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

Working on re-doing the bidirectional / surface road bridges (graphics, and touching up some model errors).
The railing doesn't match the bridge surface yet but it will when I'm done. This is more of an aged graphic, which I've created here from a combination of some other graphics already in the map (and map source material some of which is not yet in the map folder).

I will next darken the railing (as I've quickly imported this as a working test), so that the concrete matches.
The edges are a bit darkened to simulate grime buildup common on concrete bridge surfaces. This goes back to the 'not everything is new' complaint way back from 2+ years ago. That said I did this without making the texture physically larger (though, again, since I've made it here, I've saved the source material and can upgrade the detail later up to 4x on the X and the Y axis), as I am wanting to save on VRAM right now.
This does NOT mean I am changing ALL the bridges, but this should make these bridges look a bit nicer and these models had some issues anyway with texture alignments (and the ends to them weren't lined up underneath either).
Also, the mask for road striping on this bridge is new, as it was only featured on a single asphalt texture up to now. While it's part of the concrete here, I will make it available as a stand-alone mask so that it can be used to quickly make bidirectional roadways VS striping everything manually / individually. This will help speed up mapping a bit.
--That is all. Still sick as a dog (first a stomach bug that wouldn't go away, and when it did I had two or three days and caught this nasty head-cold thing), if this doesn't go away by Monday or Tuesday I will start to worry.
--Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate, hopefully the white Christmas doesn't mess up your holiday plans. We got 2 inches of very dry powdery snow and a low of -4f (negative 20C!!!) last night and the night before. I'm none too happy about that, but safe to say it gives me time to map when I feel clear-headed enough. I don't remember it ever being this cold here though. It's supposed to be 60f by the end of the week though (or reasonably close by a few degrees), so hopefully it doesn't disappoint.

 

looking good!

 

Are you planning on adding speed limit signs on the highways or updating the weird traffic lights ?
Also thank you for everything your map is awesome (sorry I asked you the same question in MP, I didn't know there was a forum for this)

 

Hey Bob. I've learned so much in the world editor, that my personal edits of Los Injurus will be even better.

 

Keep in mind if you update the map to a new version, you will have to remove your changes or you won't get the benefits of the new update in full. It's always good to learn how to edit the maps though, so you can make exactly what you desire.

Traffic lights being stupid was fixed a while back, I think in the summer / early fall update.
Edit: Forgot to add this, signs get added all the time - US standard road signs (Admittedly don't expect a lot of directional signs for a bit yet, still need to do more on the graphics end of things, as with a whole city you can guess there will be a *TON* of those).
Most major roads will have street signs eventually, also. I can't promise I'll do every road, but in the least of it, I will make sure to either give us street name signs or get the GPS back-end working which will show the user what street/road/route they're driving on.
GPS with street names (akin to a real one) is a planned feature, though I need more help coding it in to the map to actually make it work and stay working & not pick up all the other decal routes VS just the AI ones.
Standard traffic-control signs, Directional Signs/Street-name & route signs won't have a significant impact on FPS or VRAM use.

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Just finished getting textures lined up between bridge pieces. Should be perfect on-top now (and seems all well). The beams underneath the bridge end didn't quite line up 100% so I will have at those a bit more (or at-least get them within reason, they're currently much closer now than they were). Managed to shave a whopping TWO draw calls off the end-piece (yawn, but every little bit helps). Fixed dark spot on LOD of the end-piece for the bridge, UV's were goofed.
Again, bridge railings will be color-matched better the next time I restart the game. It's been open for over a week now for those times I find my head / body cooperating enough to get some editing done. The game only picks up certain changes on restart and that's one of them.
Sorry to not have better progress shots, my body is really fighting me after this head-cold thing / flu / whatever it was, and there's something going on with my right shoulder where it's burning and the tendons are jumping around painfully plus there's a two-inch (5cm?) long section of dead skin right at the top of the joint (rotator cuff) that hasn't healed in over 6 months and keeps splitting. Don't know what's going on with it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about it (it's getting worse, not better, unlike the cold/flu thing). Using the computer is painful, but so is when I roll over on it when I can actually sleep. This is in addition to the laundry-list of other issues my body is giving me as of late. What's really a kicker even more is every time I inhale I get stabbing pain in my left side, THAT wears out it's welcome real fast.
Pity not required nor implied asking for, just one of those 'when it rains, it pours' type of deals.
My apologies if the entire post is in bold, don't know what's going on with that.
On a brighter note, it will be T-shirt weather through the weekend short of some rain periodically here and there, where it was 4f below zero just a few days ago. Not complaining about that; at-least I won't freeze solid on my limp walk out to the mailbox, even if it means I get an unscheduled moistening or two.

