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

(parts of my previous post omitted for simplicity sake)

Oh, that episode, before they got canned by BBC, that was friggin' awesome. I loved that episode! They raced through the store, and you'd hear the vehicle a few isles away, and chips/paper towels/toilet tissue/snacks/misc grocery items would go flying in the air, haha.
That was a classic, one of the best, heck I think that's even better than when James May ran into his own piano on the air-strip, unable to brake in time (I think that quite likely is the cause for the Piano in BeamNG actually).
--- Post updated ---

Multiple streets will have familiar names, it's quite likely, thought the street signs won't be added until much later when a lot more roads are in place.

 

Well done, looking forward to

 

Please click on the plan shot below, for more Ideas on what the mall's going to look like and how the layout will be.
You'll be able to drive up escalators side by side, as the railings will have been stripped out already, and they'll function like ramps.
Entrances are all on the 1st (lower) level. 75% of the mall is two levels. You can use the 1st anchor (Kaufmann's) to go up or down levels also, as it'll have it's own escalators (again, railings stripped = RAMPS), and also can access the mall on BOTH levels.
Kaufmann's and the other slightly smaller, single-level anchor store (the OTHER end!) might not be able to be entered, as I may integrate a visibility / render blocker into it. The mall interior won't display until you're right on the mall parking lot itself, for obvious reasons as the interior will be fairly 'draw-call intensive', but not more-so than the finished portions of residential developments. Just don't want it slowing down the nearby highway, that's all. Most of the small in-mall stores will NOT be accessible as they would be too small to drive in anyways. Will do my best to get AI working in the mall, single level shouldn't be a problem but dual level will involve some "shananiganery", but alas, if I can get it over bridges, I can get it on a 2nd floor much the same way (it's just a time-sink, so 2nd level AI support will come later, and not as a guarantee of perfect functionality). Kaufmann's will have a depressed truck loading bay.
Most all the textures I need are inside the modeling program, I have a dozen or two to script into BeamNG though, that shouldn't take too terribly long. Going to be at-least 2~4 days hopefully not more than that to get the interiors done enough to be not looking like rubbish (well, or maybe I should say it should be looking like rubbish, because it'll be a touch dilapidated).

Patreon Update comes this week sometime when the mall is functional and done enough to not look hastily thrown together (even if lacking a bit of finishing touches). Sorry to keep everyone waiting, just want it to be awesome! Yes, there will be MUZAK, just not in the 1st beta likely as I am already pretty much ON the deadline I already wanted to have this out at. So, Sometime this week I'll get this out! It's not like I don't have some "vaporwave" here on the drive, BUT it's not legit to just hand the stuff out, even if it's free.

--Cheers until next roll of pics!
Click picture attachment below as it's a partial screen grab. Use CTRL + or CTRL & Mouse wheel, to zoom in enough to read the little print.

 

Can there be lines of small apartments like the ones in North Providence?

 

Graffiti art?

--- Post updated ---

 

Will you have different county's for the map? If so I would name one of them DuPage County Or if you want to have a Chicago one then " Crook " county ( I mean Cook ) would be good.

 

More Graffiti art (last one).

 

There will be lots of those, worry not! I haven't done medium density residential yet much, but certainly will be doing lots of it. I can use those as a concept piece, too, because we used to have those where I lived up north (I think that might be part of the late 60's 'ultra modern' design, though ultra-modern was popular at the end of the 50s into and throughout the 60s). Regardless of the design on the outside, the insides are mostly all the same - and smell mostly all the same - like contraband...

Yes, there will definitely be some, though that will come later in the development cycle when I have a better idea where it looks plain and can use some sprucing up (if you can call it that). This will be a fully realized city in this game when it's done, but it's going to take quite some time.

Yes there will be at-least two different counties if not 3. Crook county, nice place, haha.

 

you could put the building doors in as ghost objects to mess with all the people that review it on youtube

 

If you mean the doors to the mall, I originally wanted doors that would crash down as you hit them, but right now that's off the schedule, pushed back to a much later date, for now it'll just be a hole in the boarded up windows (the boards may not be completely there until later in some spots, too). I can do non-colliding doors that fall down when you hit them - as soon as you get close enough, then they'd collapse - it would only LOOK as if you hit them, not actually would they be struck, though. I will experiment with proximity activated doors later on in development. Remember, I am trying to aim for that #1 spot of Top Map Mods Chart. This is for everyone's benefit, though.

