WIP Snowflake State : Highway

I have been working on this map for the past few weeks. I've decided to make a thread for it now, as it's reaching a state where I'm able to show some progress. Despite that, this map is still far from finished.

Lore
Snowflake State is a fictional US state located near the arctic circle. It features extensive forests, mountain ranges and lots of snow. There is a national park deep within the mountains, a major city at the south coast and an open pit mine by Hotrolled Inc. in the north. This map however is focused on a section of Interstate 99 and the surrounding landscape, so it won't include any of these places. They are only mentioned on the road signs.

Features

• highway loop with tunnel (length: 1.3 km/0.8 mi above ground, 6.2 km/3.8 mi tunnel) [Done]
• small road network with signs [WIP]
• nature/landscape: forest, mountains, river, small lake [WIP]
• deep snow [Done]
• offroad/forest paths [WIP]
• multiple small POIs [WIP] - suggestions are welcome, but I might not add every suggestion
• dam with lake [WIP]
• gas station [Done]
• custom license plate design [Planned]
• lore-friendly skins for multiple vehicles [Planned]
• dynamic weather [Planned]
• dynamic road conditions [Done]
• custom jump spots [WIP]
• drift spots [Planned]
• missions and time trials [Planned]
• mostly PBR materials

The map's size is 2048x2048, like West/East Coast USA. The background mesh will be accessible, so it will be bigger in a way, but I won't add details to that area. It is based on Automation Test Track, but I have edited/will edit many textures and objects to match the "snowyness" of the map.

Please note, that some of the terrain colors are a bit weird in the current version. They will be white like normal snow for release. I have changed their color temporarily to distinguish between normal, deep, deeper and very deep snow and snow with flowers.

Screenshots



Current (and most likely final) road layout:


Credits

• BeamNG for most assets and textures
• @Barbent Servo GT for helping me with some things
• Car_Killer for some lua code from his level controller
• betchkal on freesound.org for some ambient sounds
• I used a flower from this pack as groundcover
• me for everything else

 

Another snow map, let's go.

 

Some more screenshots of the highway . . .



. . . and the tunnel. I used the tunnel segments from Utah for this one, just to realize that they don't exactly match . So I had to improvise and connected the two mismatching pieces using mesh road. I covered this mess by creating a construction site around it.
I think it turned out quite well

 

A few road impressions:




Only the last picture shows a road with the surrounding landscape in an almost finished state. The rest is still very WIP.

 

I'm not sure I'd want to live someplace that snowy, but boy is it beautiful! You're doing a great job with the landscape.

 

Dangerous Situation . . .



And a beautiful lake. Great for a small boat tour . . . Can you spot the boat?

 

Looking good 'MegaKnight'....liking the ground plane and vegetation showing through and not completely covered with Snow, take your time for a detailed and quality Map

 

cant wait until its released

 

looking very good!
did you make those snowy trees?
i am curious to see how the different snow groundmodels come out!

 

Look's pretty good!

 

Thank you
The tree models are from Automation Test Track. I only changed base color and roughness.

 

Jump Spots



When you jump off the ramp, a custom lua script gets triggered, changes camera position, enters slow motion and calculates your jump distance. Similar to drift spots, jump spots are available from Freeroam, no loading screens required. Your highscore is saved between sessions, so you can continue right where you lift off.
The distance calculation could be a bit more accurate, but I think it's good enough.


Had to record on low settings, cause my graphics card is kinda bad

 

Looks awsome, and it is a winter map, nice, we need more of them.

 

I feel like this map would go great with some train tracks going around near the perimeter of the map or possibly crossing through some roads in the inner parts of the map.

 

Sorry, but I won't add train tracks. That's not really something I want to work on.

Some more screenshots:

 

dang, alrighty then, as long as the map's scenery is extraordinarily beautiful to drive around on.

 

wow looks beautifull, where did you get the rubber boat from.

 

https://www.beamng.com/threads/rescue-boat.91276/

 

Good news!

I figured out how to code dynamic road conditions. You will be able to switch between normal and icy road conditions by entering a trigger (or using a console command). The state is saved between sessions.

The only downside is that a level reload is required for this to work. This reload will happen automatically, so you only have to enter the trigger. Everything else is done by the lua code. I haven't found a different solution without reload yet, but I don't think it's possible (I probably won't search further anyway, as I'm happy with the result). No level reload required!

I know there already is a feature to change the behaviour of an object's material in Car_Killer's level controller, but the roads on this map aren't 3D objects. They're part of the terrain block and use terrain materials instead. So I think Car_Killer's approach wouldn't work. Either way, it was way more fun to code it myself - and I learned a lot doing so



For those of you interested in the technical details, here's the main part of the code:

Spoiler: Code

Code:

-- weather and road condition table
local dynValues = {snowDecals = false, icyRoads = false, snowyWeather = false} -- standard values

local function toggleGroundmodel()

    -- get terrain block (theTerrain is name of terrainblock, could be different for other levels)
    local terrainBlock = scenetree.theTerrain
    if not terrainBlock then
        displayErrorMsg("Terrainblock Not Found!")
    return end
    
    local ms = ""
    
    -- go through all materials
    for index = 0, (terrainBlock:getMaterialCount() - 1) do
        local mtl = terrainBlock:getMaterial(index)
        local gmName = mtl.groundmodelName
        -- check for asphalt groundmodels
        if gmName == "ASPHALT" or gmName == "ASPHALT_ICY" then
            
            -- change to opposite
            if dynValues.icyRoads then -- when roads are slippery
                gmName = "ASPHALT"
                ms = "ice molten, normal roads"
            else -- when roads are normal
                gmName = "ASPHALT_ICY"
                ms = "roads are now slippery"
            end
            
            -- apply new groundmodel
            mtl.groundmodelName = gmName
        end
    end

    -- change value in table
    dynValues.icyRoads = not dynValues.icyRoads

    -- reload collision to apply changes
    be:reloadCollision()

    -- display message
    guihooks.trigger('toastrMsg', {type = "success", title = "Road Condition Changed!", msg = ms, config = {timeOut = 5000}})
end

Please credit me if you reuse this code for your map.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions or need help to adapt this code to your level.

---

I just added some snow decal roads. Now the map is really coming together
They are toggled at the same time as the road condition. You will be able to control them seperatly from the road condition using a console command, in case you want to have snowy roads without them being slippery.

 

This looks awsome, great textures on the winter roads.