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

Funny enough I actually wasn't even looking for it, was just going through the hills at 90mph and then I saw that xD

 

Continue my personal thoughts here. BTW tried making a road texture for testing in your map, realized that road texture I replaced was partially used on another road texture (I think). Replaced a 512x512 with a 2048x2048 to see how it impacted the FPS. Scrapped that for now.

Been looking through at what detail level GTA Vs buildings are done, it is as I mentioned before, not that detailed. Removing all textures (in the pics its Marty McFlys AO examples) it is quite obvious. Since we don't have a dude walking around there is really no need for the detailed stairs and so on that's in the second black/white pic since that's made for close up-detail and not drive past-detail. Another thing I noticed is the hedge is really low detail, basicly a rectangular octagon with a extra edge up top to hide the squareness.
What can be said about this is that the buildings are low to medium detailed but what makes the GTA V world realistic is the little details such as weed (not that kind..) growing here and there around buildings and sidewalks etc, mailboxes, parking meters, light poles, dumpsters, tanks, barrells, signs, billboards, scrap in different shapes and sizes and so on.
Another thing I noticed about where sidewalks or where buildings meet the ground is that they are dirty right there, adds a bit extra realism.

Feel a growing urge to get my 3d modeling going again, help you out with whatever you need in 3d models.

Pics for detail observation:

 

Ah yes the famous edge-shading, where they use darkness to blend edges of pavements and buildings, to create that lived-in dirt.

If you want to make models for this map and wish to help out with it, great! I'd wholly love that 65535%.

Things I need: Homes. Lots and lots. Mobile homes, double-wide and single-wides, bi-level homes (also called a 'raised ranch' sometimes). There's tons of textures for recent home siding in the buildings directory under shapes in the map, some might be in buildings\ECA directory.
Business buildings (commercial and light-industrial such as warehousing), a large warehouse building or two could find a home in many maps, here in Beamng.
A yield sign. I do not have one. I do not know why. Realized this yesterday, actually, like 'where's the damn yield sign, oh yeah, I don't have one'. I can do the gfx for it and stick it on an 'any-pole' object (the way I made the old signs) if I must, no biggy.
A dumpster. Don't have one of those. Big green apartment dumpster and maybe a smaller blue one behind business would be sweet.

SIDEWALKS, with and without grass strip (make the back-half that faces the home or business have a 45 degree angle slope as to not 'stuck' cars behind it and so I can better blend it with the terrain). This, this is a BIG ONE, as simple as it seems, because it will SUBSTANTIALLY help the FPS in town-town areas. SUBSTANTIALLY help. If you want to start with something easy, please do this!
Straight pieces can be made in equal lengths to the curbing available under art/shapes/buildings, ind_curb (size) etc, and curves in 90, 45, 22.5 and 4.5 degrees (curve radius on curbing should be something like, say, what a town curve-radius would be at a street corner, i think it's 6' (feet) or so but I can't remember off the top of my head, if it's an issue, I can get it, but 6' is good for now). Can use inside and outside corners like that. The lesser angles will be used for streets at odd angles intersecting, inside and outside curves. Don't forget driveway aprons for one and two-car driveways (obviously, we won't need a grass-strip here!)

Piece-together house bits. I've made many homes out of several pieces, if you open up the editor, to some of the homes resembling newer construction, you'll see this. While it's not the most efficient on FPS, it's certainly able to provide almost endless - or greatly increased - variety so you're not driving past the same scenery every-other-block like in Downtown Harriman. Using the default ECA house texture shingled roof would be just dandy, as most homes use that here, in this map, but also, I can re-script the objects in text-editor and dupe the .dae's to re-reference a different texture as needed. Basically, what I am saying, I have surface-applied collision-less door and window graphics, that I stick on the houses where needed. This enables me to put doors, windows, garages, store-fronts and you-name-it on anything (they don't have reflection yet, it's a dead give-away), at any place, anytime.

Typical American highway bridges, could use some of those actually. two and four-lane bridges (with shoulder) like the size of the ones I have in my maps for US 40. These can be useful and can save object slots.

Also, at some point, I really hope someone can model the Kingston fossil power plant, you can google that, it's right by the Clinch River NW of Kingston itself, in Roane County TN.

