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

This is what I am working on ATM. The clay-colored surface is the terrain, as an object, so I have a guide (that's hopefully correct - guess I'll find out if it's not!).
(SEE ATTACHED SCREENSHOT)
This will be the sunken station, which is currently three or four dozen objects, which I am going to unify and make into one or two cohesive objects + track and tunnel / bridges as other objects.
Thinking of two objects - that one will be the walls and such, and the rest of it will be another object (stairs, railings, floors, planters etc). Benches will be put in manually.

It will have the typical drive-able stairs as everywhere else in the map. Not that there's performance issues, but it uses TOO MANY objects, so this will help that. I got started with it and already used up my budget of objects by the time I got the retaining walls done - sheesh. It's better that they batch now but I was hitting 3500+ draw calls (warning territory) before the update. I haven't checked that side of the map yet but surely it's not grand. I will also be unifying the drainage canal also that's about two blocks away (or one big block), though non-unified pieces (MRK kit stuff) will STILL BE AVAILABLE, if not in the map, in it's own download.

What's THE BOB got in store for Chris's Mess for the BEAMNG community?

THE MRK KIT IS COMING OUT! Build your own darn city. (I will still be building this city. Everybody who helped fund this project will be credit on the kit, let me know if you want your real-name used in the credits, otherwise I will BY DEFAULT *NOT* use anyone's real names).
Expect to see MRK kit stuff in the next few days. If anyone wants a FREE copy of my MRK test kit of collector roads (the ones I just RE-DID), to test out - let me know, experienced mappers only - must know how to work materials.cs and dig some texture dependencies out of the game maps. I will do the best to get it out by Chris's Mess but it may be a day or two after for some things.

In the screenshot - brown is terrain - stairs are where the stairs descend to the platform, I've just started it minutes ago. So in a few hours it'll be done & in hopefully. Might take a couple tries to get the platform the right height though. Will try to make it good before it goes out.
--- Post updated ---

I've got some graffiti tags here, and there's a few I am going to use (with permission) from Ghost's maps, because I used his actual canal to get the dimensions for the largest canal in my map. So it's only fitting I throw some credit where it's due (even though I didn't otherwise use his textures or model, I made my own model from scratch, as his was possibly from Sketchup or Blender, wasn't sure, I only got the basic grid dimensions from it). These will be in, in due time of course. I will be putting aging effects on as I go, as I sit and think, gee, things look too nice, etc.
--- Post updated ---
Edit: Took this long just to get my @#$%ing UV maps (the texture sets) to show up. I can't really tell you how much I HATE using Maya (I love modeling I just absolutely HATE that software). I have never in my life used such a buggy pile of [expletives, enough expletives to get everyone in the entire BeamNG community banned for life].... yeah, this program sucks the big one.
Friends don't let friends use Maya, and I can recommend it to NO ONE. USE BLENDER, DON'T BE LIKE BOB.
EDIT: NOPE they're gone again. Don't know what to do, but certainly won't be getting anything done tonight now because of this rubbish.
EDIT: Got a little bit done and then they disappeared again for no reason. The UV's are still there I just CANT SEE ANY OF THEM unless they're selected. That's nice and @#$%ing useless. God I hate this rubbish software. BeamNG is a shining diamond in the rough compared to this, even (if BeamNG was) in the most buggy state it's ever been, BeamNG looks like gold compared to this Rubbish Maya (it's not buggy at all but Maya sure is).
--- Post updated ---
Might be actually getting somewhere, I promise you guys/gals out there will like this station when it's done (the one sunken station, at one end of the current subway tunnel), that's getting re-done and also will get a mirror-image model for somewhere else. This will be a pretty standard sunken station where I can easily throw it under a building, etc, when needed, IF needed.
Stairs bring you down from street level, to the level of the track, where the camera-person would be 'standing'. I haven't textured anything but the stairs yet. Thinking of giving this a nice glazed brick in mild or neutral tones (greys or earth-colors, something modern or semi-modern in the last 25 years of design with a bit of throw-back on the arches). The arches are purely decorate so the wall isn't boring. I am trying to go all-out on this map design as much as this stupid software is going all-out trying to get me to punch the tower.
For the time being the UV's are back. Who knows how long that will last.

