WIP Beta released A new *CITY* map - LOS INJURUS 2023-12-20

Another overpass in, got most all the privacy walls / noise barriers up, and obviously there's still quite a lot more to do. Still, I am mostly liking how this is coming along. Can't wait until I can plop some new buildings here. You might even be able to get some air time if you approach this closest bridge fast enough (the one over the 8-lane highway).

Don't worry folks, no Burger Worlds were harmed in the re-making of this freeway portion. The missing bridge on the right of the last shot, where there's a jump & excavator, will stay just as it is all through to map completion.
All those years of playing Simcity 4 (+ Rush Hour + Nam mod + Cam mod) all has paid off quite well. I'd rather do this, by about 100x, and it's much more interactive in-stead of just sitting there staring at the city. Now you can drive through it and crash and have AI etc, it's much more fun than just 'looking at' your city in Sim City. There will be a spawn point somewhere around here when I figure out a good enough spot to put it. I need to make more parking garage variations, too.
If you're wondering, yes the modular road kit & buildings that make up all the infrastructure (and other stuff) of this map is meant as a replacement for Simcity 4 + RH + NAM, and it satisfies that city builder itch quite wonderfully.
I was going to change the texture color on the main panels of the noise barriers from tan to the gray/off-white color the other parts are, but I am liking this color combo, so it may stay just the way it is.

 

This map just keeps getting better and better! I wish I had the foresight back in the day to take screenshots/recordings at various locations and do a progression video to show what's been added, updated, removed, etc. I might be able to pull something like off using my videos. Would be a fun project!

 

Well, I *MIGHT* still have some old versions of the map laying about on old cold backups; but you'd need older versions of the game if you used versions older than one year or so, as graphics formats have changed a few times in various ways (I don't think I have any versions older than 0.19 of the game just for the record).
However, in your noble cause, I must mention that there's a heck of a lot of screen shots on this thread detailing the whole map building process, pretty much block by block, mile by mile, texture by texture. Even the screen shots on the 1st post (or possibly even the resource page itself) might not be or are not current. I noticed the terrain is much darker on the 1st post than it appears currently in-game. With my slow internet, I don't usually put up more screenshots unless something wacky happens, or I do something really good during development and wish to post about it so that people know I (and the map) am still alive here.
SO MUCH has changed. Anywhere you look short of a few blocks near the default spawn has pretty much changed night and day (with the exception of a few lots on that avenue such as the starting lot under the bridge, the burger world, long dong silvers, blood-bath and beyond etc). I did re-do some stuff near the starting area that I thought could be improved enough to make time spent worth it. Sure I could improve anything in the map if I dump enough time into it, but I must gauge if it is worth the time invested, or if the time is better invested somewhere else such as making new city blocks in-stead of perpetually pestering the existing city blocks.
The city sections that are near the default spawn will be updated somewhat a few months from now. I have to update the original ranch houses (and a few 2-story models) to better respect draw call limitations and make the LOD's better (fps boost but not much), and freshen up the roadways with a lot more detail, but that's not front-and-center currently. I am awaiting getting more city built and more things finished around the main lake in the middle of the map.
While I don't think I can quite match GTA V (except sometimes on road detail and the fact that unlike GTA V my roads & corners aren't flat!), I can still make it almost as much fun as far as driving and exploration is concerned. It will have a story / mission system one day, that will allow the player to do things with reason, and possibly get access to more things or places in the map... but that's a ways off (not in the next 6~9 months that's for sure!).
So, thank-you for writing in. I love your coverage of the map, and I wish you the best over there in your daily duties wherever life may take you bud. That said, there's so much more to come in Los Injurus. I have basically just scratched the surface.

