Created using Alex Kleinwachter's mapping tool and MapNG, Great Plains USA will be an 8192x8192m map representing the High Plains of the central USA. Largely based on the area around Grainfield, Kansas, it will not be a faithful replica of the real-world area, but it still aims to be realistic, meaning motorsports facilities, large bodies of water, large towns, forests, and hardcore off-roading areas are out of scope and likely will not be added. Highlights will include an 8km stretch of Interstate in the main map, an Old West town, a river valley with undisturbed prairie, and Lone Butte, a rare high point on the plains. Certain roads will also be extended outside of the main map using 3D mesh scenery like in Johnson Valley; this will at least be true for the Interstate but I may also add a loop of two-lane rural road. Concept map with main locations (subject to change): Screenshots:
Looks like an awesome map to send fast cars flying, races, and police chases. I'm a fan of long highways. Excited for the full release!
I've almost finished laying the roads from the Master Spline. I decided to scrap what I'd done so far on Haskell Centre and re-lay the street grid with more realistic 120x120m blocks.
Progress is slow due to real life but Haskell Centre is coming along nicely (note the brick building on the left, the first of several custom assets), as is the commercial strip area of State Route 23 south of Pawnee (the generic OSM building to the left of the Interstate will become a logistics hub).
You'll be able to drive many kilometers away from the town of Pawnee thanks to the extended road network built using mesh roads on 3D mesh terrain outside of the terrain block, similar to what Johnson Valley, Caney Ridge and Skeleton Coast do. I've already built around 14 total kilometers of Kansas State Route 23 on the default MapNG backdrop (note the Pawnee buildings way in the background), but due to its low detail this will almost certainly be scrapped before the initial release in favor of retiling the expanded terrain with new high-resolution meshes in places where it needs to be driven on, and optimised low-resolution ones in places it doesn't, both nulldetailed for performance.
That is not planned, since it takes so much more effort to terraform 3D mesh terrain (what the extended sections of highway will be built on) compared to BeamNG terrain. You will be able to turn around at the exits though.
Most of the map will be flat because that's how the area is in real life, but there already are some areas that are more hilly which I haven't shown in the screenshots yet, and I will be adding areas inspired by the real-life Lone Butte and Castle Rock.
as someone who lives in kansas alot of these maps are to flat they dont have the random divits and rises bumps and bruses that could randomly happen and there ARE forest belive it or not please add some and if you decide to put some houses on dirtroads out in the forests add some hick-y houses that are sketchy and cheap looking add a bunch of shit boxes in the backyard next to a barn thats one wind gust from falling over make those properties overgrown ALSO dirt roads LOTS OF EM and for the paved roads 75%+ need to be old and crappy with pot holes that variey in size also add some nice houses and for the love of god give them a big back yard also cornfield at every other square lot thing make trails go through them and add some jumps. thats all i have to say
Firstly, I'd like to announce that my laptop's GPU is only working intermittently, as it has been for the past year, and if it doesn't come back to life again like it usually does, further progress will be delayed to around early-mid June when my new computer arrives. Secondly, to answer your questions: 1) This is a real-world heightmap and I'm definitely not going to make it less interesting than it actually is; here is an example of one of the more hilly places you'll be able to visit and the heightmap has preserved a lot of the ditches by the sides of roads and the like. Most of the roads will be dirt and I'm definitely adding some rough dirt tracks; I will also consider roughening some of the wider dirt roads. The area south of I-70 (half the map) will be farm country and the area north of I-70 will be more natural with more hills. 2) This map is based only on the high plains and not all of Kansas, so it won't represent the southeastern corner next to Missouri with more extensive forests; the main reason I am creating a plains map is because there is really nothing like it in BeamNG so far, whereas we have the Texas USA map to represent the sort of atmosphere you are describing. What the high plains does have is cottonwood forests alongside streams, and these will definitely be added to the map. There will be (and already is in what I've done so far) abandoned houses, crappy-looking lived-in houses, nicer houses, and abandoned cars in yards, and I will also add historic houses made from sod and other pioneer structures.
Here's another progress screenshot that I didn't think was significant enough to add before, but I will do now that it will likely be the last in a while.