---

In other news, just finished up one of the escalators in the mall. Shown in this preview (the mall textures aren't all in yet), there's an escalator, and to the left of it (in most shots), is the grey collision box (another escalator will be there, too). This makes for a great RAMP driving up or crashing down. I'll make sure to slope the bottom a bit easier with a debris pile or something. There's no railings as they'd get in the way of getting up or down it (and as often, they're smashed out if glass, or stripped out if metal).
Yes, the UV's are all connected, this takes time and planning, and is often almost as time-intensive as making the object itself, but I was able to get the ENTIRE escalator down to *TWO* draw-calls total. One for ALL the metal encasement, and one for ALL the metal stairs/landings. Since each escalator will generally be identical, all of them (that are seen) will render at once on two draw calls.
I will admit though doing all the malls walls will take quite some time. The floors are already all linked, though. There will be some inlays of tile, fountains etc, that will raise draw calls a bit though, as allowed. I may make the fountains separate objects depending on performance. There will be two pairs of escalators in the mall itself, a set of stairs or a ramp (unsure) and a set of escalators in Kaufmann's in the center of the large store floor plan.
Click the pictures to expand (this is generally looking down the mall corridor, towards the large Kaufmann's (the entrance is in the background of the 1st shot). Where you see a grey box shaped like an escalator (that's it's collision - simple is good), there will be a second one installed. (Blue lines on UV example show connected textures, this keeps draw calls - the enemy of BeamNG maps, to a minimum).

 

Apparently, According to Maya (the resident Idiot), my trusty/dusty 8GB Radeon RX 480 that I got back about 2 years ago, doesn't have enough texture memory. HOW IS 8GB NOT ENOUGH RAM??? WHO HAS MORE THAN 8GB (OK, Maybe a 600$ 1080Ti or 1400$ 2080Ti has more, but I'm *NOT* buying one of those!). Never-mind the ENTIRE Map's texture directory (including Mosaic LOD's) in Maya is... 461MB (it's a little more, but I haven't 'used' these textures yet, so they're not added in there hence not accessible to Maya).
How the @#$% does 461MB > 8096MB (less 120mb~200mb or so of OS & APPS usage, have classic Windows 2000 desktop theme on, simple = good).
So yeah, no worries folks this won't stop me, it's only a small stumbling block. I won't be running out to snag a 1080ti or 2080ti, nope, not for a second, this GPU needs to last another year or three, along with the rest of the @#$% tower (will repair it when and where necessary, I happen to be fond of it). Just figured I'd share the fahldeerahl I go through on a daily with this rubbish software.
So for all the folks that say how much better Blunder , I mean BLENDER is, EAT YOUR HEART OUT. No, really, hand me my head on a platter why don't you, you love to. Meanwhile I'll be here swearing out loud at the tower.

 

I will definitely try to crash and drive into this mall.

 

That's guality piece of software Leaks vram much?

 

I would quite reckon it memory and video-memory leaks, or just doesn't know what to do with 8GB allocated. It's DERP-tastical.

Good show! Best to get some good use out of it, after-all, I only started it 5 days ago, and it's about *HALF* done... maybe half.
It's also holding up the next Patron beta, unfortunately. However, that being said, I am getting somewhere with it.
Some work on the department store is attached at the end. But why a MALL, in a DRIVING GAME?
Well because ...
*We can't walk in this game yet, though, I am reaching out to folks about the 'walkable' nature of Torque3D's default soldier.
*Who hasn't watched one of those 'abandoned mall urban exploration' videos out on Youtube. There's hundreds, go have a look if you're one of the holdouts who haven't seen one, just beware of shaky camera, folks *slightly muffled cat barfing behind the couch noises*. Dan Bell, The Proper People, Exploring with Josh are some good starts in that direction.
*It's a testament to a very relevant issue with retail America, and even other countries as well.
*What's not awesome about an abandoned mall and it's exploration value in the first place. Considering EXPLORATION is a normally both a goal and hence a strong point of my maps (due to large size and countless hours - thousands - in building them), folks do quite enjoy this, so this builds upon an already-present goal.
*If you ask yourself, "would this be FUN (to explore or crash/do a stunt through)?", and if the answer is 'yes' if even slightly, the only question is, "why isn't it already in the map, time non-withstanding?".

---

Development progress:
Trying to work as much as humanly/sanely possible on this per-day. Have been working on this for the last 10~12 hours, short food or latrine breaks aside. Getting the majority of the work done so I can get the release out ASAP hopefully by the end of the weekend. I have missed the deadline I set for myself to put this out, but it'll be worth the wait if you enjoy abandoned malls any. When the mall looks 'decent' and is solid enough to drive through without getting the car injured unintentionally, and everything visible has some sort of texture, I'll have this piped to my backup for the Patron folks. Again, sorry for the delay, "my bad", I very seriously underestimated how much work goes into building a mall - certainly more than knocking one down! If anyone's getting upset waiting too long, I completely understand.
Pics attached below taken inside the 'Kaufmann's Department Store', which is currently where I am working. All the ceiling textures and 90% of interior wall textures inside this department store are in (ceiling looks black due to angle of shots in modeling program). Keep in mind the collision for the escalators in the one shot is now in the same spot as the escalator itself, giving it a flat grey (and smooth ramp-like) appearance, but it's there as shown before, and it's done already.

