So yeah, my first terrain project with I-15 was obviously too ambitious especially with the fact that I hadn't released one terrain yet. I'm pretty much finished with my Track Civetta terrain but I have not gotten around to uploading it yet. Anyway, I decided it would be cool to make an airport, heavily based off of the San Jose Intl. Airport. Here are some assets I am currently modeling or that other people can if they want to: Checklist ( any shade of green is finished, yellow is wip, red is not started): Signs: Entry street sign Overhead terminal sign Ground terminal signs And another one, not pictured Other stuff: Bridge Road Structure Buildings: Currently working on Parking Garage as of 12/29/2015
Got any development screenshots or in game screenshots? Because last I heard, you needed some in game pictures for your work. Goes for all the mods sections I believe. But still sounds like a great idea here.
Yep, I set up all of the files and folder structure for the terrain, but an annoying bug in BeamNG makes all terrains crash before I can go into them. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next version.
I strongly recommend handling the rest of the map yourself before asking for modelers. I'd bury the request for modelers as quickly as I could in your shoes. If you build the rest of the map, implement everything, and then mention that you could use a model or two... you'll be in a much better position to ask for help. Just my 2 cents of course. ... eg if you build it, they will come.
You should make Jungle Rock Island a famous interest point and make the JRI airport into a international airport with 2 runways
That's exactly why I'd hold off. With all respect - you're asking for a lot, but so far you haven't demonstrated how much you are going to put in. I'm sure you have the best intentions, but that doesn't mean you'll actually be able to hold up your end of the bargain when the chips are down. Creating a nice level takes a lot of work, some of it can be tedious, complex, challenging, etc. One of those challenging jobs can be creating models. I assume you are asking someone to texture the models for you as well, so you're actually looking for complete assets. There's nothing wrong with not being able to do this yourself (I can't either FWIW). A key point here is that anyone who can do what you need must pick what project to spend time on. They are more likely to put in good work for you if they have proof that they'll be part of a high quality and complete project. Nobody wants to contribute to a project which is either never finished or ends up being of low quality! The best way to prove that you can do your part is to actually do it. There's nothing stopping you from doing the rest of the work now. Once your level looks good there are several folks around here and elsewhere who might consider making assets for you.
If you really feel that the success of this level depends on assets you can't create, maybe it would be best to go for something slightly less ambitious for now. (eg work on a map that does not depend heavily on custom models) An ambitious project which includes all the things a good map should but does not rely as heavily on models could be your portfolio when trying to recruit modelers for a map like this. On another, less positive note... The more I look at it, the more it seems that an airport would be very heavily model dependent. The BeamNG.drive team leans on models in order to create the roadways in a relatively simple town (like in East Coast USA). Unfortunately I think that creating a great airport of the scale you indicated will require that the level artist also be proficient at modeling.
I am publishing a Track Civetta terrain very soon which does not require custom assets. Anyway, there's a very small chance I could model the assets, but exporting them and texturing them seems to be the hardest. I was taught how to use Autodesk Inventor in school but I've been told it's useless for real modeling. My motivation is about to go down the toilet for this terrain...
Don't get bummed out gigawert. Every single person who's made a map has gone through major frustration and anxiety periods. Working in this medium is a never ending journey of blissful times and depressing times. Sooner or later we all realized our grand dreams of becoming master map makers overnight were pure fallacy. My suggestion to you is start small, stay focused and most of all start with the one thing you know the most about. Work from there in baby steps. Get rid of the anxiety to build a masterpiece overnight, it just isn't going to happen. Set a learning goal for yourself somewhere in your range of abilities and go from there. Master something, anything at all, until you can do it your sleep. After that ask yourself what you want to master next, heightmaps?....terrain painting?....creating a new terrain material and making it stick?.....mastering decal roads?.....absolutely anything at all it doesn't matter right now. Learn things in small manageable blocks and never lie to yourself that you will be a master map maker in a week. We ALL go through this process whether it's vehicles, maps, props, buildings.........and it takes time, lots of time. Channel your frustration into learning and mastering individual parts and pieces and before long you will enjoy times of fantastic accomplishment and satisfaction. I guarantee it.
Thats is normal with the editor and all that things, I was also very frustrated as I saw the result with the roads in my Ghost Town map, also the textures wont save, many objects were invisible bla bla bla ... that are all things where I could freak out and think : why the hell beamng just can be easyier but in the end you will be very happy if you find a way how it works and this is , why I love it to create terrains.
This is a really ambitious project. Do you even know what you are trying to do? You should have atleast an idea, a drawing of what you want to do before you even jump into the terrain. All I see are reference pics and none of your ideas. Start with a clear idea, otherwise, you can get a mess of a map.
I could say I had a mental picture when I did Foothill Mines. But look at it, its overcrowded since I didnt have a framework to go off of. I kinda was doing it the way I felt it should be each day, which was quite different from day to day. You should atleast put what you want to see down on paper, and start by limiting yourself to that picture. Its easier to work on paper first than jump right into it. You can have as many refference pics as you want, but unless you are trying to build the actual airport, where you know what you need to do, you still will stray off of what you originally wanted. We're not saying you cant do it Gigawert, but you need to take it slow. Ihad issues with Foothill Mines since I had absolutely no idea what I wanted in the end. So here is what I would do if I were doing this; 1; Draw it out on paper. This gives an idea of what I want to do, how I want it to look, and the layout. Even the pro's and the devs of this game do this. 2; Create your terrain, making sure your heightmap is setup the way you want it before you import it. This reduces the ammount of work you have to do to your terrain in the crippled Terrain Editor given with BeamNG.Drive. 3; Once you have a good chunk of your terrain done, and you can convince others of your idea and what its going to be, Make a thread in the forums for it. Then ask for support where you need it. Like modeling. People will always want to be apart of a project that is coming along, not one that is super spread out. 4; Once you have a terrain you feel comfortable with being complete, package it and release it in the forums. 5; Get feedback from the terrain. You can post as many pictures as you want but until you release the map people cant really experience the map and tell you if they like it. Hope this helps, anyone else can chime in and say if I missed a spot in a good workflow.
I have quite a few map ideas drawn out that I haven't done yet, but I want to finish this first. I probably will draw a map of the roads I want here. Thank you for the advice! By the way, here are some progress pictures: I didn't really need a heightmap, as this airport is in a totally flat area of town.