 

Slowly but surely getting the textures on, the edge-walls (retaining walls with functional yet somewhat decorative brick, as this is a sunken station) are pretty much where they need to be. The run of stairs is done and will basically be a ramp for the vehicles (though a bit bumpier, like a giant washboard to enable vehicle travel if so desired, so don't haul pianos down it). Railroad tracks won't be present on this model as they're already their own objects and likely will stay as a kit in most places where it's practical (they're few draw-calls, unless I botched something colossally). Tracks will obviously be there when it's done, though. I have made the station with the ideals that I may need to raise or lower the platform just a bit, to make the trains look to be 'made for it'. Currently lacking in the in-game heap of objects that currently makes up that station (and is like 65~100 draw calls!), is a set of stairs from the track level to the platform. This model will have said stairs and I will try and make sure they're wide enough to drive up - otherwise "what's the point of wasting time on these?" for game-play. Little things like that and the drive-able stairs are some of the take-offs from me playing a lot of GTA SA in my past - gosh I loved that game and STILL DO every bit like it was brand-new. There's just something so fun about a game that's arcade-like and doesn't take itself seriously. Surely the latest in the series - GTAV - looks much nicer and has a really compelling story - which I did enjoy - the game itself was not as fun as GTA SA. There's just something - maybe it's the gang wars - or the character building - or the potty-mouth helicopter that chases you for doing things unspeakable here - that keeps bringing me back. But that's beyond the point. The map flows SO WELL, and with the exception of the country-side (thought not the desert so much), the map flows really well and keeps the player engaged, while also giving them freedom to do stunts. Surely you'll quickly go through cars doing many of these stuns, but as a mapper/modeler & set designer here, I will do what I can to make it as painless, engaging and over-all fun as possible. Dirt and asphalt race courses, an airport or possibly TWO, at-least one military base, Subways, trains, 11-foot-8 bridges, drainage canals, mountains you can oddly drive right up (for now!), and possibly a few stray pipes too, you'll all find it here. Oh, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, AND LOTS of *JUMPS*. All while trying it's best to stay above the magic 60FPS number - which post-update now, my two-year-old RX 480 and i7 4790k that's four years old has zero issue doing now (The Bob isn't planning on building a new computer before the next one to two years, because this one already has everything where it needs to be and is still 'good enough'). What good is having a new super-snazzy computer, when it will only allow me to build something so fancy almost no-one could run it???

Pictured:
Sunken station - textures are as follows:
New brick texture, used existing concrete textures too, for trim and shell for stairs, slabs for stair surface matches sidewalks.
Brown textured stuff is TO-DO!
Most all UV's are connected except on the wide wall-tops in the foreground as those will get grass to blend with the terrain and a railing on-top of that separating the wall from the surrounding earth.
Likely will be spending a few more hours minimum doing this - thought I'd make it simple and quick and I thought NAHHHHH let's make it beautiful!

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday and got all they wanted!

 

Saints Rowsa III just does all of that GTA stuff much better and has much better humor too, GTA is trying to be too series which it fails totally as realism is lacking so much, where Saints Rows attempts to be over the top and it does that well.

Flamethrower cars, kitten faced cars that suck people up and you can shoot people from it's cannon, giant balls of yarn that demolish everything, even helicopters fly much better than those in GTA.

And maps, well I would say better than GTA, lot of DUI driver though that tends to run over of everything, but that is why you have guns

There is even a gun that you shoot fish scent with and then giant shark comes from underground and eats up poor victim.

It is very much about gang wars and territory stuff.

I wonder how many gate props one could place on map without ruining performance? Surely you need at least a few to run trough?

 

I think SR fails to be more funny GTA. It's too boring for me.

 

SAINTS ROW had to be one of the worst games I ever played lol any of them.

 

You just lack of sense of unintentional humor

Seriously, if car zooms past you like 100mph on sidewalk wiping everyone out, that I find really funny. I don't play much of real missions, usually just fool around and in GTA V for example you die constantly, boring. I don't want challenge from such game, just fun fooling around and for that SR is better than any GTA that I have played, GTA IV is only one that I have not played.

Character customization is whole new level compared to any GTA, driving is more fun that GTA V and it has more gameplay features than GTA II, VC or SA.

