WIP Beta released The Tennessee USA Roane County 0.71 Beta Discussion/Suggestion/feedback Thread 19.3.1

Looking forward of new development!

Regarding that visual distance, I think terrain itself should render whatever is landmass size, but mesh roads and objects like that should have lot less visual distance, sadly engine is not allowing this.

When leaving burger world spawn and turning 180 degrees, my GPU probably would render everything just fine, but my CPU can't. It is part shadows, part probably part collision detection maybe part which is unknown. You can see how my GPU is resting here:


I tested issue quite extensively, reducing texture to minimum has little effect, so can't be running out of GPU vram which I have 4GB, 16GB system ram is more than plenty and i7-6700 is not at slowest mark either.

Tested overclocking CPU, from 3.7Ghz to 4.4Ghz which was all it would go (whole lot of mess with bioses hacks and whatnot), at Glass View mountains which is another CPU limited map, I got FPS increase from 37 to 44, not surprisingly, same happens with Tennessee.

I think too that what you input in visual distance box is in meters indeed, so 2000 is 2000 meters (1.24 miles), 32000 is bit over 32km, I guess that is maximum visible distance from sea level on earth? With 4k resolutions need to have long visual distance is whole lot different than for example 720p, so that are really is something we would like to see something new in game.

Anyway, problem is most definitely in game engine and it could be improved by having two visual distance, one for terrain and another for rest of the stuff, which would allow far more complex maps.
I guess for even bigger maps some other improvements would be needed.

What would be incredible cool would be if devs would make dynamic visual distance for that rest part, drawing objects further when FPS is at set value, like for example grass, it tends to pop up quite close on every map, even when I set it to maximum in level editor, but that hardly slows down my framerate.

I can get really lot of data with this, first running fraps or msi afterburner and that records framerate too:
https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

I log with 1000ms polling rate and it makes CSV file, with that it is very easy to make graphs and see what really is limiting factor in map. This is how it then looks when I chart data, bottom one with series labels has all the cores. If you log CSV with HWinfo and fraps (both free), I can make graphs for you, as many as you want, I just paid 70 euros from this years excel, so I guess I have to put it to some use, eh?

 

19 miles of roads have been added thus far (since the last release), expect a few miles more though, but this total does reflect all the side roads I've added to flesh out the town of Harriman. Mileage totals for roadways were roughly 144 miles, give or take a few miles, it's now up to 163 miles of road and path, total. That's a whole lotta roads. Trying to push for a grand total of about 180 miles of road on this map, that shouldn't be too hard to do as a good 10 miles of non-town roads (rural roads) need to be added in yet for this to be complete (at least that much).
A mile or two of these roads need to be banked and such, first. I will get as many houses put in as I can manage, but this will be uploaded next around the 15th or such, regardless if the spawns are perfect or not. Honestly, I don't know why they don't work, many mappers are having trouble with this aspect, and they do spawn you in the right spot, they just might not spawn you right at the vehicle 100% of the time. I have no more time to waste with this ambiguous process and no documentation of spawn processes, when I could be adding more to the map vs fighting this game engine/editor. When the developers simplify this to a reasonable amount, I'll fix the spawn points better. They worked fine in version 0.7, but not in 0.8, and if I fix them now, will they stay working in v 0.9???
I love this game, but with the lack of documentation, it creates a lot of frustration. I can whole-heartedly see why other mappers have left the community, as it can be very frustrating. The game engine is in a bad way with 0.8 from a mapper's perspective. When the engine is better documented, I will fix the spawns. Map development will still continue, just might not be as much as I put out last year, until we hit beta, and the game engine features have some stability in the way they are implemented.
If a game update happens right before release, It may delay this release for a day, possibly two, at most. I know we're due for one, last time I went to upload this I got 28 minutes into the upload (that takes 16 hours) and it switched to update available, when I put up the version that's currently up.
On FRIDAY I'd like to have a preview version sent out to those who make videos and such on Youtube.
I have long since forgotten my youtube login, and it doesn't think it's me when I try to get the password, so I'm not bothering making a new one, so if you have a youtube channel that's Beamng.drive related, and you're not on my Steam list, let me know via private message. Honestly, the map isn't SOOOOO ground-breakingly different, it's just somewhat more fleshed out, less unfinished looking. Putting on the finishing touches takes a *LOT* of time. Just like working with hand tools on a wood carving, or fixing old plaster walls.
If you're looking for more fun with role-play like to drive from point A to point B, there will be more of that of course. If you're looking for hours of new roads to cruise on, well you might be let down. There's still more things to do of course, plenty more. Kingston is still not entirely finished, but should be closer by release day. Harriman is over half done, closer to two-thirds or three-quarters, not sure if it'll be done by release day or not. I've barely touched Rockwood but may do SOMETHING with it. However, those than complained about not getting much use out of your force-feedback system on the roads in my map, might have a good old time bouncing down the side-roads in Harriman.
THERE ARE PLENTY OF JUMPS AROUND (Harriman) TOWN, if it LOOKS like it possible could function as a jump, it most likely IS a jump, and intended to be one, it just might LOOK like a steep driveway, a pile of wood, a rock oddly placed, an odd lump of poorly textured/detailed earth, etc. Of course I had to put some underlying slightly hidden fun in this thing! In Harriman, the road behind what actually is the Ford dealer, would pop tires, this is fixed, too.

