WIP Beta released The Tennessee USA Roane County 0.71 Beta Discussion/Suggestion/feedback Thread 19.3.1

If you do the thing with the AI, your car will drive itself there. Another option is to press F8, fly around until you find somewhere interesting, and then press F7 to spawn your car.

It'll probably get damaged crashing to the ground, but that's okay. Just set your spawn there voila!

 

Just want to let everyone know, I've got Airport Rd from Harriman downtown to where it used to end at the airport runway plotted out, but not finished or even graded yet. This is a moderate-speed rural two-lane road, which somewhat reminds me of one of the tracks in NFS II (the one from the late 90s). The windy mountain one. Maybe it was NFS III not sure... its been too long.
A few of the roads directly infront of the fossil plant are in, with train tracks installed infront of it also.
Well anyways, now you can run a train directly from the Fossil Power Plant (the crude, ugly model that it is currently), all the way to the west side of the Roane St railroad overpass by the Route 40/ Roane St. junction.
The railroad bridge, just north of route 40, that crosses Roane Street (South Roane, i think), next to the highway/Mcdonalds is in now too.
Red girders and all, as close within reason and game-limits as I could engineer it to be.
I guestimate 7~8 miles here. I've run the train down it. There's one or two game-y spots where you can derail it easier than you should normally be able to, but that's down from 20~something spots! I think I've found a knack to it. Place the track as optimal as possible, and when you go-back and reload, keep fiddling with it and re-loading until it WORKS. Rinse and Repeat. Each time it gets a little better. Quite fun mashing up cars at the (un)level-crossings, also. There's quite a jump on Pine Ridge Rd if you're going down-hill on the four-lane. The tractor-trailer won't get hung up on the crossing, nor will the Blue-Bird School bus.
Current object use is 2700/4096. I would imagine by the time I get most of the roads laid out, it'll easily be 3000~3200 or so. Buildings and trees DON'T count toward this total, though. Railroad track chunks, however, do. I couldn't put it in the forest without collision getting goofy. Game ram use is currently at 4~5gb during normal (and busy) gameplay with multiple vehicles in creating large crashes with the train, bus, truck etc.
There's a certain something special - in someone else's words here - in being able to drive through an actual real place (well atleast as close as I or Beamng.drive can make it to real!).

I will have to leave about 64 units FREE from the 4096 item limit so that users can add vehicles, etc, and future-proofing so that we don't hit object limits in the future when computers can run MANY cars.
Just one picture in-game, because I launched it without using the Steam launcher so my pic-takerer was down for this session.
My compliments to @chris_lucas for his awesome train. It's rather fun to mill about with in a 'real' map. I got it up to about 63~64 mph!

For those wishing to look up a map on this place, google ROCKWOOD TENNESSEE USA, it's near the center of this map. The map goes out for 6 miles in each direction from just a stone's throw east of Rockwood - 12miles North-south by 12 miles east-west, 144 square miles total.
Embedded the google map screenshot - it shows only the major roads. The starting point is at the major intersection SW of the word KINGSTON on the right-side of the picture.

 

Cool part about this map is that you can literally use google maps to direct yourself around this map. But i can cheat because i live here haha. Know pretty much every road on this map. Anyways, fantastic work still bob. But yeah just got to google maps and search for kingston tn. Would love to see the navigation accessory to work in game. I would imagine it wouldnt be that hard to get the script the ai drives to a location and make that a highlighted route .. Then again i would have no clue where to begin. Cool idea none the less.

 

Well you can already give it a route to go to, they're named (most of them anyways). Though only the very ENDS of the highway are named. So if you're up in the top-west end of the map where there isn't a lot, near the west edge where route 40 stops, and you tell it to go to 40 east-map-edge you'll have a chase down the highway. Similarly, if you're in Rockwood or Harriman or even Westel, and you tell the AI to goto any of the roads around MIDWAY or Decatur, it'll give you a good chase scenario. They'll mostly all be named by the time this is done.
Though I wouldn't know where to start with the AI highlighting it's route, certain settings show you the nodes it's picking on the AI control app. The script extender here might be of some help.

 

Airport road is *DONE* (the part that is PINE ORCHARD rd where it bridges the Emory river, part of it is off the edge of the map, so it is bypassed with a dirt trail, as it's only a 1~2 mile section or so). This situation may change later, or might not. The path is fun. So is slamming the water overlaying the river portion of the path (you can make it!), most times the ETK boats right over it
J-Lon Foust Hwy is in (that's the Old Harriman Highway for locals). It's completed all the way from Harriman downtown, to Wendel's Market where the path lets out (since the west-side of the pine-orchard bridge would have been just at the N edge of the map).
This path I've been mentioning, is quite fun, but moreover lets you complete the journey from Airport Rd to Harriman.
It's pretty smooth, not glass smooth EVERYWHERE, but realistically smooth enough to zip down with a bit of due diligence.