 

GPS with street names, interesting

 

This is actually a great idea, AMAZING for roleplay and police chases. Imagine having addresses for every house/building too...

 

Yes, route names are possible to display with current game-engine tech. This has been a LONG planned feature.
Individual numbers may not be feasible at the current time except for major landmarks.

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For those of us on PC, with Firefox browser, and uBlock Origin ad filter:
If you ever hated Youtube's 'shorts' be it because slow internet takes longer to load than the video is long, or just hate it because it's all vertical filmed and hence is next-to useless on desktop, or just have a longer attention span & have no use for those short videos...
I have found a FIX. Namely, after not finding one when I was looking it up, I managed to figure out how to use block-element to remove them once and for all. It's too cold for shorts anyways so here you go, add this following line to the Ublock filter and hit apply (you can get to this by going to manage extension right-click window on the icon for uBlock).

Code:

##.ytd-rich-section-renderer.style-scope > .ytd-rich-shelf-renderer.style-scope

You may need to add two | (pipe) characters before the entry, not sure. If you use the block element picker of uBlock, you can also get this by selecting all six (or more) of the video preview tiles at once and testing with preview. Blocking one image preview doesn't work, you must select them all or find your way to edit the list manually and add my code above.
I really hated those things with a passion. Good riddance & time well spent chasing them out!

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Just a boring back-road in the middle of nowhere that I gave some polish to. The bridge integrates well into the surroundings since it looks like it's been there for quite a while now. This area is still very unfinished, but at-least the roads are looking the part that we've come here for.
Also, below, an intersection is nearly finished. There will be a traffic signal here soon. Please ignore arrows in the grass / extra ONLY 'stickers' as I've just had some left-overs that I hadn't removed yet for easy copy-paste (which sometimes you can do).

Lastly, you can see in the last shot how unfinished things are, but the other screenshot locations are all within this large area. This road that winds down into the small ravine is the one that goes out to the area where the bridges have been missing for a good 2+ years now. The bridges aren't missing anymore (even if they aren't visible in the shot, they pop in later as you get closer to save on FPS / draw-calls).
While largely unfinished, the roads are well-smoothed out and great for drifting, or just going too fast and seeing how many cliffs you can fall off of, like a certain coyote we all know and love.
Starting to feel a little bit more clear-headed today. Hope it continues this way.
--That's all for right now. More screens will come as I finished detailing areas.

 

Incredible

 

Hey Bob, this is def off topic but I thought I'd ask since you're an experienced map maker



how the hell do I fix broken decals (and how does the decal editor even work)

 

That's odd. It's as-if it's lost all the data from the decal (off-set on x or y, and size).
Make sure to remove cache, and if that fails, keep in mind other maps (even mine) can conflict because of unplanned resource-sharing that happens when multiple maps with seemingly-identical resources (same thing that broke my traffic lights).
devs: you can't pull resources from other maps except the one running!
me: I BEG TO DIFFER. IT DOES SO EVEN WHEN I DON'T WANT IT TO!
devs: What!?
me: Yes, this happens.
devs: ...

So, I will check it on my end over here the next time I reload the game. If it is still broken for you, I'd definitely post in the bugs forum.
I actually DO NOT use decals in my maps. I only use decal roads, not decals themselves - mostly just as I've not had time to add them, but in all honesty I've *NEVER* used a decal in any of my maps unless it's to copy one already in there that was part of the source-map material (basically, unintentionally and only b/c it's missed on deletion / scrub at the beginning of map making).
I will use decals at a later date to help add in yet-more-detail, but only because I haven't had time to finish some parts that need them, nor add in a majority of mine yet (via custom textures).
Entirely, I will look into this. However, for how-to-use in the editor, you are best-served looking it up on the editor wiki. This is not only due to changes, but because I don't want to give you the wrong advice. You just need to look at some of the maps in question and check out the decals for an idea of what to do. Remember, holding shift+drag will copy an existing decal once you've made one.