 

My computer is feeling a bit under the weather, I think I worked it (BeamNG'ed it) to death.
That's okay, I'll be back in full operation by Monday (I can still use it but it's been acting funky for the last week or so, and sometimes randomly crashing stuff).
I have already found the problem, I just have to have the energy and time to fix it (I have a part I can use until I procure a new specimen next week, or whenever I have some time).
Ended up spending most of my work time in the yard today, so it doesn't look like a scene from Fallout so much anymore It REALLY needs a few days worth of love, it's gotten pretty bad, and the vines almost took over one of the entire 4-foot square hvac units (we have two commercial duty ones on this house, one at each end). I mean HVAC units aren't exactly pretty, they're utilitarian at best, but having it overgrown with vines wasn't good for the thing at all. Got chased by more BEES today. Darn BEES. Imagine me running across the yard as fast as I could go (pretty darn fast for a disabled person), yelling "BEEEEEEEES!!!" I'd rather be editing my map honestly, there's no BEES in there - that's one feature Los Injurus will NOT have for the time being. Bad Mr. Stingy!

I will be less vague when the issue is fixed.

Next supporter beta will be a sometime around the first week of August. I have too many loose ends for a release yet (read: construction stuff everywhere, scenes unfinished, roads without striping) so I need to tie up all those first, then I can put out a quality product with fun immersive environments and good AI routing too (I have even taught the developers a few AI routing tricks!).
There will be a few new / redone roads on the less-developed side of the lake, with solid AI, some new models/buildings mixed in with some of the other ones (I have to keep the GB size of the map down somehow). If the map gets too hard to run for some folks, I will consider reducing some texture sizes. BUT even if I do that, I'll always keep an 'alternate' version much alike to a HD TEXTURE option for those folks that wish to crash away their bad feelings of spending almost a grand on a video board (they're slowly getting cheaper).

Still can work on the map some, just saving progress a lot more frequently! That's okay if it is down for a day or two anyways, as I MUST do some real-life stuff around my house before it looks like it's condemned / abandoned / scene in Fallout...
No progress will be lost, multiple backups / mirrors have been made & maintained, as I do this weekly or bi-weekly.

Just keeping y'all in the loop here, just glad I finally figured out what was up with this thing - thought it was Windows being stupid again but it actually wasn't.

Feel free to post some building screenshots of what buildings you want in the map. The next time I do house models I will build some of the suggested houses from the supporters and followers of this thread/project. Right now I'm working with high-density medium-rise buildings and sky-scrapers. I like random suggestions for building architecture/style because it keeps good variety in the map.
One way roads will also be in the next release, and there will be LOTS of cross-sloped intersections that you can jump like the one by the abandoned mall (the ones where the natural slope of the road will send you FLYING at 60mph or above). Always loved those, and this side of town will be absolutely full of it. Screw the AAA game devs and their flat roads (looking @ you GTA 5), This is BEAMNG DRIVE and WE DESERVE BETTER!

During the month of August I will be working some more buildings into this area, and also working some more abandoned / derelict structures into the map over by the abandoned mall. That side of the map will get much more connected, and will feature an 11-foot-8 and an 11-foot-8-plus-8 rail overpass (yes both!) much like the one on youtube from North Carolina USA which should show up in the first-week-of-September release. Maybe then the developers can work better can-opener physics in for us on the trucks.

This is a whole city and a surrounding semi-urban and semi-rural county, WE CAN HAVE EVERYTHING IN IT! It just takes an exorbitantly long time, but time is something I have lots of, so that's OK here.

--That is all.

 

One thing I like about this game is creating my own private edits to existing content. I was cruising into the hills from the Franklin Douglas spawn point this morning and noticed a path that looked very climbable by an average 4x4, so I slapped a decal road on it. A few adjustments later, I had a dirt path that connected the ends of two undeveloped roads, then continued to the nearby highway. No terrain adjustments; just a route carved into the hillside by a weekend 4x4 enthusiast who didn't want to go around on the paved road.

 

Cool, I might add something like that in there. The paved roads will still go somewhere I will just add some dirt paths to access a few on-the-hill homes / hill-top homes, as that's totally alright for there (there's even a few in GTA V represented and also used one in the mission where you pull the house deck down and cause millions in damage, not too far into the game).
Great idea!