Most important also, if you could add collision to the rail-road pieces under art/tracks, that would be a huge bonus to this map and free up about 200+ object slots. copying them into the forest brush (or rebuilding them manually) won't be easy, but I'll take one for the team there and do it for the benefit of the project (bonus! virtually unlimited railroad mileage!!! you will be well-loved by our train fans out there for this). The only reason the railroad track isn't any longer is because it ate up too many objects and finishing the roads is paramount.

Better telephone poles. ECA has them but all the wires and poles are one object. Cutting these apart would be awesome. It's generally a telephone (wooden) pole with two horizontal pieces at the top at hang wires from (or sometimes, 1 or 3 pieces!).
Even something alike to a section of say 3~4 poles + wires would be awesome. Can totally use these guys to spruce up the city sections or even along country roads. Wires shouldn't have collision as objects with faces narrower than 2cm cause issues with physics crashing or stuck cars.

Jersey barrier, also known as k-rail sections. Ones (various length) for straight, one for 5 degree curves, and such. These can go on the outside of bridges and down the center of highways and any other place we might need it. Super-handy and will save on objects
and possibly on FPS too.

Bridge-pillars and abutments (ends)... these are always useful, for obvious reasons!

Thanks for your offer. This is quite a laundry list but since I cannot model, this will always be a help if you wish to make anything (for which I will be eternally grateful). Even if you only make one things, that is awesome. If you need textures, and feel like making something, feel free to use a texture from my map's directories or give me a shout and i'll throw something together quick.

If it's in a city and you don't see it in this map and think it should be (and it has collision data), please SEND IT IN!!! If it's things like flowers, etc, it obviously doesn't need collision data as flowers don't stop cars.

If it's something 3d that can be made into a disguised jump, DO make it, they always add fun!
Thank-you highly for your offer.
If anyone else wishes to help, know that these will benefit all future mappers willing to use these objects, make maps more fun and immersive, and give you that feel-good feeling you get when you did something nice for someone.
Also, objects will then be ported when this map is more complete to my up-and-coming Generic City revamp.

--Cheers!

 

do you have any future plans for more detailed dirt roads and trails, maybe ones that are washed-out or muddy, in the large forest areas?

 

That is a very real possibility, in due time. They will be put in after the towns are done, though I don't know exactly how detailed I can make them (I can't really replicate ruts well with this terrain, most of that stuff would come after tiled terrain support, which will lend itself well to making beautiful detailed trails and fix issues with square grass remaining in less-finished areas).

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On notes of map progress...
NEW SIGNS (again!)

This was supposed to be in almost a year ago, but thanks again to the person that made it (I will find your post eventually, I promise!).
It's placed back a few hundred feet more than normal, to give folks time to react and exit the highway since you'll likely be going much faster than the 70mph speed limit in a simulator.

Not the most expertly done signs I've ever made, for-sure for-sure, but it surely will do it's part to add that little extra bit of immersion, and laughter, of-course.
--For now that is all.

OOPS, forgot, edited the grass to billboard (go two-dimensional) at a sooner distance away, so that actually improved FPS in the most-built-up areas of town by 10% (and wherever it has 3d grass added, will have 5~10% more FPS). You can't really tell visually, the difference it makes, but hey, it's an extra 2~3 fps if you're only getting 32fps, you'll get 35~36fps.

 

Added *MORE* townhouses, because the almost 200 or so that are in this map already, aren't enough.
However, these aren't just more copy-paste-a jobs... rest assured of that. It took me hours to do these!


Steel entry doors for commercial buildings (one of the four new types of doors, in grey and tan, grey shown below).

Tan for all those brick boxes that aren't grey (lots).

Why show just boring doors, because, now, you can put doors ANYWHERE! Yes, DOOR ANARCHY!

DOOR ANARCHY!!!! YEAH!!!! *HEADBANGER MUSIC PLAYS (even though I don't generally listen to it)*

I think it's been too long editing, and I didn't get enough sleep last night. Also, the double-garage door is new, too, for the record.
For what it's worth, that 14-unit block-long townhouse row has a vis-blocker (occluder) in it, to help fps a tad.
Garage doors, many screen doors, many windows, etc, are all surface-applied, so you can pretty-much put them anywhere and make buildings like you want to, as you need them, creating kind-of roll-your-own buildings, each one unique. This was my idea, that I had one day, and it *WORKS*, and works well enough!
--That is all. Getting more of Kingston done for ya'all, on schedule currently.

