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

@Honest Nick Do you by chance have higher resolution shots of those buildings you showed previews of? I want to see if I can crop a section of the burglar bars (on the windows) from the housing project shown there in one of your last posts.
Link to post: CLICKY
Link is 'Safe for work'.
If you can glean the physical location of these places in Los Angeles (or wherever they are) that's also handy to know, as I may be able to search more for them and buildings like them.

---

Regardless, I will be pulling up a lot of info of Los Angeles - it's city layout - it's buildings - flood control canals - etc - in the near future. This will help make things more immersive during a second detail pass.
Entirely, we know everyone loves those roads on steep STEEP and I mean STEEP hills, (the kind you can only dream of sledding down but can't because they are a ROAD and we're not supposed to do that as adults) so DO entirely know there will be a LOT more of them, especially those with quick transitions to inclines / declines so you can catch some SERIOUS air time.
Remember that if you enjoy something about the map, it's there because likely I enjoy it 10x more. I am just a bit steamed that due to work-in-progress I couldn't play-test the map for a while (but I will be able to in a day or two/three). Only then I realized how much this map actually provides ME with a good time when over a week or two went by that I couldn't play it... so I totally get what others are going through since the last update. Sorry if I dropped the ball over here - but DO know as-always, work continues.

 

It's down to under 65 draw calls now, I thought it was a little lower but it's not. That'll be fine even 3~4x that much as the other layers get added, and there will be a parking garage going under it.
ALL surfaces that can be duped, are duped so they render simultaneously 'load free'. Any neighboring textured surfaces sharing a texture assignment (such as metal panels, smoothed steel cladding, or concrete) are sewn/linked up to render at the same time. I can't really optimize this any more than it is.
Lots and lots of clicking for HOURS. Only have to add an elevator shaft and a parking garage to this (parking garage may come post-update, considering doing modular stuff with that).
It now has an entrance, too. That is much much better than just four walls.

In the future (not as much right away due to time constraint) there will be buildings you can enter, as in the future the game will be more interactive to those on-foot AND in-vehicle, and more mission-oriented while still keeping an open-world game-play design.

 

Added elevator shafts with 3D doors, imported parking garage from Police Dept model and it's 3D commercial doors for use underneath and within the skyscraper - because I'm not making another parking garage when I already made one (it'll still be a day+ until I get that done anyway, but this will be a spawn point so it should be GOOD). So entirely, it'll have a usable parking garage in the next update.
More details. Concrete texture on elevator shaft is not final, it'll have marble (I just haven't applied it yet).
Maya does NOT render the translucent door texture properly within the editor, and the floor overrides it wrongly, this won't be an issue in-game at all. It's just a display bug so no worries there. Makes getting pictures a pain though. Not an RT render either, maybe will do some of those in the future as the card CAN do it but I just almost never use it for that.
Also, managed to drop another bunch of draw calls off the model, so adding the whole parking garage / elevator shafts and roof-top goodies does not add processor weight to the model. Everything is duped when and where possible. Added basic ventilation in the parking garage too. While you can enter the parking garage, there won't be open building doors on the update yet to walk into. The garage will be only ONE level for now until the future when I can research how to do this underground without compromising structure above (Engineering stuffs!). Will add lighting before doing any of that for the garage. Expect a ramp down to access the garage, something like NYC or any other BIG city has.
Edit: Literally, an edit. I threw in an editor shot so that you can see that the unfinished LINE CITY lot not far from the 'island air strip' is now much more complete. It's the one that's way far away from the default spawn.
Again, please excuse visual glitches, that's Maya for ya.

 

could you make a smaller edition of this map?
(cuz i can't run it)

 

Jeeze Bob, when we do get an update is the map going to be 50% or more more complex. Cause you have been busting butt on the model process

 

All of this progress looks amazing, to say the least. This map's diversity just keeps increasing, and it keeps getting better as a result. Always looking forward to seeing more updates.

 

Foreward: there will be no April fool's Tom-foolery from myself, so no need to derail due to that.