This adds 14.2 miles of roadway to the map. That's including the 1~2 miles of dirt path. That's bringing the grand total to somewhere in the neighborhood of 134.x miles total roadway so far. That's a LOT of road. It's taken me a good 10 hours or so, just to do this section of 14.x miles! MOAR miles than So-cal!
A few pics below. Very very plain-looking as there's almost no trees yet, as this was a remote edge of the map (in the northwest corner) that was unused until now. They also block the view so it's good to get the pictures in now. All roads are faithful to their real-life counter-parts, except the dirt trail, which I added. I had to improvise, it was either move the road, or add the path. I chose to add the path for variety, as it keeps things interesting as challenging. I have raised the edge of the map where the road/player is near to it, as otherwise it looks rather unsightly without it. Trees will help block the view here. The idea is not to so-much break the illusion by seeing the map-edge. I have something special in the works for the area by the water-crossing/map-edge. I won't reveal what it is until I know I can get it to work.

 

Lookin' pretty good Bob, love all the progress. Keep it up, the amount of time and effort you are dedicating into this map is unreal man, more effort than what I'm able to put into things.

 

Hi, I've found a collision mesh error. Information below:

Screenshot of issue:


Note that there is an invisible bump there.

Position of issue:


Note the Position information of the thePlayer object on the right.

 

Okay, yes it's coming from the little 'bump' of stone-colored ground right there behind the car. Try to stay off the shoulder there. It's due to the large-scale of the terrain, as when it gets this large, sharp changes in the terrain can be more widespread than they might look. I will touch up that area of the highway during my next editing session and make sure it's flat/smooth as it needs to be. Use caution around any high-banked terrain next to roads, sometimes getting within ~6 to 9 feet of it is enough to hit invisible terrain barriers. I know it sounds bad, but it's generally not affecting play for the most part, the parts that do I usually find first (I found most of them). It's usually near the bottom of steep hills*, and the top edges of steep banks with roads on-top**. I usually put invisible meshes there to 'smooth' it out but some aren't in yet due to future object count limits I might hit. Saving it for last. Like I said, if you stay off the shoulders, you'll most likely not hit anything. Keep this in mind. That spot is also near Pine Ridge interchange, on the high side of it (westbound 40), but thank-you for reporting this. I will fix this for the next upload date. If it somehow is still a problem, feel free to chime-in and appropriately chastise me for it :x
Reporting of bugs helps make this a better map for everyone.

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Sometime this week I might put up a new beta towards the end of the week. You'll be able to run the train for a good half-dozen miles. Good for train crashes involving cars stuck on crossings!


*Embankment walls can be sloped in here to help with buggy terrain collisions near the bottom of steep hills. They should realistically be in, anyways.
**Guide-rails will help keep players away from dodgy ledge collision areas. I can't fix every single one but I can get the majority of them.
This is due to how the BEAM game engine does collision. a 4k x 4k terrain will actually have about 2k x 2k collision points, where the points between are a moderation of the points around them. So yeah, basically, the collision of the terrain is half as precise as it looks are. So, while this isn't a problem with terrain squares the size of a tire, it does become an issue when they're 4 or 5 times that size. This is however little issue in general if you get past the 'looks' and possible playability issues if you know how to work with it/work around it and the map doesn't generally 'need' anything higher sans occasional cosmetics.

When the game supports higher terrain precision in the future (if), I will surely be itching to put it in and update this map. This map will take at-least another good month or two to finish, at ANY rate. Thanks for sticking with me here!

Also, just so that you all know: When the new version is uploaded, this will not only be the BIGGEST map in Beam ever made to decent completion/drivability, it will also have the most smoothed-road-mileage! It has surpassed So-Cal's most recent (albeit slightly hidden) version 7 as of yesterday/the day before. I still plan on adding another 10~11 miles of road in before the next major update - and that doesn't even do all the dozens of miles of streets that make up Rockwood or Harriman yet.

 

I now feel a little bit stupid but how do i install it?

 

Please don't feel stupid, this is just a non-standard mod right now, due to size I've used non-game-friendly zipping methods. I have since slimmed down the next version just a hair. Hopefully it's easier next time. My internet absolutely is terrible here and even the Flintstones would have scoffed at it & instead been out back smoking Winston Cigs and cooking dino-burgers.
Download the linked file in the 1st post, and the forest-patch if you have less than 8gb of ram. If you have 8gb or more of RAM in your system, don't worry about needing the forest file.
You will need 7Zip for this. You can get 7zip from searching on http://www.7-zip.org/ for 7zip.
It usually installs to the start menu but open it should link the files up for you*.
Open up the 7z zip when it's downloaded until you see the SouthernHighway folder (that's the code-name for this map).
Now open up a NEW window in your PC's file-browser and goto MyDocuments folder in your pc (it should be easy to find this). Goto Beamng.drive folder in Mydocuments. Now open up the LEVELS folder (if it's not there, make it, and I do not want you to confuse this with /mods/levels, which is a different folder).