 

Youre work is impressive as always!
In the matter of me helping with what I can, im working on it. Sat down with Blender yesterday but I was a blank page to say the least, realized I don't have time to learn a new program so im trying to get hold of a version of my favorite one. That way I don't need to spend hours and hours learning something new since there is too much going on IRL to pull that through lol.

 

Yes, I am waiting on and being hopeful someone will code things to take sketchup models to spit out something beamng can use, or that beamng can use them one day directly. I can get my stuff from sketchup directly into the game but it's difficult as hell to get collision right on them. It's why no one's seen heads nor tails of my City Map yet because it's lacking models currently.
Take your time, blender is ANYTHING but user-friendly.

 

put a adult entertainment store for the hell of it!

 

Was thinking of that, I will have to completely g-rate it though, so it won't be that much fun to see that sign.
"Suggestive Themes" is even pushing it for this map... so will see what I can do. It will get a liquor store though. Basically, if it can go on a real sign, it can go in the map.

Currently researching things like Wings 3d for 3ds Max alternatives, those idiots are out of their minds (Autodesk) for what they want for their software. They'd sell a lot more copies if they had like a 60$ version for mod makers out there with just game functions.

 

.
--- Post updated ---

ohh well
maybe a bar or casino can get through tho

 

There will be bars, there might be a casino, but we don't really have casinos here in TN that I know of - who knows - maybe they are all around me, I would never know, as I've never gambled more than 20~40$ in my entire LIFE.
I went once or twice to one lost 20$ a pop and never went again. I said to what fool is loosing money fun? Obviously, their house is much nicer than MINE, why would the odds not be in the house's favor??? That was the end of that!

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So, entirely working on sidewalks, do these look better? The slate-color from ECA-derived graphics that I remade, wasn't doing it.


Need feedback on these new sidewalk coloring, let me know guys!

 

same here were i live its a big city and i cant see
the sidewalks are good

 

On the subject of store names... Thanks to this project I end up doing a double-take every time I drive past this place now.

 

haha, nice, yeah, pianos are extremely fun in this game, in fact, if someone gave me one, i'd strap it down in an old van and take it to a demo derby with me.

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On another note, I tried to improve the normal-textures for the sidewalks (the bump-mapping) and they all did the stupid 'too dark texture' error on me that often used to happen, so I fixed it so it would never happen again, I DELETED THEM!
No more error with the normals on the sidewalks, it doesn't NEED it anyways, and it was annoying and time-consuming to mess with it and I was sick of messing with it after 10 minutes, so it's fixed the Bob Blunderton way, with the DELETE button (the texture still appears, but the cracks won't be in 3d, and I don't care enough right now to waste any more time on it when I could, and should, be mapping).

 

Sidewalks looks good, nice color with maybe abit stretched texture. I think sidewalks in the end should use normals since it does make a lot for the impression but that can be added later I guess. Looking at different game I think some just use parallax to make the boxy shape of the sidewalks more rounded so yours should be more than fine.

Ive got my hands on a free version of my fav 3d modeling program so I should be able to start working on stuff soon, not at the pace I want but atleast alittle, now and then.
Im not totally sure about textures for stuff in terrains in BeamNG, can I use multiple textures or just one? For efficiency I guess its one per building or several reused for several buildings but I recall that some time ago, Torque could just handle a single .dds per object but I also recall that as sorted..?

EDIT: Reading through Beamipedia on the subject.

 

Can use/have all the texture you want. Try to use textures already in the map (it will also make things cohesive and fit-in better), though feel free to make 'sample' textures where you can just make a blank texture (resolution of choice, usually square works best for textures but can be 2:1 or 1:2, other sizes don't compress well, must be power of 2 though or hits FPS bigtime), so even writing 'window texture' or 'brick texture here', on a sample texture works great!
Plenty of textures in art/shapes/buildings, art/shapes/buildings/eca,etc, and Occam's Razer's textures are in art/textures IIRC.
Sample textures are nice due to the fact I can whip up new windows, brick textures, etc, very very expediently.
Materials are referenced in the object, you can easily see what DAE's use what by opening them in notepad++ and searching for "material" and it's going to say something like ECA_Brick_Red or something then -material.
here's an excerpt from the gas_station_sign (yes, the one with U-PUMP-It on it) as below...

