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

All those annoying little charms...
Yeah, so two things that were irking me were fixed today.
Decorated the airport enough that it's not annoying me anymore.

That's most likely all it will be until much much later on if/when I get more airport models. I used ones from JRI.


That odd slope, when you head westbound on US 40 and go up the mountain (After Harriman/Rockwood's Roane St exit, almost all the way to Airport Road), where the highway leveled out a bit then went up a 10% grade for a few hundred feet and leveled out again before the turn that goes under Airport Road bridge, that is now a smooth grade. I don't know why it was so strange before, I guess I never re-leveled it. Blame it on the mapper. Now it's proper (every time I went through it was so out of place, it broke my immersion).


Yes the square grass is annoying, it will be dealt with in due time. Keep in mind I could spend a week just fixing the square grass here!
This may wait until tiled terrain support to be fixed.


Shopping Center created. Takes up a full block and has two businesses. This isn't 100% like it is in real life but it is loosely based on it.




Introducing Country Clobbered Buffet. ...and of-course the Dollar Demerit (both business get their own buildings now).
I have some residential to fit in and only one or two more commercial properties to create & dress up nicely to fit with the rest of the lot's detail, and the main route will be done (again, by contrast, homes take a lot less time).
For perspective:

 

I,m so stupid. I read the this page and thought the map was updated... I downloaded it twice to make sure that it was not a glitch, then realized that you haven't uploaded the changes. They look awesome though. I'm looking forward to having a functioning airport!
I've also made some delivery progress!

or maybe not... rip piano material

 

Putting a name to the face.
A disparaging name, at that. This is always the most fun part
Introducing:
Ball-buster Video

I HOPE "International Hell of Pancakes" ... more to this screenshot than just the sign.

That shopping plaza gets a name, wonder where this idea came from!

Since trademark infringement is a nasty thing, this one shows up

A generous nod (and thanks!) to Occam's Razer, and of-course, next-door is Hoon's Auto

The Cleaners. The Dry Cleaners.

The Despicable Insurance Agency

Mrs. Desk's Orifice Furniture

Mostly my thoughts on modern cars

Pasta Purgatory (can you tell I don't care much for pasta?)

That last one is right at the starting point, too.

There will be more of this.
--- Post updated ---
3 new homes that are right near the Rockwood Burger World (the one that I just built two weeks ago, not the Burger World that's in the public release version in Kingston - where you can choose to start).

 

Since you've been providing some really good tips on how to build a level of this sort, you probably already know whats in this article, or have even read it but here it is anyway:

https://medium.com/@EightyLevel/building-urban-playgrounds-for-video-games-c83fe1d68689

 

It's all good, I am considering still uploading 'whatever I have done' within a week or such. Glad your having fun with what's there.

---

There's been so much added, even though over-all it's so little compared to just how 'big' the map is. I've scripted in about 80 new models thus far in the last week to 10 days alone. They're re-textures of existing models, but they still look fresh, have collision, and don't cause issue (and don't raise the RAM requirement even more than it already is - 5gb on load currently, for the game itself, UI not included).

I will have pictures up later and will amend this post (vs making another one, unless people respond in the mean-time).
I am getting a version together to get out to beta-testers by the start of the weekend. The main route through Rockwood (and both sides meaning also the back, of each block, sans maybe the back of one block or two), is done.

For all those that had a bone to pick with me about the detail, this is your cake
Yes, this has been my intention all along, but I had a lot to learn on the way.
These models I am scripting in for this map will help fill my next map (a city map - a remake of Generic city, the Leading-Brand city!) when I am far enough along on this (if we don't get tiled terrain in time).

The square-grasses along the highways / rural roads in the middle of no-where won't likely be changed until we get tiled terrain support, due to the forest brush side would require 16~24gb of RAM... and few people have more than 16gb.

For those who don't like the RAM requirement of 5~6gb, it hasn't gone up that much, just a fraction, like 10~15% since I've been working this much detail into the map, and the FPS has stayed decent, though obvious the detail will make things CHUG a bit more for those people with Potato-brand GPU's.

I don't believe that i've managed to really go much over 1.8gb uncompressed, and the last version was 1.72gb uncompressed, so it won't be super-duper huge as far as space is concerned.
Loading time hasn't really been changed much at all, maybe a second or three more.
Again, pics will be added later.
--- Post updated ---

I love to read, so it will be read. I have played quite a bit of driving games over the last 20~25 years I've had a PC, since Road & Track's NFS 1 and personally loved games like Top Gear (series) on SNES (it was TOP RACER in Europe to set it apart from the TV show).

---

Okay the good part, the pictures, only a few this time, but just some odds & ends where I was finishing up so the main route can be used for crash (re)creation.
Some 1980s~1990s homes. (these are re-skinned models)


A church! With administrative building. These are model re-skins.