 

Maybe we can have an US post office similar to the one in Tuskegee?

 

Was going to go for more of the 1950's~1960's later Art-Deco post office buildings in this map. For some reason, we had a lot of those style ones in the area where I grew up. Me-thinks one architect who had a fetish for Art-Deco got all the bids in the area. Schools, Post Offices, all the military/fire station buildings, heck even some apartment buildings looked like your typical run-of-the-mill late 40's ~ mid 60's designs Art Deco buildings. Red brick, four-pane windows, flat roofs, dividing walls that stuck out beyond the facade of the building, pretty typical.

---

In other news, look how wonderfully helpful Maya is when lining up columns of a mesh!
It's like night time. I would have better luck doing this blindfolded. Stupid rubbish software! Never have I had a 3d software that made things dark so you couldn't see them! T-R-A-S-H!

 

Maybe the more richer/higher-end areas can have some Southern "Greek Revival" styled buildings then?

 

Is this map being based off of L.A. and only L.A.? If not, can we have some type of Coit Tower looking monument?

Example Photo:




Aside from that, this map is looking awesome! But here's another suggestion: Release the WHOLE map to everybody and then maybe break up the map into smaller sections for the people who have slower computers. Anyway, great map! Can't wait for the release!

 

if you try to make doors that fall over, then they have physics, creating more "vehicles" in the world, harming performance (especially on lower end PCs)

 

My hideous mall is coming along nicely. Pillars are in in the Kaufmann's.
Gots me a new ceiling texture after figuring out layering to make a filthy drop ceiling texture from a clean one. Yay.
Ignore in the shot looking up the tan highlight in the top right, I didn't have a surface out of view to plop the mouse for screenshot cleanliness. The black surfaces are all textured already (the dark grey one I haven't done the ceiling on the lower floor yet, pardon).
Wall textures are all in inside and linked up to reduce draw calls. It's looking beautifully disgusting now, isn't it.
There's no mall store doors but those should be pretty quick to put in, I think I got that down. It's mostly going to be closed steel security doors for now. I will add a few open gutted stores in later on post-update availability and some bathroom/admin doors and such. I think you guys/gals are really going to love this. I will make a concentrated effort to put a player spawn point here before the update goes out so you don't have to hunt for it.
I'd say another solid TWO days of working on this and I should have this licked enough to rock out some fun for you folks on Patreon! It might be a touch plain inside but I'll do my best to make it fun & interesting, without any 'car gets stuck if you touch this or that' glitches. I certainly want to finish it quick because *I WANT TO TRY IT OUT MYSELF*. I won't get to try it out until shortly before you folks do - so - Again, sorry for the wait, but I'm working on it.
Click the pictures below to see a fullsize partial screen-grab from inside the modeling program. Ignore black surfaces due to camera angle.
--- Post updated ---

Yes, surely, I can make "phallic object shaped/colored monuments", haha. Good suggestion!
Will surely make something that is "sort of" shaped like this and equally as large next to the highway for everyone to gander at.
Performance:
It runs on a 1st Generation intel i7 series X58 (read: came out in 2009) at 3ghz. What's to break up for slower computers?
It runs on a 1GB DDR3-model Radeon 6750 video card that can be snagged off Ebay for likely less than 30 bucks, as that's what one cost my friend two years ago - tested with the above HP OEM business-class X58 computer with 1066mhz or 1333mhz DDR3 system RAM in triple channel. It runs on lowest 60FPS (before the optimization - maybe 75~90fps now), low detail at 30~35fps (again, before optimization). It's video card limited as it's pegging the 1GB limit hardcore. I can do what I can to reduce texture detail of some textures after the map is done if this is a serious issue. There's a tool on Oblivion/Fallout 3/NV/4 that reduces texture sizes too, I use the same type of textures so it can be used and pointed to my map's /art/shapes/buildings/metrocity folder or the /art/roads folder or both and it will run, reducing the VRAM footprint (and detail) of the textures. I think it's aptly named 'texture reducer' or something.
This map will run on integrated graphics, just make sure you give at-least 1GB to dedicated GFX or as much as you can. Remember to meet BeamNG specific minimum requirements, though, or no promises it will run nice. Also, you will need 3.5GB free RAM to really enjoy this map, but you might be able to squeeze by with 3GB free, again, no promises for folks with less than 6GB total system RAM.

It won't have physics, it's not a vehicle, it's an animated mesh that triggers via script when you get near enough to almost touch it (in-stead of touching the mesh, it will touch a trigger bounds that will cue the animation). It would only harm performance if it was a J-Beamed mesh such as the draw bridge primitive that may be optionally featured in the future in the map (and it moves, too).