Map design is really nice too, suburbs, downtown etc. use of light etc. is really good.

Besides Genki and furries, what is not to like? >:-}



Mafia II is fun, but SR is more fun, GTA is meh, attempts to be realistic and fails flat on ground.

Of course I play with trainer giving unlimited health, weapons, ammo etc. as always such games, I told you I don't like them difficult and GTAV has limited time in god mode, really boring

For example here, I drive over a cop who flies and his arm gets stuck into wall of ambulance, then they have a roadblock on street, forgetting completely that sidewalk next to them, also textures has that dirty look, building textures especially have nice play with the light, all the added lights make city look alive, powerlines have all those hoops and loops making it look more real, there is tons of stuff really.


Also unlike in some other games, your are not stuck into rush hour all the time, there is actually room to drive at insane speeds doing stunts while driving etc.

Roads are also not flat:


At night windows have light, but it is not stupid flat kind, but creates illusion of there actually being room behind that window:



Most importantly bigger guns for a girl to create bigger explosions


Most fun under 4 euros I would say, but it does not even attempt to be serious, it attempts to be tongue in cheek and quite good at it.

 

Hoops and loops in power lines, those are the tensioners, I believe. They just crank the wheel portion of it that's up there (and sometimes leave it up there), get the cable tight, and the rigidity of the tension of all the cables keeps the poles staying straight. It tends also to cause poles to snap off about mid-way leaving the wires hanging and the bottom of the pole missing, when hit hard enough by one of these 'Big Murican SUV's'.
Source: As a kid I was an absolute black hole for information. I sucked up information at every source. People working on the power lines? Talk to them. Someone repaved the road when I was 8~10 years old and can't find a manhole cover that they just paved over like a total dumbdumb? I helped them find it while talking to them about their job. Father fixing truck in shop-yard? Laugh at funny sounds it makes being broken and get cussed out by your frustrated father... (we had one 86 F700 Ford Flatbed, the ignition system went out in some way, that perfectly mimicked the sound of trucks breaking down in then-current TRANSPORT TYCOON, which I played the heck out of when I had time). It definitely was not our most reliable Ford but the employees abused the heck out of that thing in construction; so to it's credit, it did hold up 'toughness-wise', it just was roughly 10 years old and very very abused.
I mean much of this was in the 80s and very early 90s and the neighborhood was safe, and everything wasn't yet wrecked by OSHA rules and regulations back then, so a kid on a construction site wasn't exactly out of place. I was that kid - no fear whatsoever and eyes glowing with every desire to learn the 'who what and why' relating to anything around him, for seemingly no reason. But boy I learned everything I could possibly learn, and by the time I was an adult I knew a lot of things that could help me in life - and it did.
Hooray for the nostalgia, right? We all need to once and a while go back to that perfect setting in our minds as when we were a kid. It's actually proven to be healthy. But also, too much is bad. That was then, this is Now. Now it only looks just like an old black and white TV show compared to today, but I loved it, and I lived it up for every fulfilling minute while I could.

If there's but one thing to take away from this, well, if any of you youngins' are reading this and are under-age yet, 'Learn everything you can, while you still can, for as cheap or close to free as you can do it! Fist of fury and/or weapons are but only so useful in life, where the real battles are won by knowing more than your enemy(enemies) and out-smarting them, or even sometimes having more patience and discipline.' I can't tell you how many times I have thanked my elderly mother (and my late father before he died) over the years, for sending me to preparatory schooling when I was a child (not all of it, but over half of it). It instills not only great knowledge, but discipline, patience, and ability to achieve your goals in multiple ways even when it seems there's no way to get something done, with little or no outside help. One such school I went to was an ex-military school (read: they were a military-prep school but stopped advertising as such, almost all the rules and regs etc were still in effect). Just make sure you know your rights as a citizen so you don't end up accidentally funding the private prison empire in the states here ('Murica!), as this is one nasty world today, where it seems 'innocent until proven guilty' no longer stands.