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I just came to stop by, that due to new features, it's soon time for me to upgrade my editing version of the game and move to editor 2.0. While this could cause a minor issue, I am doing this so that it will increase FPS, increase the immersion by having better textures, and over-all allow me to use the new features such as smart traffic lights and various other traffic / AI advanced features.
This also means that game versions below 0.23 will no longer be supported after the next supporter beta release. You can still run the next up-coming supporter beta on your choice of 0.20, 0.21, 0.22 or 0.23, but again after this next beta (in roughly a week, maybe a few days longer or possibly a day sooner) you won't be able to use the following versions a month from now on less than 0.23.
The main reason is to take advantage of PBR textures. I must have 100 of the things, most paid for that I had to convert to out specular-normal-diffuse/color map set-up which was not always done the best nor straight-forward. I was just kind-of winging it since the render engine was still obviously changing so much from version to version (also why I held off updating version for version for a while, then I don't need to do double work all the time, unless something was really broken such as the signs 6 months ago).
So yes, entirely, if you have older versions of the game, please make note of that.

It's looking like just past this next weekend (a week from now) or a day or two after I should be done with this beta and hopefully have it online by then.
After which come the graphic upgrades and me migrating from 0.20 editor 1.0 to 0.23 editor 2.0 (not really looking forward to editor 2.0, but new features are yay!).

Who uses old versions? I do for editing for consistency and not have unexpected things happen or discover new crashes that mess up my progress, and also youtube folks who have lots and lots of mods might 'capture' one version of the game to use to make videos on consistently without having to toy around with mod versioning or chasing crashes / conflicts etc.
Plus, if the game updates and you're in the middle of work-flow on your map, and then there's a problem; if you don't keep a backup of the old version of the game, you may be unable to load or unable to fix your map or vehicle project. I learned that lesson the hard way more times than I care to remember, much less go through AGAIN.

If someone asks a question over the next day or two, and doesn't get an answer from me on here that day, it might be because I have disassembled the computer due to a hardware failure issue. Know that it will only last a day or two tops - hopefully, unless it's something I didn't expect to be broken. Again, no data is at risk of loss as I DO keep plenty of backups, I'd lose up to 10 days max if unexpected data loss occurred.

--That is all, sorry for the book.

 

@bob.blunderton sorry I'm a bit late

NC Fully Open Dryvan Doors 1.0

​

 

Late? Hah! I got the market cornered on LATE. No worries here buddy
I am just glad you made it, now everyone who's following along the map progress thread (which has been a tad barren as of late) can see it's out there for grabs. That is very nice of you to make such a thing and gives us yet another level of immersion to this wonderful driving simulator.
I am just sorry a bit I didn't make my forklift pallet racks better so they don't eat vehicles / props as much. That'll be fixed in the future though (not this time around, unless someone's got some complaints about it).
My motto is, when it's done, it's DONE. There's no point in releasing something dysfunctional. A few bugs is alright, occasional glitchyness is fine, but otherwise myself I'll plug some more time on it and just delay delay delay until I can feel good slapping my name on something.
Thank-you for your services, I'll make sure to try and keep you on the supporter beta list for the contribution. If we all work together we can really show the devs what this game-engine can do.

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@geobeck YOU WIN! I am pleased to say your idea for the dirt path is going to be added in right now, today, and will be present in next week's supporter beta (let me know next week if you're not part of the Patreon and I'll send you a link also, with the contributors).
I liked this idea, thought about it a few days, and said 'yes, that's definitely 100% along the same goals as what I am looking for in this map'.
I will make sure to send a pic or two over when it's more done. I will use my alternate road shaping methods which I use mostly for dirt roads as it doesn't use mesh-road-carving tricks but in-stead makes a much more uneven but realistic dirt road. You should be able to pass most of this no problem with a front wheel drive passenger car or sport coupe.
The only part that might be different is the part in the first picture you shared, as I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with that end of the road yet and hence is quite subject to future changes (read: it will change!).
This road will be a less-than-maintained dirt access route that gives the only access to some properties on the hill and provides maintenance access for others. This idea is good also as it gives players a shortcut to access other less-connected areas (and will be more stuff around here in the future).
There will be more than a few of these types of roads added in the future, though I cannot say as to when, and cannot say precisely where.
The main reason I don't have everything set in stone is that this is COMMUNITY SUPPORTED map made for said community. What people like and want to see in the map (within reason) gets put in without question (short of only requirements that it must be immersive and otherwise cohesive with the rest of the map).
One of the other reasons is that, like with the choice of on-sale commercial assets I purchase, it adds a bit of variety and randomization which gives a broader appeal in the map and often a more immersive environment since everything isn't the same / all having come from one designer.
Keep those good ideas coming!