Fine print (not really) :
All these dates mentioned are approximate and subject to change, of course. My health really sucks and sometimes my brain just can't handle this editor and all it's quirks without wanting to choke the computer, or smack all 80 lbs of it clean off the desk. I do love this game but it surely is a test of my patience and discipline. I should most likely be doing my yard work, there's piles of rubbish to be burnt, there's grass to be mowed, and flower beds i'd rather just mow over along with it, but something is wrong with my physical health yet to be determined and found properly, that makes me feel like I am going to collapse, out of breath, even when it's NOT my blood sugar dropping. Fun Fun Fun, don't get old kids, it sucks (and no, I don't have depression, I'm generally happy-go-lucky when not writhing in back pain from my refusal to accept codine pills as a viable but addictive solution - yuck)... I've already had my heart stop on me once about 3.5 years ago, I don't need to drop in the yard where no one will find me for hours/days/years...ugh.

Drama out of the way, it's always good here, work is slow but steady, so the end of the work-week will come a (private) update for you video channel folks, and a fit-and-finish update for this map (that will be public, in the days following). Hopefully I get some texture updates in here before it uploads, because they sure look like CACA (a few of them do anyways).
If you have any qualms about the map or it's quality, please get them off your chest sometime this week, before I do the next update, because WHO KNOWS how long until the next map update.

--Cheers.

Edit: Testing can be fun. You'll love the jumps! *Just added about half dozen more

 

kudos to you for pushing through the bugs with the editor.

 

+1 on the kudos for the editor patience.. Ive tried to add scatters sky and TOD to a few maps and man... it takes alot of effort right now with the editor!
Man, i recognize the lack of energy to take care of things that need attention around the house. They tend to grow on you and so does the lack of energy along with them. Goes up and down for me, sometimes life's all good and sometimes it feels like i almost cant bother getting up. Usually a happy chap though, atleast thats what ppl think lol.

 

I can't but admire how you all have patience with map making and working around with editor annoyances is just something I cannot comprehend, my patience is so little.

I do share with that doing things around the house part and physical me being unable to work on what I would like to, mostly it is 30 seconds to maximum of 60 seconds I can hold mouse, then shoulder injury starts to be needy. I can type with left just fine, but can't learn to use mouse to any precision with left, so I am very amazed what you guys manage to do.

 

Thanks for the support guys (and gals, if applicable)! It helps me want to keep up working with this, and "it's always nice to hear something nice" as always. So, as a show of gratitude, in what is really an abandoned waste overgrown lot of broken pavement, weeds, and dirt, and old truck trailers, I have put a non-descript warehouse corporation (sorry, there's no sign for it). It's PACKED full of jumps. Like 10 of them or a dozen, something to the effect. You'll have lots of fun hooning about for hours here. Some can be made easily, some are more tricky, and some are just one more of the plentiful ways to clobber the car, usually into a house, tree, car-eating-sign, or something of the sort. Pics Below for that!
I've also found that I can use one of the forest-objects for new bridge abutments - and they look good too! I don't have to touch them, just spawn them and size them. So I will be going through the map updating to those newer style abutments, as needed. Hey, if I save a dozen 'item' slots (not to mention, every mesh-abutment I remove, increases FPS), that means more ramps, room for more mission checkpoints when I finally get to that, etc, IT MEANS MORE STUFF IN THE MAP.
Draw distance is set at 4800 meters. That's 2.5 miles roughly, 4-5km (guessing here!), and a gentle distance-fog. This should substantially help FPS, or atleast help those that were borderline. You can always open the editor (wait a few minutes for it to open if needed), type INFO into the right-side box of the 1st main editor mode, and look for the draw-distance field and set it higher if needed. It should be good enough. Fog is there too. You will start in the morning (see the pic with the rowhomes/townhomes, or any other pics for what it will be like, when you start the map).
If you have the timecycle ON (set to 'play'), a whole day cycle will take around TWO real life hours. That should give you plenty of time to mess around in the map. Night time will pass 50% faster than daytime, as per map settings.
There's also some pictures of some apartments and condos not far from the Emory river in Harriman there (all pics are of Harriman town). The jumps that go over the river are preliminary until I get the road on the far side of the river done (not sure if THAT will make the update or not).
And now for the stuff I've been promising for days. The pictures of the work flow. Detail takes LOTS of time, but that's something I do have.