On that note, I'll have to take a look at Saint's Row the Third, maybe it will have something in it that's inspiring, seeing as it's less than 5 bucks and it seems to be a decent gamble to check it out for that price. I only play games like that as comedy to bring me up when I don't feel well, or just when I can't possibly model buildings / fight with Maya any longer. We all need that time off or we burn out of desire and interest in whatever it is we do in life. That kills a lot of projects, but I am old enough to have the discipline to know this, and so, it won't be killing this one. "But you didn't even finish Roane County yet!" Ah but this was back before the 4096 max object limit per map was removed, and before the FPS was boosted quite noticeably last week... All good things take time. I do have to address that map, but it would be rude to do so before there is more progress on this map - though keep in mind I do work on it in my spare time. As I finish up various models (example, the road bridge over the highway I made when I was re-doing the older worn concrete looking highway that goes over the mountain in this map), they get back-ported to Roane County for use in the bridge improvement projects there. I still would like to put out a TLC update on this (just a bit of progress cleaning up models, updating existing 'collector road kit' which is 95% done, to clear obstacles to the way forward).

Sorry for the book to anyone not interested, but I hope someone out there finds it at-least somewhat inspiring.
Today's outlook and tomorrows:
Might get brazen and try to get something remotely resembling a portion of EARTH out of World Machine. Currently it looks like something E.T. threw up after a night or two at a frat house.
I will likely spend some hours today cleaning up Chris's Mess too, because while the bedrooms can go to heck in a handbag and it's not my business unless it's mine, the common-rooms must stay proper as we tend to get no-warning surprise company a few times a week & no one wants to look like a slob. Should have some time for modeling later though.

--Cheers!

 

I can see someone have fun playing Saints Row but that's not my cup of tea. Saints Row is like a very bad parody of GTA to me. Driving physics in Saints Row are awful. Vehicle design is hideous. The locations are just plain scenery while GTA cities have some uniqueness in them. The only good thing about Saints Row is coop.

 

I think GTA attempts to make cars behave like real, but not really well, where as SR does not make any attempt to make cars to handle like real, but such that ridiculous stunts are possible, like holding space while driving extended periods of time makes 'drifting', also like when crashing at high speed other cars just fly around exploding, I think SR attempts to be gaming in a action comedy type of movie while GTA attempts to replicate reality more seriously.

Variety is good, that offers fun for all kind of players.

I think that Bob's map is actually quite good in variety, you can drive on highway, different kind of town areas, there are flats, hills, tunnels, even a subway.

With upcoming airfield you can even fly and did I hear some rumors about port or two? No wonder he is looking ways to get 8K or bigger terrain

 

Might be down for a couple of days here at most. I am currently online using my backup copy of my c: raid array, the old one I've migrated from in September.

A transformer blew out and took out the c: drive raid array. That's gone.
Rest of the PC seems fine.

However, project progress for the most part is OK. The only thing that wasn't backed up was the homogenized mall object (just merely a day or two of work there, not bad).
Everything else is backed up already or has copies online. Basically, just my saved games on various things weren't backed up. Everything else is backed up, no data was lost other than the combined mall object (which is merely the mall combined with it's parking-lot and with the lot finished).

I will be trying with a pile of parts to see if I can get the array to show up on another PC when I have time (or the good working LSI card, who's raid is just dandy right now) but for now, will continue to use the backup.

From what it looks like, this is just merely a corrupted file-system issue here.

Maybe tonight I'll take some spins through Nevada Interstate & tail of the dragon because on here, it's still September 2018 and I apparently invented the time machine here (and very glad I just merely unhooked the old c: drive RAID array vs re-purposing it for something else).
So work will not stop but for just a few days or until I fix this thing. Worst-case is I'll be down for about a week but I doubt it will come to that. I may be able to raw-read the discs outside of a RAID array but I haven't done that in a WHILE & I am rather a bit dusty on that.
--- Post updated ---
Hardware checks out OK.
Partition table on one of the RAID drives is *GONE*, causing it to not be recognized as a member by the RAID controller card.
I pulled them off the intel card and put them on the LSI Megaraid card (glad I have it now!), and added them non-destructively.
Rebuilding the partition table by manually scanning the entire drive now.
Do not know if I will have to re-image back to the newer set (that failed) or if I will be able to continue where I left off.
It looks like I will get all my necessary files, however.
I hope so, I sure don't want to have to homogenize the mall objects AGAIN, that took DAYS.
Keeping fingers crossed!