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Spent some good hours editing yesterday, adding more details like multi-layered road textures... Immersion in a driving game begins with realistic detailed road textures. Keep in mind this is on MEDIUM texture/model detail.
I can't run this on high due to not having a 12gb or 16gb (or more) GPU. Will have to get a new GPU eventually, but that isn't in the cards right now. The home generator quit last fall sometime and now my retired mother's Chevy needs engine work (thanks, GM active-fuel-management disorder). The Chevy is bad enough that when I pull it into the fuel station, I fill up the oil and check the gas level. UGH!
The camshaft lobes get worn down due to being rather soft plus a lack of oil when the cylinders are deactivated. Didn't they learn from the 1980's Cadillac V8-6-4 fiasco? If you have active fuel management from 2007 ~ 2013 on your Chevrolet truck or SUV, please disable it before it disables you. I believe this requires switching out the camshafts, but it's cheaper VS the alternative.
If my memory serves correct, THE CAR WIZARD has the 411 (a rundown) on this, on Youtube.

Even in the last shot, the small piles of rubble are three-dimensional and as-such you might want to drive around them, or not drive in the surge-pond at all (think retention pond but there as a capacitor of sorts when extreme rainfall momentarily occurs).
I have decided to use the layering so that textures look more realistic while consuming over-all less VRAM and still have the higher amount of variations versus having 50 different asphalt textures.
Still a lot more detailing to do around here, so do expect this area to continue to improve. As-always very WiP in these.
Hope everyone had a great new year. I did absolutely positively nothing for new year (I don't partake in Alcohol), which is exactly the way I like it to be.

 

I took a break and I missed SO much progress. Wow!
Did I miss the free update?

 

So when do you plan on releasing this masterpiece ?
And are you gonna add MORE SPEED LIMIT SIGNS (not only the 40mph one) specially on HIGHWAYS ?
PS : sorry that was a lot of caps lock use

 

As soon as I get some of the city blocks put in that I worked so hard on making the models for.
Otherwise, it doesn't 'feel' like there's all that much different, even though there's plenty of little stuff all over the map that's a bit different here and there. Lots of bug-fixing, too - can't forget all of it. Still have a few bugs to fix like the white road-striping (which actually is a west-coast asset and hence likely why it broke just as Italy broke the traffic lights until about August/September, shame on me).

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These bridges are now color-matched, railings and all, and good enough for the next release.
That's one less thing to worry about.

Keep in mind this is 'medium' textures / model detail on my end. Road textures still look good!
Lanes are rather wide, 12 foot lanes, this is a very windy scenic route snaking up a carved gorge with a small river in it, winding up the mountain. This road lets out over by a small dam where the route was recently redone about a year ago (I think there's some shots above, that detail the area in it's earlier iteration before I had the road and bridges matched up). Curves in the road are generally wider the sharper the turn, with a 10 foot wide lane being pretty standard fare here widening to 12 feet or so in turns to make things easier - keyboard players rejoice. There *should* be a stream here when it comes near to release. This area is very boring, plain, and under-detailed. I just have the basics in here right now.
At-least I'm finally chasing this sickness out. Now to count how many days it is until the next one, had an absolute killer migraine until about mid-day so just glad I could get something done at all.
--Just a small post tonight.
Edit: Just a note, those tons-of-little-bug-fixes include many things as innocuous as this; where the road texture that approaches a bridge & runs a bit too long, causing it to be seen underneath, especially where the ground is the abutment since it does not have concrete abutments (concrete ones are larger, and as such hides these bugs easier). Obviously, there's a good two dozen of these around the highway areas, and I am going around fixing these as I catch them / work in that area. Just stupid little immersion-breaking stuff 1% of you might have noticed... just file it under QoL fixes (quality-of-life, hence, making for better immersion & resultant enjoyment).