---

Yes, there's a lot of little quality-of-life issues, optimization, texture replacements, model replacements, and so-forth and so-on, in addition to new models. Thanks for recognizing that while it is taking me forever, there will be a whole pile of newly placed stuff to explore around and sometimes even within.

---

I wish I could. I really wish I could, but that's the absolute polar opposite of what this project is.
This is the project for folks who spent waaaaay too much on computer components and come here to run this (and talk about it), so we don't feel so bad about the extreme spending (especially in the last few years) it takes to maintain a 'computer habit'. However, this response isn't all bad news for you and folks like you. In the future, texture sizes will be scaled down in public versions (not drastically/offensively so), so that more folks can run this as the project gets larger. There will still be full-size textures available to those who wish to run (and download) the full deal on cutting-edge hardware (such as video cards 10gb or larger in size).
For those on the fence about purchasing a video card, prices ARE coming down. I recommend avoiding the stratospheric prices of the 3090 and it's newly released even-more-expensive Ti variant, and opting for a more reasonable 16gb 6000-series AMD GPU. Unless you do design or want the RT for said design or just for the very few games that use it - the AMD options (6800 series or 6900 series) offer 16gb of VRAM, which is lots more than the 8~12gb of VRAM offered by the 3070/3080 series from Nvidia, but not as much as the absolutely-loaded 3090. Please also make absolutely sure your power supply (and case!) can handle the upgrade first, otherwise you'll just have an expensive paperweight you cannot use. However, the price of the 3080 (Ti???) with the 12gb VRAM is a decent option, if a little light on VRAM compared to the AMD offerings for the price asked - avoid the 10gb model though, you're just wasting your money on that or the 8gb 3070. I ran out of VRAM on my 8gb card OVER TWO YEARS AGO, so trust me when I say it, 8gb is not enough, and this map reflects that when used on high texture details. Do your part and thumb your nose at high-end cards with 8gb or less; unless you see that in a mid-range card, where 4~8gb is okay for those who only game now and then and have more important things than that to pay for already (like eating, or paying the mortgage, car payment, insurance etc).
<2gb = lowest, may not run / may not run fluidly, please consider upgrading soon, if possible buy used
2~3gb video card = Low
4~8gb video card = Medium
10~16gb video card = High
Using RT or DLSS features on your video card will ALWAYS increase VRAM use (sometimes drastically). Increasing resolution not only increases VRAM use, but also increases the amount of models shown at full detail on the horizon, so keep this in mind. Conversely, dropping resolution will naturally put less weight on the GPU and more weight on the CPU. So please use Vulkan if possible where possible no matter what resolution you run, as long as it works on your card/system, as it'll help decrease single-core bottlenecking of the CPU due to DirectX 11 single-threaded rendering, in-favor of Vulkan multi-threaded rendering. If you see your CPU use (and have each core shown) in task manager, and you see ONE (and only one) core* at 100%, your gpu NOT at 100%, and you're in DirectX 11 mode, you will GAIN FPS by switching to Vulkan provided your video drivers do not get in the way of things.
*The loading of other cores is largely irrelevant to this discussion, but they're usually loaded as-per how many vehicles your running, more vehicles = more loading. If your at the max vehicles your processor can handle or over this, ALL cores will appear maxed or nearly maxed. Occasionally, sometimes systems hold up for other reasons, such as memory bandwidth limits/amount, driver problems introducing latency, or even bad overclocks/temperature issues/power imperfections or is not enough, and so-on. I recommend a Ryzen 3000-series, 4000-series, or 5000-series CPU for best bang for the buck when you want upgrading, or a low-end intel i3/i5 for 12th-gen only for budget-conscious systems as it's price cannot be beat. Both systems feature PCI-E 4 support depending on motherboard used so do your research VS just jumping for the first thing that comes rolling past like a hungry Giant Centipede... This is getting too long.