 

Kinda lucky that you have skills and tools, but that kind of misfortune kinda sucks

Maybe power company could be sued for big compensation

 

Skills and tools, I have them but sure am rusty as heck. It's only a matter of time for hardware failure, and a drive is about the most common thing to fail. Again, it's a matter of time. Back up Back up Back up! I practice what I preach, though.
I just backed up not that long ago, sometime this month yet. I have to dig files and check this and that. It's going to take days.
Don't have confirmation if I can get my files back yet, but on other news, CHKDSK can use almost 30gb of RAM up!!!

So we shall see. Map progress will return to normal soon enough; as soon as I figure out if I can get my files back or not and then do something else with the drives. Will backup much more often after this, surely, though glad I had my monthly backups and this spare image of my entire c: drive. Not many folks are that lucky, but I waste lots of money on drives people tell me, but they oddly aren't around saying that today

But hey, on the good note, my dos games are fine (they're on another drive), and had plenty of time to play TANK WARS while it was busy for HOURS with files.
--Cheers for now bud!

 

So I will be back up and running with progress shots hopefully by Monday of next-week. I say that as a worst-case hopefully.
I have to go drive-shopping one of these days, will buy whatever is available, build a RAID 5, at the very least, or a RAID 10 (not that it matters that much), I'd like two-disk redundancy, but one-disk will be fine if I regularly back-up (which I do). Why wait? I have little choice in that matter. There's absolutely NO space left on the backup OS drives this is running off of (why I switched over in the 1st place).
I don't even have the 2gb of space free on this drive to export my map as a mesh terrain object for a guide.
Problem is, not even RAID would have saved me the last time if the FILE ALLOCATION TABLE is chunked. Only a per-file backup as-needed or a full system image saves me there. Was glad I have spare 8087 (or whatever the splitter cables are called) cables already here in the drawer and wires all run already for when disaster hits. It was merely opening the side panel (with the machine running) and sliding in backup drives, though I only had to switch two cables in the computer to get it back into booting state - not add or remove any drives.

The other night I had no-more than just unhooked the power (night of the 30th) and pulled the backup drives out of the machine and maybe 15 minutes went by, we got struck by lightning directly here in the house (or on the power pole outside) and I was sitting in complete power-failure-caused darkness saying 'I knew it, darn glad I unhooked the drives'. Always listen to your gut, no matter how big it is The generator kicked on a while later, running for a few hours until the line power came back.
I don't care that much if a 4-year old computer gets roasted, I just want my @#$%ing data. Remember folks, computers can be replaced, or repaired, but the data won't as easily be replaced.
Due to not having redundancy built in to what's in here now (aside of online backups of things, and off-line physically disconnected backups), I won't put to working on anything until I get this back 100% within the next week.
I just wanted to keep everyone in the loop about what's going on. I am itching to make some good stuff, but am strapped for space here at the moment (I couldn't even copy my 2.2x GB map back without deleting something).
At which point I get this back up and running 100% (will do an image ghost over to the new RAID array when it's done to expedite things), I will be pulling 12~14 hour shifts getting this thing worked on, because I am sure everyone wants to see some PROGRESS.
And progress you shall see.

--Expect to hear something within 3~4 days.
--- Post updated ---
So I did manage to get the sunken station working, finally.

The entire station - and all it's walls included is maybe 10 draw calls*. That's IT. A good 10-fold reduction here in the amount used for the station, which was 3 dozen pieces, and it looks nice too. The dirt-overlay texture in one of the shots isn't final, it's only a place-holder for now (as it's rather a bit low-resolution). Not everything is clean and brand-new looking. Stairs are 'ramp-type' washboard like collision. So you'll be able to drive up and down them as you please, regardless of how many pianos you're hauling.
*not including tunnel mouth, that is separate, there's a few pieces around the tunnel mouth also for blending purposes.
Still - it's something.
Also, I haven't re-synced my updated collector roads set, but surely I'll get that back in before the next shots.

 

Bob will have running pace soon as Los Beamos is rising up pretty well.