Yes, those beams look terrible; but that's not one from the recently redone bridge set - this bridge is a part of the 2019~2020 set (in itself is a small upgrade mostly for optimization / draw calls from the original 2018 set). Maybe I'll improve those someday, but it's not high on the list right now, unlike the roads hanging out under them, as the tops look good enough for now. I only added this pic because most folks will never notice much of the perfecting I do to this project in between updates. The textures for the road surface on these (highway) bridges will eventually be updated also - but again this is not on the do-it-now-or-else list yet.
Thank-you for your support as always, folks. The support keeps this map development (and possibly me) alive and heading in the right direction.

 

Got more detailing finished in the form of edging, road-striping, and yet-more-curbing put in place. This gets these areas ready to get built-up (I always do this before building up the place, as-is how it is done in the real-world, and for good reason).

Floating curb chunks and random orange carving-guides are still visible in some spots, though admittedly, there's less of them lately - and that's a good thing.
While this area is FAR (very far) from finished, the roads are close to done (though need a bit of detailing here and there to complete immersion and cut down repetition). It should be a bit easier to drive around here now though, as more roads go through and actually lead somewhere vs an unsigned dead-end.
There's no signs or traffic lights yet here, no road patches (well very few), no wear-blending (which is also AI paths), etc. Luckily, that type of stuff is next.
--Just a short post tonight. Feeling a bit better lately though - finally. We'll see how many hours/days that lasts.

 

Whens the free repo update

 

when was the last patreon update?

 

I think it was around September, but don't quote me exactly on that, was close to then though. It's due for an update rather soon, just have to get some more models optimized (I'm very picky about that, one bad model can ruin the performance of the entire map!).