Another 1980s home, pretty typical (re-skinned model)


That is all. I might have some more when i re-boot to test the AI fixes (it was atrocious).

 

Wow, i'm impressed by all the improvments to this map, well done !

 

#pianolivesmatter

 

I love to read, so it will be read. I have played quite a bit of driving games over the last 20~25 years I've had a PC,

Well thank-you, it's taken a lot of time (and a lot of RAM), but it's been a labor of love, so to speak (much like your Oldsmobile).

I don't think anyone realized that I could pull this off and actually make it look decent, but with a few custom bits and pieces, for doing what the ground cannot (when stretched so big), it's actually been mostly a pleasure to work with such a big canvas to make what I always dreamed of making. So much for just making 'a large, open-world concept for Beamng.drive' as a test never to be finished.

It may just very well see completion. Especially considering all these models will be re-used for my city map (which will be very easy considering I can just port them over then).

---

I have the map out for *PRIVATE* beta-testing requiring 5.45gb + 330mb UI space in RAM (almost 6gb) on highest settings, 1.1gb less on lowest. It should be on the repo in a few days to a week unless work is needed.
Playing this on lowest to test, is hilarious. Looks like I created it for midtown madness.

ERRATA:
I don't have Rockwood completed, this is merely a sampler of the level of 'finished' detail to expect. Mostly only the main route through town is done thus-far. It's taking longer than planned but coming out MUCH better than planned.
I have only done but a few blocks in Harriman downtown between the train track and the main route through town.
I have created and completed two super-centers. Spendalot, and Sprawl-mart.
I have not even touched Kingston at all, it still sits half-done.
The airport isn't that much better, I just added some grass trimming to smooth the edges, and 1 control tower/4 hangars.
Most all of the same bugs and glitches are still present, be aware.
Models in the forest brush such as filler-walls and shops alternate models are not done yet.

Testing testing testing and moar testing...

It's pretty decent on Medium, everyone should be able to run it, and doesn't look nearly as 1990s bad as LOWEST settings does. At-least this doesn't look as bad as the first or second TEST DRIVE games.

 

Just want to say, when you spawn in the burger town my fps drops from 130 to 50. Are there any high res textures making me get these frame rates?

 

This is my favorite map so far I cant wait till you update it more its very fun to play on and has almost everything

 

Yes there are some very large (including one 8k) textures in this town of Kingston where (the current) Burger World is.
To help on the GPU side of things, turn reflections down almost all the way. Unless you have a GTX 980, or GTX 1070 or better, chances are it might lag a little. Remember this map is HUGE and it's not entirely optimized (yet!).
To help if you have an older CPU, turn down or disable SHADOWS.
To help if you're hitting the RAM limit, consider running this on MEDIUM graphics settings with no reflections, or LOW or LOWEST if you have a really rubbish GPU or are hitting the RAM limit. Symptoms of RAM limits are 0xFFFFFFFF crash to desktop and the last page or so of the beamng.log (in mydocuments\beamng.drive folder) will say 'couldn't allocate x.xxMB block of memory'.
If you can't resolve this or get better performance, try the following:

What is your system configuration at the moment?

Please include the following:
CPU model and speed (how many cores etc)
Does your CPU use the STOCK cooler?
RAM type and speed ("16GB DDR3 Dual Channel" is even fine here)
Video card model and VRAM (Amount, in gigabytes, of memory on the video card itself)
Did you build the computer yourself or is it a pre-built major-brand or a pre-built "purpose-built" gaming machine that someone else built (you purchased it pre-assembled).
Let me know (or take a picture of, with ALT+O) your settings for Graphics.

For this map I recommend a recent/decent video card, most modest gaming-oriented cards from the last 2~3 years should do this map on medium detail at 1080p without reflections. REFLECTIONS ENABLED CUT FPS IN HALF (or WORSE) IN TOWN. You don't need them that badly!
An RX 480 4gb or 8gb will even struggle a bit with maxed details/reflections deep in downtown Harriman. This map will use up to 4gb of video RAM on it's highest settings. You could possibly be exceeding this! Max VRAM use on one of my piano-clobbering mis-adventures was 4099mb, it could be even more now but only by a measly few MB.

I will work more optimization into the map, at a later date. Right now I am just concentrating on getting everything fleshed out nicely.
In the future maybe I can bury some more occluders in things (they hide what's behind them and invisible to the player from being rendered wastefully and improve FPS).

---

I have a private beta available for those that do youtube reviews & car-crash compilations.
I'd say somewhere around a week to 10 days from now I should have a new version available to download on the repository.
Was going to release what I have on my online backup right now but for the moment I cannot do that as I found a few floating grasses/trees etc that would look unsightly, and wish to do a little more filling-in before I put this out.