Apartment complex, a bit bare yet, needs a few trees/bushes/rocks/whatever


Thanks for the support. I will be hopefully having most of the town done by release.

Here's a nice wallpaper for your desktop background if you want it.

 

Looking forward to hooning about on the updated map, not to say i dont enjow it as is right now, went on a trucking spree yesterday! I like how tyou constantly find ways to improve the map both item wise and with adding objects as forest objects, good job man!

 

Wow, extremely nice map! Oh and I like your profile Picture "Honda Accordion" So funny!

 

Trying to keep the object #'s down from the 4096 total objects. Every thing that I can make out of forest brush VS a specifically plopped item, is a bonus to all of us, it also will be more efficient to draw vs a mesh road object. I don't like to re-work completed parts, but if it's all for efficiency's sake, it's a non-issue with me to do.
Thanks!
--- Post updated ---

Yeah I couldn't resist. A tree fell on someone from across-the-road's car back when I lived in the city, on a Honda Accord, so I was like, "Hey, Who owns this Honda Accordian?" because being the inner-city we all sat on our porches a lot of the time. I cracked up most of the block with that one (though I did earn one or two colorful spanish words I am not allowed to print on the G-rated forum). Thank-you.

 

I got a chuckle out of BURGER WORLD and how the same place was on Beavis & Butthead many years ago.

But yea, it's a fancy looking map. If you need any more suburban-ey buildings like Ranch Houses & Split Levels then hit me up since I got a few kicking around on my computer.

 

+

Yes, yes, that is the same place I even 'shopped the logo in there even though it was some work doing it.
Surely that'd be lovely, you can send them via a private message attatchment and receive full credit for your work. I only ask to reserve the right to use them in this (and possibly future) maps, as Beamng.drive is short on some variety. Whatever you've got would be great, so long as they have built-in collision it's wonderful. I highly thank you, quite a bit actually. Please provide textures with them, even if you don't want me to use textures (I can always replace them, but atleast then I have a guide to make new ones with).
If ANYONE, has ANY buildings of ANY kind, they will be well loved and find a good home here in this and future maps of mine. The only thing I ask is that they have working collision due to performance and other issues that would be encountered with putting them in the forest brush (if you want, in return, scripts you can add to YOUR forest brush in YOUR map if you do not know how to, let me know too, as I do know how to script my own forest brush, and did!). My forest brush has over 316K worth of characters in it's database. While huge, it contains mostly stock Beamng.drive assets, a number of assets from @Occam's Razer (thank you kind sir), and any other kindly donated assets. This is a huge map, your donations going a long way into helping this develop into it's entirely own game!
Also, if someone is able to take one of my bridge piers (the fancy, light blue, angled uprights and girders) and make them into a DAE with collision, that'd be super. It would also possibly free up 100~200 (or possibly more) object slots (and help rid the map of it's janky collisions on those uprights). It would also make the map render smoother (higher FPS), although those objects DO have meshculling.

Like I said, if ANYONE has ANYthing that can be added to the map project here I would be so eternally grateful as would all who play this map. Plus you get the added benefit of being aired on Youtube videos as someone who helped make a humongous project like this map.
I am not tooting my own horn here, quite the opposite, this would have never been even nearly as good without help from many other folks.

Also, if anyone is willing to enable collision models on the train-track, it is HUNDREDS of units that aren't able to currently be used in the forest brush, but I would gladly do it again to make it able to be used in the forest brush. This free space would be used for missions. There's only about 16~18 different track pieces.
--Cheers!

 

You mean like these bridge support things?


That bridge above and this bridge take more than 14fps, those lights on bridge were around 5fps, you might of course know that already, but out of curiosity I tested what kind of effect they have here, it is all from CPU load reduction, so I guess you are right that those need optimization, convex shape objects I think those were called which had most impact:


Shapes itself are easy to make, but correct dimensions, have no idea about collision, just can't figure it out before I get frustrated, how polygons should be for collision stuff, exporting, texturing etc. So much stuff I have no idea of.

