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

I'm going to post the update for Los Injurus to the resource file Monday/Tuesday at some point, the moderators have quite the back-log so it wouldn't have done it any good to post it sooner anyways. It could still take two weeks, but thing is, this requires manually placing it on the server by one of the staff. So I have to wait until they're less drowning in work to-do, both with the mods just now starting to get updated and the amount I will completely SWAMP the hosting service with this MONSTER of a mod. No seriously, I've been told when this gets updated, it grinds the server to 60~120kb/s at times. Oops. Roane County updates would do that a bit but this does that a whole lot.
me: "Is it me or can no one get on the forums?"
someone else: "I can't get on either right now, server looks like it's busy."
me: *checks email in the mean-time, and gets update that Los Injurus update had posted earlier that day*
...."oops, looks like I'm in the dog-house again tonight"
THIS has happened, 3x now I believe, especially the LAST time it happened. So entirely, give it another few days until I post it, and then up to a week or two until it gets posted. At the very latest it will be mid-week when I post it, hopefully the moderators can get to it within a week or two. It could take up to a month to return the mod approval process to normal though, possibly longer.
Also, I've discovered some pretty nasty bugs with the AI I redid in some spots down-town, so I'm going to be fixing that a bit before I hand this off to the moderators. Cars going wrong way, getting stuck, etc. My AI modifications in one section of town were rather RUSHED so that's what I get for doing it rushed.
Folks who support the project via Patreon will get the update around the time I post it to the official queue (which is going to take a week or two, or less, or more - but time I cannot promise) before others, but keep in mind I am ADDITIONALLY working on updating Roane County also. So dates will get moved around if things come up (because I have two work-flows and not just one), and so if real-life gets in the way it can push things back. Basically, if this was my only focus and real-life did not get in the way, it'd be super easy to promise dates. Though, yes, an update is coming, it's nearly done, but I have to fine-tune the AI in some spots because frankly, it just sucks. Works pretty good on the highway for the most part, though.
Why so much issue with the AI? Well, I was the one who pioneered using an invisible road graphic with AI assignment on it to get the AI to do exactly what I want it to, on the original So-Cal level / Los Injurus, and before that on Nevada Interstate to get it to go over bridges (and then more-so everywhere to get it to go properly in lanes, long before traffic AI). But in all that time, EIGHT AND A HALF YEARS LATER, AI has changed a ton. This went from a mere concept, a mere game engine with a few vehicles showing crashing physics and being able to push a piano off a cliff (or a truck full of them), to a fully-fledge commercial-quality game-engine with enough assets to actually make a game out of (and there's starting to actually BE a game not just a sandbox now). So things change, and they're changing faster than I can keep up when my head's normally buried in my project(s) and trying to keep up with real-life too. Also, the documentation for the game IS NOT up to date and the features change every few months. Things break, things are fixed, new features are supported, and yet-another-texture-broke due to conflicts on names with the base-game assets due to a game version update (it always happens).
That ranting aside, for lack of a better term; Both Roane County and Los Injurus will be getting PUBLIC updates in the next 30~60 days time. Supporters get them first but they WILL hit the public servers sooner or later, I just have to have the staff blessing as to when it happens. When they have time (AND THE BANDWIDTH) for it, I will post the Los Injurus update, and later the Roane County update. They will be staggered both for man-power reasons (there's only one of me, whew thank goodness!), and for server bandwidth reasons. I'm not trying to bankrupt them with hosting fees after-all, nor deprive folks of access to the forums/mods servers. But I'm also not going to make enemies of the devs/staff either. I must follow what they say, as what the devs/staff say is law.
I'm not here to make the rules, just the level mods.
IF THERE IS ANY ISSUE and for some reason(s) I cannot get an update to post, should that be the case whether due to problems with the server or otherwise, I will find and use alternate mod hosting sites and make sure you're fully aware of those options. There's plenty of G-rated mod-hosting sites out there that won't make the computer sick or give you terrible adult advertising.

TL/DR: Check back in a week, the staff is swamped and I'd like to have the liberty to fix a few AI screw-ups I did first (and if I remember, remove the 'under construction' signs or re-date them at-least, they STILL say 2023, though I at-least got rid of the ones on either end of the highway I re-did).
--Doing the best I can but my hands are tied with some things, Hopefully you can understand.
-The Bob

Note: IF it wasn't completely clear, I'm handing out early Roane County updates to supporters of the Los Injurus project as they become available. So you get those as a value-add if you support Los Injurus development.