 

Beta tester for the new version here, any of you like me who have 8gb of RAM should be able to run it, as long as you have a decent/higher-end video card. With an AMD FX-6300, a GTX 970, and 8gb of RAM, I was able to run the map at an average of 30 FPS, with high settings and a nav unit. I could probably get higher FPS if I turned down the settings and removed some apps from my UI. Make sure to turn off anything running in the background as well.

Happy crashing.

 

I mean i dont do YT vids that often and probably wont for a while but im up for beta-testing if needed and wanted. Never had fps issues other than in downtown where it drops to ~20-25, running on high/custom settings + homebrewed reshade.

 

Okay well it will be a few days to a week here, I originally wanted to send out more copies of what I have, but I am doing a few more blocks and final touches to things as I'd rather not have obvious glaring errors ( this happens with such a large map, you're bound to miss SOMETHING ) - So look for something coming out by next weekend hopefully.

No promises, no gauruntees, however, if you totally can't wait and you're just dying to get your hands on something, I might just be able to arrange that, if so send a private message and I will fetch you a link.

I officially despise this spell checker. The red squiggles can kiss my rear.

At this point I believe I will try to do the normal-maps on things like road surfaces etc (this is why I had issues with the black pavement textures not always matching from some angles, white lines appearing dark in places, etc).
--- Post updated ---
And now for something completely different...

Normal maps, and why my roads in Roane County don't always look 'normal' ...
Well, I had to sit down and learn some of this stuff, and Tail of The Dragon (which is currently a features map-mod, rightfully so, as I went all-out on this mess this time around) was used as a test-pilot project for some other things. All worked quite well, as this was a test for my normal-mapping skills.

With the values below, you can get normal maps with the 'normal map plugin' for GIMP 2.0, also linked below.



DING-DING-DING! For those wanting me to share, I shall.
Using the GIMP normal map plugin, values as listed:
Filter 9x9
minimum Z = 0
Scale 10.0
don't change height source
don't change alpha channel
none
none

Wrap (check)
Invert X (check)
Invert Y (check)
No swapping of RGB

Looks pretty much as good as Beamng developers would do!

Here is a link-back (safe for work, link takes you off the forums, so 'open-in-new-tab' if you will).
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/normalmap-and-dds-plug-ins-updated-for-gimp-2.8

This gives you the ability to import *AND* export dds (direct-draw-surface, fastest) textures.
This gives you the ability to make normal-maps for your textures. Paint.net cannot edit or save these normal maps properly.
Direct Draw Surface textures can natively work with the GPU, and offer the best speed-size-quality compromise for your map.

You should use BC3nm / DXT5nm when saving a normal map, and I don't believe you wish to use mip-maps on a normal map as that'd omit details oddly (folks can correct me on this, but the video card drivers and game-logic should do this where necessary).
Normally, for all my regular colormaps/diffuse textures, I make mip-maps where needed for these as it speeds up loading.

If you use DXT1 on your regular textures, you will get the black-lines look of my Nevada Interstate, where all the road decals have black outlines, like Sonic The Hedgehog, as DXT1 only supports binary alpha, meaning, transparent, or opaque, in other words, the blend of the roadway with the terrain will be a nice cleanly visible BLACK LINE. That's bad, mmm-kay?
DXT1 compression is fine for non-transparent textures like those that go on houses, for brick walls, or retaining walls, or bridge-surface textures (or anything else on the bridge that doesn't need translucency in parts or in whole).

An article describing this process is much more detailed then my quick lecture, but you can feel free to read up on it.
Safe-for-work, but do 'open-in-a-new-tab' here again, to keep on track here on this site, unless you're done.
http://docs.garagegames.com/torque-3d/official/content/documentation/Artist Guide/Formats/TextureCompression.html

Garage Games' site for Torque 3d applies to Beamng.drive as Torque 3d is the source game engine for Beamng.drive. A lot of things that apply to Torque, apply here. So when in doubt, if the details or tutorial for something isn't available on Beamng.drive itself, you may find this available for Torque 3d.
That is all.
--Cheers!

 

So the SPRAWL MART is looking a little better, got some of the rest of my models fixed up that I had blundered the first time around.



This whole building is just re-skinned ECA stuff Well except the front doors and signs, heh. I had to make those by hand.

Good enough!

Now to fix up the plethora of floating forest objects and trees I seem to have created - oops.

There's also some more completion off the side of the main route through Rockwood, and I think I am done messing with the normal maps for a bit (sans a few oddball ones here or there that bug me too much). Would like to upload this sometime soon so all can enjoy the new MORE GOODIES BUT LOWER FPS Tennessee.