EDIT: Photos show progress. Not very impressive yet.
Got about 10 lots carved out for houses to go on, and one section of the dirt road carved in.
More later. It's close to 100F outside and tropical-rain-forest humidity levels, e.g. I won't go outside in this AT ALL as it will prove quickly detrimental to my health, since my body doesn't regulate it's temps perfectly in hot environments and can/has caused me heat rashes before. Learned my lesson w/that 15 years ago.

So yes, plenty of time to use the map editor. Houses for these lots probably won't be in the next beta, will see how much I get finished up before the end of the coming weekend. I could put some flat-textured (shaded only) houses in but those stick out like a sore thumb and kill the immersion outright - I don't have them textured yet.
Many of the modern California cliff-side estates we all know well, have been donated for royalty-free use for this project and others. However, most of these are out of Sketchup, so I basically have to convert the whole thing over to a proper model with proper texture mapping and such.
Sketchup can make a NICE house, BUT those models never translate into 3d game engines well. Sketchup is good for a show like Property Brothers and other HGTV stuff, not for real-time 3d game engines. However, they can make good inspiration.
All in all this is what I spend a lot of my time doing, modeling and improving models behind-the-scenes in Maya, Blender, or Houdini 3d software. When a house has all it's required textures scripted in the game, and the texture modeling and collision is done with, ONLY then I can put it in the game. I have dozens and dozens of structures waiting to go in the map when they're finished up enough.

 

Did some more work in this area today. While it's not apparent readily where I have been working, know there will be a new bridge just to the right and left of the magenta-colored cursor on the right side of the screen (first shot). 2nd shot is just showing a re-aligned and carved road that's entirely not done.

YES of course there will be a jump just before the sunken station ahead - you should know better than to think I'd ever pass THAT up
The third shot (above) just shows some elevation. Both of those tunnels should lead somewhere (one already does) by the time the beta comes out.
Spent a lot of time grading and adding cross-slope to roadways.

BUG FIX: The one meter gap in the subway - which I do not know how it happened but has likely been there a year or so - has been FIXED.
Why didn't someone report that, that was really stupid of me! Please make me aware of things like that, all subway tunnels should be usable, unless they're clearly not finished (e.g. you fall out of the map because nothing is there).

Most roads seen should be driveable when the update comes out; they will of-course be in various states of completion, but they should be usable.

--That is all for tonight.

 

Got a block of roadway curbed, threw the base texture on, needs more detailing (the one running left to right, 1st pic). The road running to/from the camera position is now graded properly, and the intersections will throw you quite a bit. 2nd and 3rd shot to show grading, prepare for take-off.

Last shot above shows that yes, even on roads with a decent slope to them, there's still cross-slope (where the center is higher than the edges, for water runoff purposes). This gives you the most realistic driving experience, especially drifting around corners in the city, where once you hit the center of the road you start sliding more due to the slope of the roadway. Cross-slope isn't as important to have on hills as it is on flatter roads, but it's still required in most parts of the country (USA). While there may be some country roads without cross slope, and a few roads in the city may not have it, most will feature this as I feel it's an important driving immersion aspect.
--That's it for tonight. I will have the whole weekend to work on this (well and I have to fix the mower too, but that shouldn't be too long).

 

Had a storm so bad earlier when the house got hit by lightning (again, this happens a dozen+ times a year) that the smoke detectors all started going off around 6 AM. Not the way most people desire to wake up.
It wasn't burning, but the smoke detectors are hard-wired and certain times we get hit by lightning they all start going off and don't want to shut up for 5 minutes (have to keep shutting them off until the excess charge from the surge is out of them and they stop acting up). Battery-only units are immune to this issue.
Computer is still alive, and I haven't fixed it yet but it's tolerable for right now.
Modeling a new building here. Should be done within the next 24 hours. It's very detailed but the UV's are taking a while. I want it to be nice when it's in the map and not have to re-do it though. This building is pretty new-ish but there is a bit of dirt running down the sides of the stucco as it is the city.
"Not everything is brand new." Someone said that, a while back, which is important to me. So this is part of that. I will adjust the existing buildings in time.
The finishes for the facade are aluminum cladding (not the one that burns like crazy with foam inserts), and various concrete surfaces.
There will be a few different iterations (colors/finishes) of this building throughout the city.