 

Absolutely incredible map, never gets old and infinite possibilites

 

Completely understandable, Thanks for the info!

 

That's the fun of it! It's also fairly modular if you feel you want a jump some place etc, if you know your way around the level editor. Keep in mind level edits done locally (on your PC) usually over-ride distributed / downloaded updates though (but again only on your PC).
Level edits done locally in the level editor are saved in your user folder under (game version) /levels/LosInjurus/. So that's the folder to remember to take out if you want to edit it but apply an update in the future.
Still working over the AI a bit. Don't expect miracles as it won't be all gone-over at this time, but I just don't want it being so BROKEN with stuck vehicles or wrong-way drivers.

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In other news, and why I've been a bit quiet the last 48 hours, I found out that my oldest brother, who turned 64 last month has died. He had a leg amputated last year due to diabetes (and alcoholism) and was using a wheel-chair to cross the road from his assisted living facility in Pennsylvania, and was struck by a vehicle at or just before 600 hours (morning). The vehicle did not see him, and he was not in the crosswalk, and his pelvis was busted into 5 pieces, many broken ribs, brain swelling, kidneys shutting down and all that.
He died on my late father's birthday, which was the beginning of this past week after being brought out of the medically induced coma he was in for a week. Long enough to be lucid and say his goodbyes to his (adult) kids and wife.
I will always remember him. The good with the bad, because even if he liked to drink a lot, he was still my brother and we had many good times. I woke up today and all I could say is 'Man I can't believe he's GONE.". Life is fleeting. So if you haven't said hello and visited your relatives (the ones you care about anyway) lately, I would recommend doing so, so that you needn't live with regret.
When they're gone, it's too late to travel to them and have that one last conversation.

Bro, I hope you made it to heaven where your suffering is over.​

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Sorry I don't have better news, but I'd like to be transparent. I will post this on both the Roane County and Los Injurus threads. Work will still continue on both projects simultaneously, but I am also sick as a DOG so that might slow things down a bit.
--That is all.
-The Bob.

 

Take your time, such a loss takes time to process and you deserve to mourn as long as necessary. Thank you for your work on your maps, while many of us here appreciate it your physical and mental wellbeing should take priority.

 

Im so sorry for your loss. I cannot image what you are going through. Please take all the time you need to mourn. The maps can wait, your family and well being comes first.

 

dude im sorry for your loss RIP to him we are all here for you

 

I am sorry for your loss. Take as much time as needed to recover.

 

My sincere condolence.

 

May his soul Rest In Peace

 

I jumped up to 48 GB. I got the same brand of ram however two are 3600MHz and the new ones are 3200MHz. I have them set to 3200 so i don't break stuff. Also got new fans and an AIO
--- Post updated ---

I have an EVGA RTX 2070 Super XC Gaming Ultra. And it was because CK's graphics was at a preset so it kept constantly trying to switch it back

 

Just got a brand new dev tool in the editor! Streets and terraforming should be easier for you now, figured it was worth mentioning as the game finally updated

 

Yeah I noticed they have new tools in the editor. Surprisingly, I haven't really gotten that far yet, as I'm trying to clean up the log file entries when Los Injurus loads, mostly due to boo-boos and DOZENS of 'duplicate textures' or 'duplicate map_to entries' (map_to is what the models use to call textures, the name is a separate field itself and just what you type in for decal / mesh roads or decals, etc).
Hopefully I don't break too much stuff. The new tools look promising however!