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If it's been quiet...
I lunched my back trying to do something simple at the beginning of the week, which was bend over to put air in the tires of my retirement-age mother's vehicle (so she wouldn't have to do it). I got stuck & couldn't straighten up properly. Then it got to the point where I couldn't get up anymore from a seated position or use my legs right.
I am JUST NOW getting to the point where I can move around a bit more. That was NOT fun, haven't managed to mess myself up that bad for a few months now. Not looking to do that anytime soon, again.
Pain was unreal. Couldn't breathe right a lot of the time, and coughing/sneezing was about the most pain a body can put you in - in-fact it's still quite painful as my back keeps wanting to go into it's messed-up state rather readily.
I pretty much lost most of the week due to that. HOWEVER, I did manage to procure a drive (hooray: gift cards!) large enough to homogenize the project files, as now they won't be spread out over half-a-dozen smaller sata SSDs anymore. This will make it a whole lot easier to keep track of project files in this PC, as before when I needed to search for something (never-mind my failing memory) I need to go through 6+ different folders to look for it and sometimes end up having to re-download it again only to find it download with a number like (3) or (4) after it, in the download folder...
A question I've been asked before, how big the project source-files are, which include models, textures in super-high-res (compared to the final shipping resolutions anyway), sounds / bgm, even scripts and things like software / plugins for my software. It's around ONE TERABYTE in size. Thankfully, I don't ever see the zip file topping 8~10gb anytime soon, as only a small version of that project source stuff gets used in the final run, and what does get used is simpler versions of models and lower-res versions of textures.
Also, the 'one terabyte' does not include my extracted resources from game-map data (the maps that ship with the game, which I also have ready-to-go so that I can look for examples - like the audible sound of driving on metal grating in INDUSTRIAL), this happily eats up yet more space.
This will definitely help as I was down to ~150gb of free space on the main system drive, and with less than that much spread out over the 6x (500gb) sata SSD drives in addition - not much when it comes to game-dev stuff. Basically, without adding more space, I was soon to be up the creek, as they say.
Keep in mind, when searching for that perfect model or texture, you don't want to have to be looking on the internet for it (especially MY internet which can take over a half minute to over a minute to pull up a page), as even a hard drive is speedy compared to a majority of folk's internet sleuthing speeds.
Work on amalgamating all the downloaded zips into an organized structure and pruning out those with less-forgiving licenses (like ones such as non-commercial or no-derivatives) will be an on-going thing for at-least the next month. This helps weed out dupes (that's all-but-unavoidable in multi-drive setups), and makes backups easier / faster not to mention much more straight-forward.
I will be resuming map-work today, as I hadn't really done much on it while writhing in the agony courtesy of my back injury this week. When my back goes batty (as it does many times a year) I don't usually do much with mapping / modeling as it's VERY hard to hold a mouse steady or hit the right keys on the keyboard.
A pinched spinal cord makes things quite un-fun. I Couldn't even play games to much success, though I did have a little luck with a controller and some Gauntlet IV for Sega Genesis admittedly. The quest mode for that game is rather fun, adding a little RPG-esque depth to the traditional Gauntlet mix I enjoyed as a kid (as a kid, I played the NES version of 1 and 2, though currently I have to fix the corroded trace to the memory mapper on my NES cart with a circuit pencil so it works properly again, as it's one of those tengen-made black carts which had cheaper trace material than the official Nintendo grey carts did). For folks who enjoyed the Sega Genesis as a kid, it's a great game to play - though it's a bit tough if your hands don't always cooperate like mine.
I should have something to show for my progress by the end of Sunday (or very early Monday morning). The update is coming, sooner than later, as soon as my body gives me a chance to work on it for a meaningful length of time enough to get loose ends tied up, models optimized & imported and some AI pathing & testing done. I know it's been one of those 'Soon (tm)' type deals with the update, but I don't get to plan when my physical condition fights me nor have a window into the future in seeing how much it will do so nor how it will go about doing so. My whole life is like this, not just map deadlines (which I have all-but-given-up on making for myself or promising to myself let alone anyone else, winters are by far the worst for this).
--Progress is slow but IS still going and should pick back up - The Bob.
*Saturday was a bit of a wash too, as I started to map, our Pastor called and said the heat at church was out. So of-course I ran over there dropping what I was doing here, and spent most of the evening trying to get the gas heater to fire off and throw heat. It ended up not being the thermostat, it was a pressure-switch (orange wires on a Nordyne gas furnace, which faulted out and threw a code due to the vacuum lines being blocked from hard-water deposits). Not wanting to blow the place sky high I opted to call a tech out and they had it fixed in 2 minutes after I told them the results of my diagnostic duties, and for a whopping 50$ for the service call (that's CHEAP today! Usually it's 120$ for diagnostic + small resultant fix, in addition to whatever parts-cost is incurred there-in for said fix, and it's even more if it takes more than an hour). So in the end me tearing up my right IT band again (ligament from outside thigh muscle attaches to knee) when kneeling to get the model info off the heater labeling, but at-least it saved the church time and money - and my knee will be fine in 10~15 days if I don't kneel again for any reason.
No matter how bad I hurt, if I can get out to my vehicle and am fit to drive, I will always go help others.
Before anyone asks, yes I did try turning it off and then on again, and yes it was plugged in...

 

Upon the encouragement (read: demands!) of map supporters and other folks here; I have decided, that at the end of this month, I will wrap up progress on this update, cut my losses (e.g. might be a few unfinished things), and upload 'whatever is here', for supporters and contributors. Otherwise this will be on-going forever.
I will have a chance to then correct any MORE BUGS that people might find, especially if they were reported before & they haven't been fixed / fixes lost in a backup-restore operation (sometimes I have to scrap my progress and go back a day or two if the mistake is severe enough, or if something in the map gets mangled by myself or even the game editor and not noticed for a while especially if the issue is severe enough, and thus I must restore from backup, especially if the cat took a stroll on the keyboard while the scripts were carelessly left open).
I am doing this (scheduled update) not because I want to, but because it's been a while and you folks seem very eager for it. I will not release a broken update, just might be a few more unfinished bits than I care to present on a normal release.
After about a week following the supporter update, I should be able to push the next update public, provided there's no show-stoppers present.
I will do what I must to keep the upload under 5gb if I can't get the new website thing figured out, or if it has issues with my internet connection, etc. In the near future, I will start uploading this via wifi networks in public places since my internet takes just shy of forever to do so.

 

I will give you support with my shrinking tool if you want to.