 

Getting somewhere. Existing buildings re-used where possible as this will make the next release quicker. I'll give these some new paint jobs or graphics later on, and a lot more details on the lots, too. The justice center is moved a block closer to the camera, also. This gives more room for tall buildings next to the expressway that cuts through the downtown area here, and will really give you that city feeling as you see them as you drive by on the freeway.

Very early, but the stuff that's started lot-wise should be decently completed by release, and the highways should have all new AI routing (for the areas that changed) and will be striped appropriately. There's even some oversized equipment garages / storage areas, and a basement boiler room access door below the parking lot level on one of the buildings.
There's a new justice center location here, though I might re-texture it one day to give it some 'different' look than the other one (and a new sign, but it can stay like that for now), this is also the model with the underground parking area. There will be a fenced-in 'Sally Port' area, too, for those of us who really enjoy - or just get frequently caught up in - the justice system.
There will be two more full nights of work before this supporter beta is uploaded, not including tonight. If I need a third night, I will take such liberty to deliver a more finished / less rough supporter beta update. You should have your hands on the supporter beta as-appropriate around mid-week. I may or may not have time to finish other building models and get them in-game before the next beta - except the warehouses that are already in. New models are slightly lower priority VS getting already-started stuff done in-game.

EDIT: Progress report / Addendum
Added more sidewalk in-front of the court house / police precinct.
Striped & minimally detailed a block of road, I think you'll like this.
Added a bike lane graphic and actually used it.
Added in missing speed limit signs, they *should* be working by release.
Added in billboard models and graphics. The existing stock graphic will be replaced with things like Patreon member names/handles, fake stores / brands, my other maps, cool BeamNG Drive mods like the Fullsize Oldsmobile mod, personal thank-you to the devs, and occasional basic road layout maps near intersections (though these will likely use different texture models depending how it's implemented). Possibly might be some stupid parody / memes on there but I'm not big into memes or social networking, so this will be very limited (I actually don't have any social networking like Spyspace, Tracebook, Bumblr, Bird, etc, much too busy for that and it's supposedly depressing anyways).

--Above all, I believe you should have some good times flying around on those new intersections, they'll really send you airborne!

 

With a little hope maybe I can get this beta out before this PC totally commits suicide. This is one of the main reasons besides software costs and assets for having the Patreon. Please support the map if you can, every dollar counts especially right now. The money goes towards software, assets, AND HARDWARE (only required hardware, not 'I want' optional upgrades) that decides to blow up during editing. I don't know how this thing is still working, Beamng is still running, but this is what it looks like:

There goes the neighborhood! I've opened a vortex to an alien world.
That said, if it does die, it'll take a few hours (or a day) to get back up and running at most. I make backup copies of the map daily. Yes, the game is still running like this, though I don't know how. Hopefully this is just an artifact issue due to voltage sag / droop, and not a sign of dying components. There is the very real possibility of the PC dying at any point, when you make every attempt to work it to death with BeamNG Drive every day, plus modeling. So yea, Should still have the beta out by Tuesday - or Wednesday at the latest. So if you don't get it by Wednesday afternoon (USA time), you know who to yell at / who to throw angry rabid in-heat porcupines at.
That's some genuinely messed up stuff. I don't think I've seen it this bad since buying a BFG Geforce 7950gt card from Best Buy in 2006, or when my GTX 260 went. Oh well. This too shall pass.
Do know that no matter what, I'm still working on the map, it's going to take a lot more than not being able to see anything to stop me.

 

when the singularity dislikes residential zones

 

Added a lot more sign models to the map from the base game. Fixed bugs associated with roadsigns texture, as there was dupes in the map in 3 different spots.
We now have a few more hazard indicator signs (stop ahead, dip, things of this nature), and a full complement of speed limit signs for 30,40,50,60,70,80mph zones. Expect to see more speed limit signs in the future in the map, along with more signs in general.
Fixed bug: Section of road sticking through subway ceiling in one or more spots near the sunken station inside the tunnel near where I'm working.