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BUG: yellow-black striping broken after update! It's there but only a tiny bit is visible. Fixed on my end for now, the texture definitions didn't use the folder path in the entry. 'Shared textures' broke this. Should have a fix out by the end of this week (within 5~7 days).
The double yellow (with black) central striping on the roads broke with the update, but I'll put a fix for that out within a week so no big deal there. The fix will contain all the other stuff I'm toying around with, bugs fixed etc.
Another new feature is that you can pull textures from the base game shared assets now. It's no longer just a bug that drives me absolutely manic breaking random stuff every update (signs, barriers, you name it it breaks randomly, up to now). So this can potentially reduce the file size by up to 10% or possibly a little more. It's going to take a substantial amount of time to prune without breaking things however, so please be patient on that note.
I also have more detailed feedback tools inside the graphs for performance, to see how much VRAM I'm snacking on just by running this, what is hungry for the most VRAM if it's textures or models by items class and name which is super-helpful, and what isn't a problem and only takes up a little space here or there.
I've spent most of the afternoon going through logs, pruning dupes, and also concatenating (merging) main materials index files with materials index files - which differ only by name and what made them. Materials was from the conversion off of the old CS format, which is no longer supported thus I used a converter tool, and the main materials is usually what the material-editor in-game will use unless you tell it otherwise. These existing in the same folder open the way for dupes, bugs, and other imperfections to slip through.
There's even issues with different indices in different folders referencing the same texture or map_to and that's difficult to pick one entry when it's configured two different ways.
That said, this should solve a lot of really annoying or stupid / tempermental texture bugs by doing so.
With a little luck, by the end of the day I will have less errors than I started the day with. Or so I shall hope.
Maybe the new editor tools will help me implement 'Smart traffic lights' and the appropriate AI routing at intersections, as Los Injurus has some nearly 100 intersections that need to be addressed. I don't mind doing this if when I do it, it works reliably, and the tool isn't too obtuse to use. The reason the traffic doesn't pay any mind to traffic signals like it does in the real-world, is because the lights aren't connected to the traffic AI (as such link did not exist when I created the intersections!). It's basically an animated texture on a model - that's all the game knows a traffic light is in Los Injurus. There's logic that can run the intersections now and thus the AI can link to this when in the right area IF I set it up for that. Obviously this is LOTS and LOTS of work, but it CAN be done. I was just waiting for more documentation as *NOTHING* was documented to-do with ANY of this. So we shall see how far I can get with the tool (I haven't even watched the preview video yet), and if there's enough documentation.
No promises or time-frame here, but I am aware of it and it is on the roster to get checked out when I'm done fixing all the texture index issues here and fix anything else I mess up in the process.
Strange stupid texture bugs galore, stuff in the wrong place, duplicate textures, ugh. The list goes on and on. Just look at the log file when you load into Los Injurus. Each one of those dupes takes a few minutes to go over, double-check to find the CORRECT of two (or more) entries, and make sure I get all the info into the correct entry if it's split over the two (like one having specular mapping layer defined but the other having an adjustment to the color profile of the actual color map which is what you see).

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Thank-you to all who had kind words to offer and condolences. It's been tough, but I'm getting through it and have gotten through by far the worst of it. Sometimes life isn't fair; but I'm much better than I used to be at handling it, in my middle-age now.
I wish everyone the best. I finally think I figured out what broke on the mower (no I still didn't fix it), but DO know I'm busy working on fixing behind-the-scenes issues here, and this should make future work a lot easier or at-least less problem-prone.
--That is all
-The Bob.
If YOU make levels, you can now pull textures from common art folder inside the game. This is where shared assets are stored, and thus you don't have to include these textures in your level if they exist in the base-game in-order to use them. I DO NOT KNOW if this applies to models, too!
ALSO, There is an issue with the game using GOBS of RAM when loading. This is temporary and not intentional and is NOT just my mod/levels. I mean upwards of 20~22GB of ram used on load (Especially first load of a level, like Los Injurus or West Coast USA stock level). This is unintended, and if it happens to you, close out other things using RAM and try loading the level a few more times. It should either solve once it gets enough stuff cached, or drop RAM use if you get finally loaded in and free-cam around the level a bit to the point where Windows will throw things not needed into the page file and thus free up RAM for you. Something isn't getting unloaded when it should during the cache process, thus hogging tons of RAM, and the devs DO know about it and are on it.

 

So I did try out the new road architect tool. It makes beautiful STAIRS now doesn't it?
I'm sure we all need a realistic simulator for driving on stairs. We can call it StairsNG.Drive!

No way in literal HELL am I letting THAT THING touch MY terrain again. Nope nope nope, not gonna happen. It's useful for quickly putting road graphics down on FLAT terrain or pre-carved terrain, I'll give it that, but it's AWFUL at carving terrain. Took me a bit to make it terraform something the whole actual width of the road. I mean, there's not even options for consistent grade here unless I missed something.
It needs A LOT of work. So I'll stick to my usual recipe. There's no real time-savers aside of maybe a half hour to an hour a week in time-savings placing edging for roads IF I'm making country lanes.
It's something, I'll give them that, but they *really* need to work on this things.
--That is all for the moment!
-The Bob.

 

Those make for really good poorly maintained roads.