I think you might need to drop support for low end hardware though

 

Support for low end hardware - as low as this game officially supports, I'll support it, or at-least *TRY* to.
Will do what I can, but I have my work cut out for me on this one. I will make it real and immersive, but it'll be no GTAV, for-sure, because there's only one of me. That doesn't mean I can't try. As I said there, at-least I know my advice to him wasn't wasted.
It's good to have a bit of competition, it's also about darn time. Most of the other good mappers have left the scene - many were hired on (and that is why). So yes, I'm all for anyone competent enough to make a good map the right way and bring all-new custom objects to BeamNG. I just hope he's going about it all the right way so it doesn't quit working on every other game version update (even some of my maps were not immune), the updates are both a blessing and a bane of mappers all in the same breath.

I will continue my alternating build, optimize, build, optimize, build, optimize cycle, but again, optimization will only come as-needed for certain areas, for building my city. The new performance updates not only made 60FPS an easier target, it enables me to build a lot more than I had originally planned to. That means more of what you see, and more of what you might not see (tunnels are that type of thing, so are extra places for the AI to loop around, with more room for their CPU processes).

I will continue to build new things over the next many many weeks. Stay tuned folks, but don't expect pace to pick up until next week or so.

--Cheers!

 

I've got another little suggestion, hope no one beat me to it

I was driving around Garfield Heights today and you know it has this college/high school building right?
I'd love to see a huge college building thing with the whole campus and dorms thing, I don't know why but I think they're awesome!

 

Yes there's totally going to be educational institutions with goofy names and all.
Speaking of Garfield Heights, I'm going to make a parody of it in my map Not going to be rude to Occam though, just a friendly gesture (he was nice enough to let me use his homes in my Roane County map).

---

If anyone's trying to contact me on STEAM service, for some reason, the chat window thing won't come up. Don't know why other than yelling "Stupid Technology!"... Not too overly concerned, going to be re-doing the system in a matter of days, not a big deal breaker right now.

 

They did drop XP support at beginning of this year, maybe their chat is no longer seven compatible?

That being said, Steam has been awfully buggy last few days, can be something on their end.

 

Officially, Steam works with 7 and up ONLY as of two days ago. That's it though - you need Windows 7 or newer. I have Windows 7 Pro here, love it, not changing it, not for 1000$ in free video games. I can't have any more of an unstable environment than would naturally occur through chance. That and who's going to be around to be able to fix all the self-broken Windows 10 computers???

I am sure when I restart the computer sometime soon, it will clear itself of that just fine, if not, I'll try to figure it out. It might just be trying to appear off-screen for no reason, even though when I last closed it out, it was on this screen, since I hooked up the other screen for texturing/UV's but normally just game / use desktop on this one, odd things like that DO happen.
I would love to still use Windows 95 "OSR2.1 with USB support" here if I could! I would entirely be thrilled. Unfortunately not only would it not know what to do with a modern HDD's worth of space, it surely wouldn't know what to do with 32GB of RAM - and even Windows 98 doesn't even like machines over 400~450mhz due to the clock timer going belly up if such a fast system is present. You actually had to patch it or have a burned CD handy with the patch file and quick patch it before it BSOD'ed (you lucky guy in 1998~1999 having a CD-burner, I know I did, saved up for TWO months of work money to buy one!!!)...

What I wouldn't do to play Midtown Madness a few times more, or Monster Truck Madness ... Because "I'M STILL IN HERE!" (that's totally needed for a prop in BeamNG, portable-toilet model, sound effect and all, that NEEDS to happen).




Too bad I didn't save Army Armstrong's vocal clips we made years ago as 90s kids with the software for audio work that came with Soundblaster cards.
"It's Microsoft Monster Truck Madness for Windows 95" on the intro... and the other clip of "*truck name* has crashed, leaving an incredible path of destruction behind it!" that played during races. Combining those with some clever editing led to "Microsoft Windows has crashed, leaving an incredible path of destruction behind it!" and yes it does, oh yes it does. I can attest to this.

 

@bob.blunderton Havent you mentioned tiling terrains in T3D? I know ive mentioned it in a post relating to Forza Horizon 3 and how that world was created.

Anyways, if i dont misunderstand this, it has actually been working(?):

https://github.com/John3/awesome-torque3d#terrain

Btw https://github.com/John3/awesome-torque3d seems to be a nice resource for developers on the T3D engine, plenty of old and new tricks as far as i can see.