Code:

  <library_materials>
    <material id="eca_bld_brick_paintedred-material" name="eca_bld_brick_paintedred">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_brick_paintedred-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_woodcladding_01_a-material" name="eca_bld_woodcladding_01_a">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_woodcladding_01_a-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_doors_bare-material" name="eca_bld_doors_bare">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_doors_bare-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_concrete_01-material" name="eca_bld_concrete_01">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_concrete_01-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_doors-material" name="eca_bld_doors">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_doors-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_moderncorrugated_tin_grey-material" name="eca_bld_moderncorrugated_tin_grey">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_moderncorrugated_tin_grey-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_moderncorrugated_tin_maroon-material" name="eca_bld_moderncorrugated_tin_maroon">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_moderncorrugated_tin_maroon-effect"/>
    </material>
    <material id="eca_bld_stone_clean-material" name="eca_bld_stone_clean">
      <instance_effect url="#eca_bld_stone_clean-effect"/>

This is not nearly all the texture entries in the item, just about half or so (there's lots of textures in as they have a large index of them in many models, using a pre-made empty model as a base etc, even if this model doesn't use most of them, it still has them).
So if I need to change the texture references, I can, it's just not easy to do that very well in a modeling program for me. However bulk-replacing in notepad++ the "ECA_BLD_STONE_CLEAN" entry in the entire file to something like "GRIDMAT" (the texture used and abused and thrown around like a naughty ex-wife, in the "GRID MAP" level), and it would thereby change all stone to GRID concrete, it's super easy for me to change entries, just not how closely the texture repeats, so you can use the ECA textures as a guide.
So if I wanted to get something to reference my sidewalk texture, I do this, since we've got objects from grid-map that can make very good use as sidewalks around businesses...
(this is from a materials.cs entry, the texture index, it doesn't have to be in the same directory as the object.)

Code:

singleton Material(gridmaterial_curbfacedupe)
{
   mapTo = "gridmat";
   specularPower[0] = "16";
   specularMap[0] = "levels/SouthernHighway/ART/ROADS/generic_walk_spec.dds";  Specular is how shiny and reflective it is.
   useAnisotropic[0] = "1";
   Castshadows = "1";
   translucent = "0";
   translucentZWrite = "0";
   alphaTest = "1";
   materialTag0 = "RoadAndPath";
   showDust = "1";
   diffuseColor[0] = "0.835294 0.835294 0.835294 1";
   normalMap[0] = "";  I DELETED THIS TODAY, this is only the bump-mapping anyways...  Bad BOB!
   beamngDiffuseColorSlot = "2";
   materialTag1 = "curb";
   specularStrength[0] = "0.294118";
   colorMap[0] = "levels/SouthernHighway/ART/ROADS/Generic_walk.dds";  This is the texture you 'see' and can be called 'DIFFUSE'
   specularStrength0 = "0.294118";
};

The MAPTO line corresponds to the MATERIAL name in the object DAE. I merely duped the sidewalk face here for this entry but it works, and works well, and as a bonus, my sidewalks and sidewalk chunks from gridmap (flat square or rectangular pieces), will MATCH almost seamlessly.
Doing this method of replacing names inside the model, I was able to easily change the appearance of the town-homes. It's the same model, but a different look on the finish, and keeps things from endlessly as it used to do a lot. With some DOOR ANARCHY, and a few changed texture entries like above:

Basically it's like 8-bit NES all over again 30 years later, pallet-swamp madness

So yes, totally, make anything you want, even a plain boring brick box, that could be super-handy.
--Thanks!

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@RedRoosterFarm sent me a yield sign today, thank-you RRF, many thanks. Our folks entering or leaving the highways will love you long time for that, not that we can ever get the AI to pay attention.

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Map progress:
Working on re-arranging the old row-home block here, extended a road leading to a dead-end jump at it's other end, to get more running room, basically spending hours re-building a block that was done last winter to make the jump more fun and map flow better.

Not done yet, but it will be nice when it's done. The jump at the far end of this road I am over-top of in the pic is very fun and works well with my default tester (which still drove straight but you have to hit 85~92mph in 3.5 blocks to survive!)
Enhance the burger-world a bit here, to bring it closer to 2017 Beamng standards

Lots and lots of time spent correct curb-height here. LOTS of time. Green thing is the spawn point, and selected object on-screen (with white marks around it), is where I overlaid sidewalk objects to help not explode car tire/suspension going over the entrance/ "curb/driveway apron").
The water color is more accurate of representation of TN water (Clinch River show here, Kingston in the background)

Water is also less like molasses (don't know why I didn't fix that last time).