 

(The Bob might have edited that a bit, heh heh)
Yes, it does make wonderful jumps / stairs / accordions. Had to heavily perfect with the smoother, but I did manage to save it after another HOUR of work for a half-mile to mile of road.

 

did you leave the pothole function on or what happend there ?

 

How can we change the sky in the map? It's ways gray looking.

 

In other news, if you're in FLORIDA, GET OUT OF FLORIDA NOW! YOU ARE IN DANGER FROM HURRICANE MILTON! GO, THE SOONER THE BETTER!
This has been a PSA, just keep in mind the roads may be jammed so leave overnight if possible. Freeways may be reversed by authorities as-needed during evacuations so keep an eye out for that!

There's an issue as it uses code (from what I gather) from the old mesh-road forming tool, to form the planes it carves to (though not to make a mesh road, just something to carve to). Problem is, it doesn't benefit from width subdivisions, so much like an old Playstation or MS-DOS software-rendered 3D game and it's warped textures, it gets a bit wonky between spots with different banking (or side-to-side grading / sloping). Width-subdivisions mean whatever inaccuracy that is present (which causes those accordion folds) is exponentially less, and thus would benefit in making things easier to smooth / gets it closer to what it should be requiring less damage-control after-work. Perspective correction fixed the wonky Playstation / MS-DOS game textures btw, but the strange warping really reminds me of this (and it's likely the same math problem causing a triangulation issue). So we'll see if we can get carving correction on this issue in a future update.
I am sure if you use separate road segments for corners, on the new road architect tool, that it'll work out a little better but there's still going to be some lumpy stuff going on there - just not nearly as much.

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Yeah I've gotta work on that now don't I? Good call! Simple but right to the point.
You can change it by setting the time to the middle of the night, you'll never see that grey sky again. (okay I'm being a bit witty, I will get to fixing that though! Thanks for reminding me about it).
Just as useful as bricking up the windows of your house so you don't have to look at / be bothered by those dirty windows any more. Didn't Daffy Duck sell Elmer Fudd a device like that in the home of tomorrow / the future in that one cartoon from even before MY time?
...Ah yes, that one, the one where he brings the upstairs, downstairs, smashing everything completely flat below it on the 1st floor. Or where the robot cleans the walls by grinding them down to the lathe / bricks.
I think that's called PUSH BUTTON HOME. It was an old one from around 1957 or so. Well anyways, look up Looney Tunes, Push Button Home (it's a Daffy Duck / Elmer Fudd cartoon) sometime if you want a great laugh, it's one of the absolutely best ones.

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I'm getting off-topic quite a bit, but I think I'll go watch that one again. Amazon probably has it for two bucks or something. No matter how upset (and old) I might be getting, those goofy old cartoons never fail to make me laugh, and laugh good. My 60+ aged sister-in-law (my late brother's widow) still loved to watch them with me 10 years ago.
I think I can use a good laugh or two to let off some steam. It was actually somewhat stressful having to run the church service yesterday (Sunday) when our lay-lady was stuck home with a stuck back. I might have mentioned it here (or in the Roane County thread). Found out 20 minutes before service started, "Oh and can you still read scripture, too?" "Sure why not, but the Sermon I cannot do, I'm not qualified for that." I did scripture readings the last two weeks, so why not (do the service)? It was a little unusual for me to do it, but when a few little old ladies ask you to do it, in a church that warmly welcomed you no questions asked just 3 years back, how could I say no? Thank goodness the pastor made it back from Georgia, where he was on 'vacation'... though I wouldn't call it that. It hit the day after he got down there, I was not envious, but I was quite worried. He's in his 80's, but he managed to get through it fine as he still has his strength.
Long story short, I couldn't say no to the church group, and I wouldn't say no to any church group for that matter if I was in the right place at the right time. Still, it went well enough, even when I almost tripped which would have made me face-plant in the pulpit (I would have taken 5 minutes to stop laughing at myself). Glad I lost that 30 pounds or I'd have never fit in there without knocking down things back there. My big hips already almost took out one of the hymnals on the side of the altar, fast reflexes save the day both times (turns out most of the clutzyness was me having about 8 different vertibrae mis-aligned).
I sure hope I'm that good in my 80's. I'm in my 40's and I'm not sure I could do all the things he does, but then again, I am disabled for a reason (even if I wish to try and ignore it, and continue on).
That said, many prayers to those affected by the recent Helene disaster, be it Florida, Georgia, or the Carolinas. I wish you all the best on that, and please don't be in the path of Hurricane Milton, that I last saw was heading for the entire peninsula the makes up Florida.
Some bits about the church service are likely a re-post from the Roane County thread, but for those not following that one currently you'll still get to hear around my Sunday predicament. Still, I may not get everything done, especially not on schedule, but I DO WHAT I MUST, and that was a MUST-DO.
--That is all!
-The Bob.
SFW (safe for work) news video as-of 11pm Central Time USA Hurricane Milton status and forecast.