 

Bob, I sent you a message with all the buildings attached. Hope you get it all good and stuff. Again, sorry there's no collisions

 

Collision just matches the object, generally, and in no times can be larger than the displayed model or it eats cars, a copy of the model will do fine. I can resize the SCALE of them inside the forest brush (but not the X Y or Z independently of one another, unless it's an actual object inside the f1 object editor). While most everything is meshculling enabled in my map (they darn well should be, but I check before I send them map to upload for updates), it would be much appreciated if anyone who knows how to blender can work it without me mucking it up. Me modeling = crash beam on import *BOOOM* Desktop... "You've crashed the crash simulator... SUPRISE!" Oh the IRONY of it all.
Yes, just do the set of uprights (pylons, technically), with the 3 horizontal sections above it (that shoulders the weight from the beams and interlocks with it), and the one horizontal section below it. I can use something else as a concrete trapezoid-shaped box below it for the mock-up pier-pad (unless you wish to do that one, too, but it doesn't entirely need to be done).
I would be eternally grateful to you for that. You sure would help the project quite a bit with that. They ARE intensive with FPS as they sit, but they are beautiful (I think so, this concurs with several youtubers who have mentioned them too).
I custom-designed these bridge supports myself because I didn't want the standard rubbish that would normally be there (that bridge technically has standard concrete box pillars IRL, but these are much much more beautiful). If you wish to do any of the other bridge pillar sets, you may, but again, don't have to at any rate. Again, this is all a pro-bono thing for which I would be quite thankful!
--Cheers

 

I don't know about angles and relative dimensions if they are even close, I just eyeballed and made rough version.


Also I have no idea about amount of polygons, are supports too low poly if they are like this? I have read that less than 40cm and collision detection might be bit sticky, but what if it is like such big?


Height and distance apart + width as well as scale is undetermined yet, but it is quite easy to shape and scale to whatever size it needs to be.

 

MORE houses, industry, and a new traffic signal is on the new roster today.
Also finished off and signed a bunch of had-not-been-finished stuffs nearby.
EDIT: Now featuring less floaty trees near the north-map-edge jumps past Harriman (to the right of the jumps). There's also one that's going to be fixed next to the sidings, where all the train tracks are side-by-side, you sometimes fly under this tree if you jump the 8 (or 7?)-in-a-row rail crossings.
Could use a few more trees but is much closer to getting done now.

Some new town-homes here.

The traffic light, also, the water here in the distance that is over the road, is not as deep, so the AI doesn't drown itself now (was undesired; fixed).

Water over the road is okay but it shouldn't drown a car at speed. I will say the water in this map is now spot on realistic, and shouldn't float semi's (lorries for you from the EU) anymore - heh!

I am almost getting to the point where I am comfortable releasing this. I have to slap some driveways and trees in tonight yet, and then I have to set an upload for the reviewers to look @ and give me feedback on. If you've got a youtube channel that's already Beamng.drive related, give me a heads up.
--- Post updated ---

That full set there is gorgeous. IF you can do that with collisions, wonderful, even if not and it's a single DAE that's better than the 9-piece (per set of columns!) solution they're using now. The less polys the better, in this fps-limited game we've got going (though, it really shouldn't be any less than what it had, mine were pretty bare-bones). I am shocked you threw that together as quick as you did.

 

Good to hear. Still loving this map and looking forward to the update, not sure if my ISP is though. Keep up the great work man.

 

That full set there is gorgeous. IF you can do that with collisions, wonderful, even if not and it's a single DAE that's better than the 9-piece (per set of columns!) solution they're using now. The less polys the better, in this fps-limited game we've got going (though, it really shouldn't be any less than what it had, mine were pretty bare-bones). I am shocked you threw that tog

Here's to hoping they get the swing-up dolly legs (landing gear) into the game. I used to sell them at a previous job. You'd put the handle in & start cranking, they'd raise up and then continued cranking would swing them up against the underside of the trailer.
At-least then you wouldn't get unrealistically high-sided/beached at some of the not-so-level level-crossings.

 

Never heard of that, but I guess I haven't had any experience with semi trailers other than lowboys. And the not-so-level level-crossings do make for good jumps at least.

 

>More houses
>not mine




Also I know I told you this before via PM but I would seriously consider changing the tree models to something less lush as well as the ground textures to something equally less lush. Not only it'd look a lot more realistic and true to the original, but also it'd go a long way in making the map really stand out from the dozens of other maps that use the default ones like that.