When you have both the 7Z file you downloaded from here open to SouthernHighway folder name on screen, and the other window is open to \MyDocuments\BeamNG.drive\levels, drag the SouthernHighway folder over to the LEVELS folder (from the 7z file to the levels folder, which this levels may be empty unlike mods/levels).

When you're finished with the lengthy (or not) copy process and 1gb of files is copied over, there should be a SouthernHighway folder in your /levels folder.

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IF you did NOT opt to download the forest file (reduced-forest for lower-end RAM and/or video card configs), skip this!
*OPTIONAL* If you wish to install the forest file, open the zip with the forest file, until you can see the file. Goto that SouthernHighway folder you extracted in LEVELS folder and go in it. You should see SouthernHighway.forest here next to SouthernHighway.mis (this is the mission file). Drag the extra download reduced-forest file over to the southernhighway folder.

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*If 7zip fails to open 7zip files on it's own from the file browser, and you have to browse to a program to open it with, link it to 7zFM.exe in the programfiles\7zip (depending on the program version you download it could be in programfiles(x86)\7zip.

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In a nutshell (if the above is too complicated - or SEE THE PIC)
Get the 7z file downloaded, and open it up until the folder SouthernHighway is on the screen.
(new window!) Open up mydocuments\beamng.drive\levels folder (there may be nothing in here, this is not mods\levels)
Drag SOUTHERNHIGHWAY FOLDER over to \levels folder in other window.
*Optionally drop the .forest file inside the optional reduced-forest zip into the SOUTHERNHIGHWAY folder - it will prompt you to overwrite - do this.

You can throw away the downloaded 450mb 7z file at this point you will no longer need it, and can download it again later, if you are short on space. There's always a new version once or twice a month with this map until it's done anyways.
If you have 8gb of ram and do not use the reduced-forest-file patch or don't know how to apply it, close your web browser, media player, or other applications (can leave virus scanner open) that are unneeded. Don't close out your controller or steering wheel support applications though.

 

thanks alot for the instruction! now it works cant wait to test it

 

No problem buddy. Don't worry about feeling stupid, a year or year and some months ago, I did not even know how to install maps (manually for this game) either. We all must learn somewhere.

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On a side note, I've managed to decorate the 14.x miles of Airport Rd/Old Harriman Hwy, with trees/grass etc.
There's no homes here yet. There will be one day. One day! I kept the flight-path clear for those that DO decide to use the runway. Thinking of making a destruction derby arena and small track with some unused space in the map.
Having a blast on this trail I made that I mentioned in one of the above posts - will definitely have more of these!

Fixed - flickering texture on the highway (not reported, was not in last release)
Fixed - floating grass meshes and trees in Kingston on the hill by the church (reported, fixed, thanks)
Fixed - roadside mount of dirt causing an invisible bump in the highway shoulder on 40 west just past Pine Ridge Rd (reported, fixed, thanks).

 

Entirely just spent 8~10 hours working on just N. Roane Street (the main street) in downtown Harriman. All the sidewalks are in on the main street, from one end of the town to the other...
all the roads are properly laned, streetside parking is in, crosswalks too (create parking gfx and crosswalk gfx)...
got all the stop-bars down too so it's ready for traffic lights when I put them in (maybe tomorrow?)
AI should stay in lane here, too, so if you want to make nice left-turn vs oncoming crashes, that'll be good for it.
Getting a few of the buildings placed on main street, most likely will finish the rest tomorrow.
I can't possibly do anymore tonight, my brain's coming apart at the beams... err I mean seams. Yeah.
So onto the pictures already! We all like stuff with lots of pictures, right... heh - YES!
The two pictures taken in the editor (with the red and green 'routes') show the AI paths. Like how in Nevada interstate's highway, and on the highway portions of THIS map, the AI stays in lane, more of the same, for realism.