 

Its amazing, and great that you put so much time and effort in your posts, it's actually a bit funny, to see just how much you averagely type.

 

Yeah I tend to gab on and on, but that's really 'the only way I know how to do it' is to speak as if I was sitting next to someone.
So I built a church, with a few separate buildings to it, a nice fancy parking area, it's pretty close to the real-deal except what the building exterior is made of.







The intersection nearest to the church:


A view from a pre-existing (to this update) intersection where Roane State Highway & Gateway Drive & Roane Street all meet.

Yes, the LOD's look like red/brown brick, but that doesn't matter much.

Got rid of most of the stupid floating trees. Have to take a ride around, surely I missed some yet.
Winding this up in the next day or two (after some texture normal normal-ing) and going to feed it to the moderators and see what they have to say. So in other words, within a week hopefully, everyone should have this in their hands.

--Cheers!

 

Did you accidentally Bob-Blunder those models?

 

YES YES and YES, hence my name... I do have my moments, where I fully earn it.

Yes I did entirely, they had an entry for BRICK_RED and I changed that, and not BRICK_BRN, that they use.
So I had 20 dupes of the same thing until I fixed the texture references. They're fully working now, though.

---

MAP PROGRESS. More absolutely monotonous grass placement. MILES of it.
So aside of that, re-drew some of the highway, so that the turns just east of the PINE RIDGE ROAD (Mid-Town exit), aren't so sharp.
Did all the grass-ing along the highway from the entire Pine Ridge Rd interchange on Rt 40 (picture below!), all the way east to the Kentucky St. bridge (Kingston exit, east-most exit). Did a section of Pine Ridge Rd also, where it's ends of the on/off ramps are.

Also did the entirety of Kentucky St. - again that's the main route through Kingston, where the 'Burger World spawn' is, and where the old default spawn was. So that is done from the north end of it at the highway interchange (and the whole interchange is done there too) ...

...all the way back to where the default spawn used to be at the intersection with the gas station. Looks a lot better!


This all in all, took about 6 hours. I even ate my dinner at the PC. I will make my end-of-the-month release date if it means I lose a few pounds from not eating.


The Samuel Rayburn Memorial Bridge (US 40 over Clinch River) signs up and fixed up that area a bit.

This is the part of where I re-did the highway, to make the turns easier, specifically the harsh turn before the bridge in the first picture.


As far as I've done is the 2nd picture here, but I've managed to surely improve this a lot with the grass not being so square.


A sign for the commercial area businesses, visible from the highway as they usually do.


Pine Ridge Rd. Not much difference, added some Do Not Enter signs for the exit ramps.


Square grass be gone! Needs some of those turn arrows on the left side, it will get them.


Overview. Where the highway goes out of sight in the background, is pretty much where the grass-ing is done up to, from the east (this is looking westward, for the most part).


I will keep working west until I get to about Roane Street (the road between Rockwood and Harriman), along the highway.
Then I will have this uploaded. I have two more nights of working on this (or at-least one more).
I will be clicking in more and more grass until my wrist stops working right.


*EDIT* Additional progress tonight is - doing all the grass from the Pine Ridge Rd interchange on route 40 to Roane St interchange (won't do the interchange yet, it's got to be banked/re-graded, it's terrible, but that might not make release, not sure).
*Hey another EDIT* Never-mind, I re-banked the interchange ramps at Roane Street... and everything - grass included - is done up to the Roane St Bridge (The Harriman/Rockwood exit where you go north or south respectively to either town).
So I am sure I will have to test my bank job out on the ramps... O well it's time to repaint the roof anyways!
*MORE EDIT!* Added variation texture to more of the highway, and fixed a bunch of upside-down one-way signs that infested the map. Finished off another 1/2 mile of Broadway of America (by the Spend-a-lot) with grass n' such. Fixed a few uneven highway bridges with patches. That works.
This work is wrapping up, I certainly don't have a full night of work even left on this yet.

Something else got done, yay!

--Will keep updated!

 

So I uploaded my file to back it up as always, my weekly doing (takes all night)...
I FINALLY MANAGED TO FIND THAT HUGE WARNING SIGN BUG, the one that made them 300 yards/meters tall.
They were usually found infesting bridges, and other things like barrier ends, etc.
Here, the forest brush importer from 0.8 ~ 0.9 managed to duplicate some things, not long after I had added these in. So when I added them in (and they were huge @ first), it didn't properly take the change on all 'dupes' of the same item.
So these things, saving into the forest brush, where they should have had a starting size modifier of 0.025, had a starting size of 1.0 .
This created signs that were to the name of 400 times too big. The forest brush index didn't save the size variable of some of them, but others were fine (that were finished being added in before the importer duped things).

So maybe I have this fixed now, working on this.