On Hold Barbent's Homerange (Alpha) 0.1a

I'm currently working on the desert region again...

In this weather conditions, you can see the snow-covered areas on high Mt. Druckeberga (left mountain pic#2 and the beautiful pic in the post above ). The distance is about 7.5 km diagonally across the map as the crow flies.



I also started working, initially experimentally, with different gradient bitmaps that dynamically change the colors of many aspects (fog, sky, ground albedo, and reflections) depending on the time of day. It's not easy to adjust everything so that it always looks good. For this, I recreated all the color gradients in Photoshop where I can define the single nodes for the respective time, and Photoshop (or Gimp) then calculates the gradients from them, like this:


As you can see the sky color turns to "pinkish purple reddish blue" in the twilight zone. The disadvantage is that the colors cannot be influenced by the weather. And, most importantly, unfortunately, not regionally.

This is a design study for dynamic color schemes (even no PBR) for the desert evening which I made last night. Let's see if it works for other regions too...

 

Can't wait to test all the new additions! the map in its alpha state is already really enjoyable, both for rp with an old rustbucket and for sending a rally car full speed through the dirt roads!

 

And on and on and on...

Sometimes I think I released the map too early because, from today's perspective, a lot of things were still messed up, not so great, or simply poorly laid out. But of course, I'm very happy that you've all been able to have fun driving around on it for almost a year now. I'm also really looking forward to the day for the real alpha release.

I've just programmed an automatic bulk material filling system for trucks. I've extended the triggers so that I can use this system anywhere on the map, in any number, without having to program anything extra. All the other systems—the (non-vanilla) gas stations and speed cameras, the fire-making, light switches, or the diving options with the avatar—work in an object-oriented way too and automatically find all the components and information that belong to them. I don't have to list them or handle them individually at all. As a result, despite the many additional functions, the Homerange LUA code is very compact and performs well.

I'm currently working on several sites simultaneously. Now there's a car soccer field with goals that automatically keep score. The quarry is expanding and isn't just interesting for heavy equipment; it's also developing into another off-road paradise. And I've completely revamped the central logistics center, so you can really let your imagination run wild when it comes to role-playing.

Here are a few pictures of my latest work in progress:

 

We do know it was an alpha version, and that was already great, with all the things you are adding, it only gets better, so we are happy

 

You're amazing dude, can't wait to check out all the new stuff.

 

Latest progress informations

Clean the air filter!

I'm currently experimenting with a bit of flying desert sand. Of course, you can't envelop the entire desert in a volumetric and animated sandstorm. Volumetric rendering is the ultimate FPS killer! But enveloping only the area around the game camera in a small particle sandstorm and letting it follow is an interesting solution. Let's see how practical it is while playing. Perhaps clogged air filters will eventually be available for the BeamNG engine simulation soon . It definitely obstructs the view considerably. I just need to figure out how to get rid of it when leaving the desert region ... LOL - no sorry: LUA!

There are many ways to create interesting effects, but sometimes the effort is considerable and the result quickly overwhelms BeamNG's graphics engine, or it simply looks good as a screenshot but annoys when playing. I'll make most of the effects (including this one or e.g. the weather with the local, volumetric clouds) available in the map, and you can then turn them on or off depending on your preference or available PC performance. That is the experimental part of the map.



&
I'll soon be kinda finished with the Main Logistics Center (near Marshalling Mellow), which was a lot of work because it's become quite large with many functional details. But this time I pushed for completion and focused on this topic, well almost .
Some features include:

• A covered gate area with a vehicle scale that automatically recognizes the entire truck and trailer combination, i.e., can weigh the tractor unit, all trailers and any load as a whole. Logs everything into file for futur gameplay options such as simulated trading of goods and merchandise.
• Eight loading bays with automatic distance sensors
• A heavy-duty loading edge suitable for flatbed trailers
• Plenty of parking spaces for cars, semis and trailers
• Own inland port + ferry ramp
• Warehouses with accessible stairs (Avatar compatible) and floors full of secrets ...
  
