military airport:
I realize that the military airport is very early in development. I believe it could benefit from some base housing and a logistics pool (truck terminals). Also some various buildings for officers and commissary. Maybe a training range also with cardboard tanks and soldiers. A small town near the base would be very realistic. Probably have a supermarket, some restaurants and bars.

Rural areas: Some fairly large truck stops could be built about 15 minutes out from town. Farther out there could be rundown/blown out gas stations and abandoned motels. Maybe some crappy attractions and billboards. Like fake wild west towns or (wonder) caves. Towards the north end of the lake could be your own salton sea area. With decomposing hotels and abandoned trailers.
Adding some trailer courts and camp grounds would be a great addition.

You have done tremendous work and I am happy to support you on patreon.

 

Thanks! Means a lot, buddy.
You'll be glad to know almost all of these things are planned, sooner or later.
The little road right before the end of the big bridge to the military base is where the town will be, which the public can get to. There will be an old lighthouse, too.
The brownstone district with lots of cramped narrow streets will be over past the abandoned mall if you were to drive over there and go left just before you get to the mall. There's not much out there yet but there is a road or two that goes through.
The forklift mod WILL be fully utilized here, I will have to test it out and see how it does. Definitely going to be a LOT of warehouses. A LOT.
Hotels, Motels, of all range of quality and price, will be all over the map.
Old rural dust-bowl towns will be here or there, in the middle of nowhere.
Art-deco commercial district is planned over by the 'rude hand gesture' towers (the round glass ones) on the far side of the map from most of the spawn points.
There's a courthouse with the police department spawn point. There will be more. I might use this building again in other places.
There's SO much more to come to Los Injurus. It's actually improving as I go, quality wise (or so I should hope), so while some things take longer, it will absolutely put to shame what was created in the first 12 months of this project. I do absolutely love building it, so rest-assured, progress will not halt, or slow down (it just might seem like it is sometimes).

Looks like I have a forklift mod to toy around with a bit. I used to be OSHA certified on one, too. So who knows maybe I'll be pretty good with it. Have used standard ones, Spades, Clamps, electric and propane powered, even one with no brakes.
--Cheers!

 

One critique I'd like to share with you Bob, is the lighting of your map. It may just be me, but I think it's a bit too contrasted. I like to modify cars in a driveway at random houses (like I'm fixing it up), and I've found the deep contrast can make it difficult to see things.

For instance, in West Coast, the lighting is a bit more neutral, easier to see in shadows, bright areas not so bright:



In Los Injurus, its very contrasted, shadows very dark:


This may just be your preference, and being your map it is your art and I'm okay with it. But I just wanted to mention it.

Another example, different car:

 

I think lighting just ok. Hard sunny days leads to hard contrast and very bright surfaces.

I have some other suggestion to Bob: please, make another sky cube map with clouds and more blue sky, because mostly empty map looking even more empty without any clouds in there.

 

So it seems you'd be the best person to ask questions about map making with your extensive knowledge so i'll try and keep this short: What would be the best map/terrain modelling software for a beginner, and i have absolutely zero experience and budget so i really wouldn't know. Something for making maps from the ground up. Currently i'm looking at L3DT, it seems quite nice, the map im planning to begin with is literally a nicer non-circular version of the autobahn map so i shouldn't need to many tools and what not but me having no experience i wouldn't have a clue. What were the things that you began with when you started modelling beam and where can you point me if its not too out of your way ?

(sorry i couldn't figure out how to pm you, its like your hidden away)

 

Highest supported terrain size with compression is 4k.
Highest supported terrain size without compression is 8k.
Terrain is square, and like textures, must be power-of-2.
The higher the terrain size, the more detail you get per square meter. Square size is the size of each pair of terrain triangles which make up points between a set of 4 nodes. I'd say going over 2.6m per square (which I believe is what Los Injurus is) will end up lacking in details and look like Roane County (don't get me wrong, Roane County wears it's dress-up well, but it's NOT finely detailed, it's there for 'cruising' or chasing when you need it though). 1.0~1.5m per square on the terrain is usually a good balance between stock maps (which use 1.0m) and Nevada Interstate (which uses 1.5m).
The old editor may be easier than the new editor, but is unsupported / deprecated. I gave them literal hell over that, but it might be easier to learn. Do know you'll need to rely on the new editor soon though, so get used to it.
Starting a map is alright, but you have to know a few things.
Start with the stock game maps, pick one that's the closest to what you want, you'll need to bulk-replace the paths once you make a copy of the map in beamng.drive/levels (which is in the my documents folder). Bulk replace is easy, if you started with italy, replace all things /italy/ with /yourmapnamehere/ in all the JSON files and any .CS files you may find in the map folder. Clean everything out except the spawn points from within the level editor, and you can keep the ocean/water plane, and some rivers / river falls for re-use later. Add in a terrain when you get one made, do not start a map from a FLAT terrain, it will be very boring if so. NONE of my maps started with flat blank terrain.
Use L3DT, it's the best affordable usable terrain maker that doesn't cost an arm and a leg nor require a college degree and four years of schooling to use - unlike World Machine.
16-bit png (I believe it's png) is what you'll use to import your terrain heightmap. You can get started with something off the LIDAR USGS site or you can use terrain party (which I believe is the Cities Skylines service, terrain.party, it's not a .com site as that'll cause you to get a virus/spyware from the .com site). It's not hard to look up a 4k x 4k 16-bit height map though, they're floating around on the net somewhere.