---

My roofing decor and parking garage went bust (and a little optimization but not too much), but I have a backup of the previous day's work or so. Maya refuses to open the model and both that file and the most recent backup did not work. Thank goodness for crazy amounts of backups. I don't know what I'd do otherwise if I lost over a week of work to that. I backup lots and lots, never know what will happen. Most of yesterday was a wash due to 50+ mph winds making power go nuts until it finally took down a pole on our road - then it went out for good. I finally gave up and unplugged the PC for the evening. Power was out until the insanity passed and someone drove out to the substation to hit the "overload open-air circuit breaker" (grid lines sometimes get overloaded when some of the system goes down and the 'smart grid' most of the US has tries to re-route power without overloading something, which is why your lights flash a few times before it comes back on or going out for good).
As far as losing progress, only 1 to 1½ days of progress** modeling were lost, no map progress was lost, no graphics progress was lost, only the finishing touches I put on the tower. I will just leave it as-is for the current release to not hold other things up as I cannot afford to add more time until next update.
It's already been far, far, far too long, and my yard is quickly becoming a wild prarie so as it is... If I wait too much longer I will have to cut my grass from the roof.
**I sent the model in to support staff (not here, the staff I pay monthly for support via modeling software payment), maybe they'll be able to save it (this is why I use commercial software). Otherwise I will ship with the current model as it stands which is 'done' sans some roof detail or a parking garage. This will be okay for one release cycle; as if it cannot be fixed, I will buy a pre-made modular parking garage for the project to save time in-stead of buying something else I won't have time to put into the map for a few months.
Why buy one? Simply put, the error happened after importing an existing parking garage I had made. So I am not going to do THAT again, as THAT would be quite the BLUNDER to do for a second time.

Maybe I can kiss Ghost's butt and he'll let me make use of his (if it's in the right format)...
On that note, that is all for the evening. Next post will be over the weekend sometime. Hopefully everyone survives the 1st with sanity intact.

 

Another brick box I've been working on. This one is five floors tall. I may have shown some of it before, but the brick windowsills are actually 3d and sloped appropriately, even the shutters are 3d. The windows are set back the depth of the brick as-expected also (same for the doors). Roof will be flat, and the outside corners of all surfaces will be smoothed as-required for stone / concrete edges that should be (90% of smoothing is already in).
Not all buildings will be this detailed. Some might be just a flat texture with windows on it and a door stuck on someplace, but there will be quite a few like this.
Future suburban apartments will be 2 or 3 floors, and have a sloped roof, but might look somewhat similar. They should be different enough (from this one) that they will seem their own thing but the windows and brick-work will be shared for time-saving reasons (and because, well, there's absolutely NO good reason not to, not that a variation building couldn't shake this up some).
DOOR TEXTURE (and the portion of the edifice above it) subject to change, it's just the door texture I had on the mosaic texture that had the windows in it.

 

I can't wait for the next update! Glad to see you're still plugging away at this awesome project!

 

This project is not going to die unless I do. Even if so, if that unfortunate circumstance should happen, I would hope someone would pick it up in my stead. That said I have quite a number of years left in me, even if I can barely make it to the loo some days; the computer is 4 feet from my bed for a good reason
Thank-you for the kind words. I will surely give you some lead time before the download is available so you can set some time aside (hopefully) to enjoy it. I am not one for blindsiding people, especially those of us set in our ways / routines / so-forth. It's always nice to hear people are looking forward to something I spend so much time on, it makes it that-much-more worth it.
Big thanks! I look forward to your video coverage just as much, as it's always nice to hear a mature, well spoken (AND NOT HYPER) adult's take on things. The dry humor you intersperse into the videos is also very nice. It's certainly better than television by a long shot - so here's hoping to get DAVE-O-VISION one day soon. As long as I don't have to go up on the roof to fix a TV antennae I will be a happy Bob.