 

More progress on Harriman, got the side of town north of the main road laid out, the south side i'll be getting to soon enough. Going to spend a few hours populating it with buildings and shrubbery.
Spent some more time on main street. Also laid down a good mile or so of railroad track here. Would like to get the mile of track or so missing between Harriman downtown and route 40/S Roane St railroad overpass finished up for train use before I upload. Looks like another two nights before a beta update.
So for those interested, there is a canopener 13' bridge on one of the side streets with the railroad overpass, heh.
A few good jumps to be had with the rail crossings, including where I placed jumps as the railroad track bridge was removed here IRL. Testing proved the area quite fun, can't wait to populate it.
to be done before the beta update:
Rocks @ the trail I mentioned putting in the other day
More building population in Downtown Harriman, and traffic lights
One mile or so of rail line (might get it done yet).

 

You have gotten to the max of my own RAM with 16b, I feel like you went too far now. So now Im gonna use old version

 

So i have 8 gigs of ram on my gaming laptop, and a i3 with hd4000 graphics. Will my laptop run this, or will i have to use my brothers. His has a nvidia gtx 960, a 6 core prossesor, but only 4 gigs of ram

 

Have you tried the alternate forest file? It significantly improved performance on my beast of a computer with very little visual expense and drastically lowered the RAM consumption.
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Yours would be more likely to succeed than your brother's given the RAM predicament. What matters more than the number of cores is the Ghz (speed) of the processor. A 3ghz dual core will often outperform a 1.5 ghz quad core in many processor intensive games because most games aren't optimized to make full use of all of the cores.

Use the alternate forest file in the OP and lower your graphical settings all the way before attempting to load.

It is a truly massive map, so I would recommend running HWMonitor (google it) so you can monitor your temperatures.

The problem with extensive gaming on a laptop is heat generation and dispersal, so you will want to use a cooling pad most likely as well.

Honestly, I would recommend you begin saving up for a basic gaming desktop build in the long run.

https://pcpartpicker.com/ has loads of build lists and you could build something very capable for as low as $650-700

 

I will use the forest file

 

Absolutely no way you'll run this with 4gb of ram. Not going to happen.
you need an 8gb system to make that happen, AT LEAST that.

To get to Beamng.drive's hidden DX9 renderer, use the steps below in BOLD EACH TIME YOU RUN BEAM! Underlined important stuff!
Video can be cured by running Beam in a WINDOW and doing the following:
First pick a car you'll want to drive, like a Pessima or a Moonhawk or whatever your choice is (square Grand Marshall gets a mention!). Now you don't have to wait later a few minutes if the UI is screwing off after you close the editor (random!).
Enter the editor once the map is loaded by pressing F11, and waiting for it to load for a few (10~15 seconds, or two seconds on a fast system).
Choose LIGHTING from the menu bar and select BASIC LIGHTING, it now has to reload all the resources, give it about a minute or two (wait a bit).
The editor may now be closed with F11, wait a moment for the game to become response again, and the UI may not work for a few minutes following this (it's a bug, I've been talking to the devs about it!), it does come back eventually. Picked a car before hand so you don't have to wait for it now.
Now drive around a bit and enjoy, it SHOULD be smoother, but you lose shadows, reflections/mirrors, smooth water edges (dx10+), and other things, i think this is the hidden legacy DX9 mode. Just make sure you knock your texture and object detail to LOW and also lower FACES PER UPDATE.

This is a huge map, you must have atleast the recommended BEAM specs to run this map. The steps above help only with video requirements being too high for your system. This obviously is less helpful because of the trees, but I've chose to update to the version with lesser trees so that more users can run it and give feedback until it's done.

I've gotten CARMAGEDDON to run on my integrated intel 4000 gfx with everything on low, 1366x720 or whatever resolution it was, and IT RAN 25~40fps on 2400mhz dual channel DDR3 system memory (helps with FPS using integrated). This runs about the same as that one for example purposes only, cpu requirements of Beam physics left out for the sake of video-performance argument.

Using HIGH on video settings on So-Cal update 7, and THIS map requires at the very least 2gb of video ram (which you'll max out).
1080p requires a GDDR5 equipped card for medium detail and above. Even a lowly 2gb-equipped R7 265 does the trick here, i should know, I've had mine for over three years. Since it doesn't scream like a dying rat (reference Nvidia cards I look angrily at you!), or make lots of fan noise, or go much over 70C, I've kept it all this time refusing to upgrade. I get 35~50fps on Tennessee AVG, Sometimes more, at 1080p, high detail (it is overclocked from 860mhz core to 1050).
You can run this game on intel video, it isn't officially supported, just lower your resolution as low as you can stand, and portion atleast 0.5~1gb of video memory to it (look around in bios) and you should be good to go. Use the DX9 mode like I explained above.
You'll have to set this mode everytime you run my map, but if it means you can run it, well 'game on'.

@NewoFox , thanks for your information and contribution while I was out. Haven't been feeling too great but still finding some time to work on the map.

 

you add updates here in next posts or you change the link in initial post?