Water is also looking a lot more like water does when it's ponding on the low spots on the roadway in various parts of the map
Just more of those little details that make everything worth it. Many of the grid-map objects I swiped out of the game today will come in handy for jumps, very very handy in-fact while only adding a few megs to the map-size and helping - not hindering - FPS, while reducing item-count a bit. The curbing used for the sidewalks is a very 'expensive' to render curbing that's been in the map about a year, the stuff I added today is much 'cheaper' to render and uses LOD's and has less polygons.
That is all for now folks. To anyone who has/is helping, thanks a million, can't do it without the community support.

Wonder if this could be put in game?
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/b23cbbe0a3796e41abc7d55f5217a512/Double-Wide-Trailer-Home
Yes, it's a double-wide heehee.

 

Im not used to working with others textures but not a problem, the model and the hierarchy is the big thing here! Do you use LODs from the models or do you let BeamNG create them?

That trailer home looks nice and would be sweet to have in the map, those things are fairly easily modeled too.
A question about details, say for example the handrail on that particular trailer, do you want something like this and do you want it 3d modeled or just a plane with a semitransparent texture? I vote 3d.
Also, say id see a nice looking shop with some assets around it in Kingston using Google Street view, would you just want each item as a 3d model that you place or the whole area as a 3d model? Or say a gas station, with pump, barrels, a tank and maybe tires, this can be all separate 3d models exported item per item, or the whole thing exported as one (I assume this is more efficient for that 4096-limit...).

 

Create each model separately, this way it can be used to give better scene diversity. Not every business has the rubbish bin, sheds, boxes, weeds, etc, in the same spot obviously. This way models can be used in more places than originally intended for.
Railings are best done with the posts and possibly top rail in 3d and all the ballisters in 2d, though keep in mind collision planes less than 2cm wide (on it's narrowest plane) will cause the collision of vehicles to make them 'stuck' in the object. The railings can be 3d, though I'd say it would put more work into LOD's if you're going to do more 3d objects, though I don't have a problem with extra detail in the slightest. I would say to make LOD's in all your objects you make, if it's relatively straight-forward. I can't find my way out of a hallway in 3d modeling software (though I put a new 'Wings 3d' - open source - free - on here to try out when I get some time away from real life, and mapping itself). Any types of homes, businesses, stores big and small, can and will be used. Even easily overlooked things like sheds, or curb outside corners (yes I could use those, curbing is 4m wide, the radius of curve should be about 4~6m or such). Collision meshes should be simple on things, to not slow down the physics or make cars stuck. A mobile home's collision would be very simple, basically a box with the shape for a roof (but don't forget the skirting on them).

Making things 'modular', essentially can make scene creation take a tad longer, but you get a LOT more mileage and use out of them, and in the end it creates wildly superior work, which can find much more re-use on future projects.
Even things like porches, stoops, and other things like large decks could be made separate as some homes won't always have the same porch, etc.
The 4096 item limit does not apply to items with collision (COLMESH) data as they get scripted into the forest brush where item-count limits are non-withstanding (a forest brush is only limited by host's RAM and gpu's processing power essentially).
Items without collision (that need collision, obviously flowers or grass doesn't need it), that need it for realism, can't be used in the forest brush, if they don't have their own COLMESH (collision mesh) inside the model.
--Thanks!

 

I assume it's because everything needs to be done individually by hand and it'd be way too time consuming? I realize this is like comparing apples and oranges because this map is so small, but it's an example of what can be done already. Even if you had miles of plain bumpy dirt roads with an occasional 1/4 mile stretch like this that'd be amazing.

If you've never tried it, I suggest trying the dirt track on this map. From the spawn you go down the road to your left until you get near the end of the map, take a right (opposite the hill with the concrete pipes on the other side) to the little valley with black/white checkered finish line is (I think its best backwards). This little tiny dirt trail is amazing and probably the most enjoyable and challenging drive I've had on beamng. It's my litmus test with new configs; stick a ton in the bed and see if the truck can survive and with how much chassis damage.


Crashhard01's tough truck map:
https://www.beamng.com/resources/toughtruckmap.1529/