---

So all in all, I'm 95% done with this model I've been working on (there's other commercial models in the background, though this is built COMPLETELY from-scratch to replace a poor-quality example).
It's a large five-floor apartment complex (not counting the basement), with many units (by design 6 medium to large apartments per floor, or up to 10~12 smaller ones per floor). The building was built in a manner that allowed me to keep draw calls at or around 20~25 or less for textures (this translates into <100 when all surfaces such as bump maps or reflective maps are added).
I will be adding a few more details to the building so that it looks better. I will also make several different textured versions of this building as needed but they won't be everywhere.
Several more apartment blocks / buildings will be made with pieces of this one, though usually not this fancy / complicated.
58,000 polygons, 116,000 triangles, 84,461 UV's (after cleaning up extra loose surfaces, UV count in stats reflects when extra surfaces were still present, polys and triangles remain the same due to the selection method I used to get stats). THAT IS A LOT OF PERFECTED UV'S. A HUGE LOT OF THEM. OUCH. That's why it takes the time it does, but with a few decorations, it'll be as nice as any AAA building aside of the not-so-detailed roof access (due to time constraint).

 

Building detail complete - this is as complicated as it will get for now, it's really complicated already.
Most of the detail was in the smoothed edges, etc. I may have missed some edges somewhere, but it's pretty solid. Added some HVAC stuff, changed/corrected roof access door texture, added roof vents, cleaned up building scene of any orphaned surfaces etc. Still have to make 1 or 2 LOD's and the collision mesh.
Due to how this building is made from modular pieces put together, it should be reasonably easy to make the middle LOD (lowest LOD & collision mesh are always pretty quick, and sometimes 'shared' to again speed things up). Otherwise LOD's can take HOURS if you don't plan ahead. It's generally easiest to make LOD's as-you-go adding detail, but that's rarely practical from a off-hand / from-memory design like this.

 

i hope that this map comes with a big new update bc the map is somehow not working on my pc

 

Reply to YOU and a small update for everyone else. The last building I worked on was finished up Sunday or so, collision that does not eat cars, basic LOD but that won't kick in until it's a block or more away because of the top-notch 100% optimized model quality not eating up tons of draw calls etc. So not so much pop-in on the newer stuff. Small-resolution textures may be used on the far-away models to further hide pop-in in the future as I have time to make them (some road kits already do this to reduce draw calls from several per segment to one - just a single texture application per piece).
Currently finishing up some GFX work (bottom of the post), especially considering I just bought 2500 credits on Textures dot com (one of THE best sites for texture btw, totally worth the money, and the staff/owner is really an awesome guy going above and beyond to help when the site didn't like one of my credit cards). So I got some GOOD textures, to replace some of the generic / obviously repeating textures in the map. Including stuff to replace stock BeamNG Drive textures such as the sidewalk texture (I've got the new one below).
So entirely, that means models that use many of these textures goes in next.
I WILL LIKELY STRIP UNUSED ASSETS (models and textures) FROM THE NEXT PUBLIC VERSION TO LOWER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS AND LOAD TIMES / DOWNLOAD TIMES / DISK SPACE REQ.
Unused future assets may still be present (for those who like to build things with them such as road kits!) in the Patreon version, which is intentional.
The models will be starting to be shown hopefully by the weekend. I've got several new terrain-texture layers for Asphalt variations, which I'll add manually SO THAT IT WORKS.

Nasty storms rolling in so will get this up right quick, nasty ones too that just tore up Arkansas earlier.

 

If you're patient enough, you can do THIS with graphics taken at almost any angle!
I saw this, and it looked like it would fit 100% with the run-down area of the map.
Sometimes cities aren't always pretty! Picture is uploaded in 8-bit to reduce size to ¼ but is 32-bit in full detail. Now to just make it seamless. That's the easy part honestly, compared to what is already done.
Source picture on the right, fixed version on the left. This image is CC-0 licensed and is for free use.
All with free software, too.