Once you get started, you'll have to make sure you've got all the graphics you need and such (you can use my Roane County road textures if needed, Los Injurus ones change a lot but if you like them, go ahead and use them - do stay out of the /commercial/ folder though - that stuff is license restricted as it's purchased by me for my use in BeamNG map projects).
KEEP YOUR MAP UNDER 488MB, or it won't get loaded up to the BeamNG servers. This isn't difficult.
You can also use road bits in my /mrk/ folder inside the art/shapes folder in this map. You might find these useful, but take only what you need as they add up quickly!

--good luck!

 

Aaaah thank you very much, as for detail it'll be lackluster at best, with 2d trees and minimal use of foliage, I like the detail to be in the vehicle, afterall we play to look at the car and not the trees !, I just got fed up with the lack of nice cruising highway maps. Although there are a few (Los Injurus and Roane county) they generally need to be ran on low graphics because A) there is so much of it, B) I have a potato, C) the terrain is highly detailed. Then you have all the really barren maps but despite the high(er) graphics it get incredibly boring after a while (autobahn and nevada interstate). So i just want to make a potato friendly map for those of us who like cruising along at a solid 70mph (or not) without having to deal with all those pesky corners that ricers and tuners like with a few things on and thats it with some points of interest and other little details. Again thank you very much for your words and advice and also you letting me use those Roane County and Los Injurus assets (i'll totally use those commercial asset too ) I'll be sure to get started as soon as possible !

 

SPRAWL MART parking lot is coming along nicely. This lot features copious amounts of angled parking, and is rather old but not too terribly uneven.

All things considered, it's coming along pretty nicely. I'd like to have another release out by the end of the month, but we'll see where that lands progress-wise as I'd hate to have anything I added 'half done' (it's okay if something needs a bit more touching up; but 'only' half-baked is a no-go here, as there's more than enough unfinished things already).
A shot of some rather unfinished roadway here for perspective of where it is...

So hopefully I've done enough to capture the essence of Sprawl Mart by the next beta, and there may even be some added bits of suburbia around here in addition for extra content by the time it rolls around. I can't give an exact date for the next beta, but it's somewhere around the end of the month / beginning of next month, give or take a few days (too many variables right now).
So sorry for the quiet spell before, but my gut's been a wreck the last week and a half, so I haven't been as productive as normal - but things still DO get done.
--That is all

 

Lot edge curbing is now part of the MRK, there's a little over a half-dozen pieces (maybe 8 or so), which will come in super useful in parking-lots large, small, and anything in-between.
Currently only available in 'grass' flavor, but in the future, I'll add in a decorative stone variety also (likely when I do more bends and such).
Makes a nice finish to the lot edges, and much more interesting than just flat terrain-based edges that do nothing. Curbing collision is handled in a way that should never eat tires.

One of the shots is from inside the editor, but it'll do for now. I will be adding more to the lot and area in-front of the lot too, in the coming days.
This building will be compatible with the FORKLIFT MOD, but only after the beta. I will in the future purchase a set of professionally made warehouse assets for use in this map, and make more buildings forklift-capable as the development process drags on (and on, and on, and on). Basically, any buildings with functional loading docks (truck floor height), will likely in the future be capable of having a mundane* interior, with which you can use that mod. This city has too lofty of a goal to NOT have it, pretty much.
*I don't have any issues having interior spaces in this project, however, they certainly won't be the most detailed, due to practical limits of a Direct-X 11 game engine and being draw-call limited (the amount of unique surfaces with different types of textures is the reason why the buildings aren't awesomely next-gen looking. If this was a direct-X 12 or Vulkan game, that wouldn't be an issue). The more complicated I make things, the slower this map will run (in means of different textured surfaces, not just triangle-count which is fairly lax with even mainstream graphics cards). I wouldn't want an interior that 10% or less of people would use to any amount of frequency, to slow down the entire map. That said, through clever use of detail levels, I can manage a certain amount of interiors within proximity of one another, provided I don't go bonkers with interior detail.
For those that missed it, in due time, I will be making this map-mod forklift-mod capable in the near future by means of adding more interior warehouse / RDC / stockroom / loading dock spaces.
--That is all for right now.