• Of course, functional vending machines for the thirsty truckers!
• Well, and on weekends and holidays the Driftkhana Club meets here...

 

I love this map and the creativity put into this map. Fire. Kinda hard to express my...you know. Its just great. The everything.

 

This map wil be the ultimate role playing map for BeamNG, chapeau.

 

I wish I have a time machine.

 

Superb looking map, but it wont load in the map selection menu for any reason that is but i wont complain about it, that is a very impressive job you're doing

 

How to get the anti ai pics to work

 

Open the zip and replace the picture files called spawn_xxxxx.jpg. I still have only empty images on my side too because I haven't finished arranging the spawn points yet. But of course, the next version will have proper, nice spawn point images .
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How did you manage that? It's somehow incomprehensible to me...
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Me too !

 

Ngl, i dont know. Ive tried via the repo in-game, after that i downloaded the zip and put it manually in game... Nothing works

 

Maybe for some reason its in aux content?

 

Hmmm - it is explicitly not marked as "Auxiliary" in the information file. That is therefore very unlikely.
Is the file "homerange.zip" (from the official download page) located in your user folder, specifically in the "mods" folder (not "levels"), and is it not a duplicate? Can you find the map in the game's mods manager? Perhaps it's disabled there? Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm completely stumped .

 

All systems running nominal! Weather Forecast: Blasting downpour and thunder!!

As previously described, I tried to supplement Homerange with many different systems, including simulated weather, initially on an experimental basis. Frankly, I wasn't entirely satisfied, because either it looked great, but only for screenshots, or it was only local, or the processing load was simply too high. Now I'm very happy to announce that I've managed to develop a weather system for the entire ~70km² map that actually runs smoothly even on my sluggish PC.

This video is a technical demonstration of the weather choreography system for the upcoming release of the map. It uses only the BeamNG game engine. No additional mods, post-processing effects, or volumetric object simulations are used. To achieve this spectacle, I wrote sophisticated LUA software capable of simultaneously managing and controlling a multitude of graphical and acoustic aspects. Thanks to a scheduler, asynchronous task distribution, load balancing, and request prioritization, the overall performance is excellent while morphing the weathers smoothly. The system operates without any noticeable FPS drops or impact on the unique BeamNG physics, all while maintaining maximum immersion. Multiple none vanilla sound systems work in the background, mixing a variety of audio sources in real time, and an intelligent sound crawler places sounds in the 3D space around you. But don't forget to drive! I did while I wrote the code .

Take a minute and enjoy!
(The short sounds mark a new weather request to the system)

 

damn, awesome stuff! I didnt even know this was currently possible.

Does the ground model change dynamically too?

 

Of couse it will, but that's still a future task besides many others. The forges are running at full capacity . Over time, I've created quite a collection of add-on systems for the map, giving me a wealth of ideas to explore, including dynamic ground models. Also all events and animal sounds, the streetlights and even water surfaces react to the weather. The absolute hardest part was to manage the zone of "infinite" horizont and very far terrain while the weather is changing. The particle systems also transition into snow with increasing altitude. Warning lights at the harbours are lit and airport tower radio messages are sent out to the planes if there's a storm warning and many more... My next goal is to link my 4D temperature system with the weather system and provide various dynamic offset curves that correspond to the weather conditions. Aaaaand, well, terrain sculpting isn't finished ...

 

Absolutely brilliant. This really should be implemented into the main game for all maps.
Speaking of which... is this map related or would it be possible in some way to turn this weather system into a standalone mod that could work on all maps?

 

This is definitely not planned for now because the map and all the software do fit perfectly togeter. To make parts of the more complex systems modular, like for a mod for all the different maps, would brake specific design concepts and would slow down the management of the many aspects and the computation of the many different tasks. I am focused on developing the map with many completely new ideas and the interaction of them. Releasing parts of it as a mod would also unfocus me from my goals in a significant way. First I'd like to release the map and - the ferry for example. But of course: future is open