 

Another derelict building texture to add to the rust-belt themed area of the map. I spent hours (2~4???) doing this while listening to youtube stuff in the background (ym2612 remixes, all the way to Karen stories and a lawyer talking about current events mostly in the court system).
Time flew. Why am I hungry so bad my stomach is growling? Oh. I sat down at lunch. It's 1700 hours now, that'd be why I am hungry. Turns out I LOVE making these textures, and am actually not too bad at it.
Before and after. So some of the graffiti was lost and others don't make sense. Probably will remove the slang term for northerners in the USA from the windows before any PUBLIC releases. I might do another texture or two. I perfect these with free software, I barely even use my Photoshop license (thank goodness the old version I have was cheap comparitively at the time, and was a one-off cost).
These do take their sweet time, but it's something that if you rush, shall break the immersion completely. I want immersive environments that really feel like you're in a depressed part of town. Of-course to counter this, there are nicer sections to engross yourself in, should you need to. However, this is real, this is the reality of what NAFTA did in around 1990 or so to the rust-belt STEEL-PRODUCING towns of the northern central/north-eastern USA. I know this well and it hits home. My grandfather worked at Bethlehem Steel. He died in the 80's after I was born, but the legacy of the town is not lost, especially in Detroit, Chicago (some sections), Gary Indiana, various parts of Ohio and of-course PA/NJ area too.
I hope this wanderlust of a topic was an interesting read. But know that I'm doing things even when you don't hear from me. I want this map to make a statement, and I want each and every one of you to feel at home in SOME portion of the map somewhere. There's a little something-something for all.
Just glad I got the lawn done (it got pretty dark, it was close!) before the several-inches-of-rain showed up overnight.
Before-after picture below with unaltered source material on the right, finished product on the left.
Picture is 32-bit but upload is in 8-bit because my internet is a poo. So mind-not the low-res / low-detail, it's a 2k square texture in-game. As with anything here; texture as is everything else, is subject to change, omission, replacement and all the like.
What's important is that the future holds much and looks better than ever for this map. Thank-you for your gracious support.

Oh, and the 'old' concrete highway textures should be higher resolution sometime soon, either just before or after the next release.

 

A+

 

look at the posts before this post

shit when did you change it to A+

 

how far ahead is this from the repo. Deciding if the patreon is worth it.
--- Post updated ---

Left a question that was previously answered and couldn't delete it

 

I've decided to try the Patreon. Downloading rn, fingers crossed.

 

It's a month or two ahead of the public version, but it's about to get updated in ~10 days.
Yes, the new version is finally coming, with quite a bit of content and a lot of changes to the underpinnings of the map.

---

If anyone gets the following error let me know (this is right adjacent to the abandoned mall).

I am updating the terrain stuff and such, I want to make sure when I'm doing isn't just something that broke on 0.24 vs something I bumbled and blundered (hence my name).
That stupid ORANGE SKY AT TWILIGHT bug should be a goner, as of the next update (yea finally!).

Includes in new version that will be available around the 3rd or such of May:
11-foot-8 bridge, along with some new track to get to it
a few more miles of roads laid out in the more derelict side of town. Miles of curbing has been painstakingly laid out too. that's not always much fun but it certainly adds to the immersion when driving about.
A LOT of texture changes; as-in, more than ever. This could change system requirements a bit but shouldn't leave anyone sitting in the dust. Sidewalks might even look like sidewalks soon.
The gas station island texture might even be fixed this time.
The traffic lights should no-longer be broken on medium or low detail for some folks (it doesn't break for me until 'very low' settings are used, but this seems to be driver-specific).
Large new flyover interchange that was pictured around a month ago here.
Some models will have fixes, but some textures on a few buildings may look odd or at incorrect scales until I have everything updated to the new stuff (trust me, the new stuff tiles a LOT better), it shouldn't be too immersion-breaking or obvious. I will fix these as time goes on.
There's a lot of new models. I am deliberately NOT showing a lot of things until the release is finalized as I don't want to give anyone a false state of the map, as anything goes with the pre-release state of this game.
Updates to various things will be such that caution should be used when adding these things into your own map if you've used the old resources. Please do so with care and make backups!
There's more than this, but I will add more as the days tick off.
As-of a week from Sunday, work will stop, and tests will begin, and I will ship this out.

Thank-you to all who support the map development.