Looks like it'll hit Wednesday! Lookout for this one. It's been giving me migraines for 4~5 days now but nothing yet like Helene did. Helene gave me the worst migraine of my entire life not even two weeks ago.
This one will probably get bad around end of day tomorrow into Wednesday. Stay out of the way folks.
If you have to knock apart some old furniture, to have wood to board up the windows, DO IT. Chances are that old cabinet, entertainment center, or computer desk you used-to use costs less to replace than a window.
-

 

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE THE ROAD ARCHITECT TOOL ON ANY LEVEL YOU CARE ABOUT.
It will glitch to all get-out so bad it will make you want to beat the computer. THAT THING IS A HOT MESS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
I AM SPENDING HOUR+ EACH TIME I LOAD THIS, to fix what took me FIVE HOURS longer (should have taken 2~2.5 hours) to make with this stupid tool. Sheesh!
I'm about ready to bail and restore from last month's backup if it glitches out again even when I haven't touched the road architect tool. It will SUCK losing progress, but that's better than this MESS. I will not willingly add MORE glitches to this project, I'll sooner add nothing.
10/10 turds, it's crap!

Oh, and no, they didn't fix the terrain shaders to make vertical projection (mountain textures) work. They said they would. That's since 0.30 or 0.31 it's broken now.
They did not fix the 3 lane handling of a one-way 3 lane AI route, this results in me having to re-do several miles of highway. I'm so glad I didn't hedge more on them saying it'd be functional in the near future, and it's only a few miles.

So if you've been wondering why I haven't been doing a lot on this, that's partly why. Each time I work on this, it's a torrential crap-storm of bugs. It's a mess. This is bad.

~I think I backed up two to three weeks ago, not sure, but it might be less than a month I have to get set back because of 0.33.

It's bad enough when something takes 3x longer to 10x longer to do because of an update to the editor, like going from editor 1.0 to editor 2.0. That REALLY slowed me down big-time, I still want my old editor back TO THIS DAY. It crashes a lot less. But when I have to go and delete all my progress and RE-DO it (it's already crashed and caused me to lose an hour or two of work) everything the same old way I've been doing since 0.07... Well, needless to say, I'm STEAMED to say the least. I've got a migraine, my lower back hurts, and I hope that I'm just stressed and it's not a ANOTHER hurricane about to form... I have to go check the weather forecast.

Needless to say, I do give hopes and prayers for those that've been clobbered by the recent two hurricanes, and just as many hopes and prayers that we don't get another one.
Climate change is real, now we get to deal with the changes we've caused. I drive a four-cylinder car and not a gigantic pickup or SUV to get where I need to go, and I try to cut-down on energy waste (use one bulb to illuminate a room not all five if possible especially if it's on two different light switches, use LED bulbs if possible, etc) plus it keeps things cheaper that way. But man, I could've never predicted myself that things would get as bad as they did for Georgia / North Carolina / South Carolina, holy smokes!

So I included a shot of how I was re-aligning the road here, using this mesh as a pre-carving guide. Should have NEVER touched the road architect tool. That thing stinks!
Otherwise I'd be done, hours ago, and not have 65% or more of it to do yet, while hoping what's done doesn't break again / break further.
--Fit to be tied!
-The Bob
attached: Shows the old road alignment and a concrete-colored mesh where I'll be putting a new one hopefully. If it continues to fight me, this part will be abandoned and unusable during the next update or two until they fix the editor enough to not mangle stuff.
I will do what I can. Also attached a picture of what the errors are on one sole crescent shaped part of the road. It's not supposed to look like a lemon wedge or a cross-bow, it's supposed to be a crescent arc shape, almost like the letter C without so much wrap-around (think, half the letter C). Stupid technology!
Edit! FOUND MORE SCREW UPS from the road architect. I fixed this once already, this decal set (road graphics) gets fixed by the DELETE key this time. Problem won't come back then. I'm tired of this.