I have to do yet, before release:
Place a few missing bridge pillars
Do AI routing on the new section of highway / a few new or redone roads
Some missing road striping should be addressed
Do something with misc leftover bits laying around the map from road building (this is common and a bit of a time-saver tactic but can make a mess if left unchecked, generally looks bad)
Fix warehouse model offset error
Fix some other small errors I've noted.

 

I may never get to play on this map but It looks so amazing I know I havent played it but Im gonna say You did a good job! You are very talented with making maps. Keep up you work!

 

Wow, cool! I log off for a few days, and come back to see you've integrated my idea! I'm not a patron yet (bit of an expensive period right now after moving to the west coast), but I'm planning to get on there when things stabilize a bit. I'll have to remember to post my crazy ideas whenever I have one.

Actually, the reason I've been off for a bit (besides getting acclimatized to my new job) is that I found a new toy to play with. I've discovered Gaea, and I've been making all sorts of crazy terrains, a few of which I might turn into actual maps. But they're all a means to an end: making my Aleutian terrain a little more realistic. The one thing that Gaea is really emphasizing for me, though, is that an 8-bit heightmap is ridiculously limiting. Time to find the editor thread...

 

16-bit PNG is your friend. That is the one you want to import with. 8-bit doesn't work correctly, in addition your granularity will be so bad that you'll get heavy banding and such end up with something that looks like Minecraft 2.0. While that thought in itself might not be all bad, trust me, I've tried it, always use 16-bit PNG. You'll have to see if it takes greyscale or not, I forget, it's been a while.
However, I have a great idea, since you're fooling with terrain (the staff here prefers WORLD MACHINE, but there's a bunch of them, even cheap L3DT Pro will do it), keep in mind that while you can do an 8k x 8k terrain, the game engine only compresses up to 4k x 4k when I last checked, I only mention this as it will create an issue with your upload size (500,000,000 bytes or 488mb).
If you make nice 4k or 2k terrains, upload them on this website, maybe someone can make something out of them! Use place-holder graphics that are available free from opengameart.org or other similar sites or use the game's graphics.
I am sure folks would quite enjoy using these terrains, since flat maps get really boring really fast. Quick response isn't required here, I try to make sure it isn't otherwise it'd hold up build process of the map.
DO enjoy your time moving. I could never move to the west coast as I'd never be able to afford it and still live any life in any measurable standard of happiness as I do here in TN. (it's cheap!)

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Testing, testing, and more testing - and of-course finishing off half-started stuffs is in progress. I might be able to get this all finished up tomorrow or tomorrow night, I am not currently sure. It's about 50/50 that I'll need Wednesday night too or not, again 100% I am not sure. There are certain things I've really got to finish up before I release this. Will try to get it done "enough" by tomorrow night though as I'd rather not keep kicking deadlines down the road like the proverbial USA government can-kicking contest. There won't be traffic lights in the new areas yet.
I will say though I can't get enough of bounding through these intersections though and bouncing all over the place, crashing all about. I am sure you folks will find it fun, too.

 

Is that a parking-lot entrance next to the fence (look for the square purple cursor), or is that a RAMP ?

For orientation, the 2nd shot was taken from the very center of the 1st shot looking left at the ramp... I mean parking lot entrance...heh.
It's been a while since I put a good car-launcher in!

EDIT:
Also, the highway striping is done (I think?), except where it meets the surface roads, that might be a little rough until the next beta there (you can drive it fine, it just might not have all it's signs / stop lights / stop lines in this beta).

The striping on the highway is as real as I can get it for now.

Another EDIT:
Most all the striping (lane lines) is done that needed to be done ~95% or so.
A LOT of the AI paths are corrected. Will double check / might be hairy in some areas for a bit yet.
Added even more signs, and some to the parking deck, and added a jump on-top the parking deck.
Added some greenery to the gas station.
Still need to add more AI paths on the highway as some are 3, 4, or more lanes in spots.
Needs heavy AI testing but I have to fix the computer before I do that or it will just crash out.
Beta *SHOULD* be out Wednesday unless I mangle the computer, etc. While I could send it out tonight, one more night of polish will make the AI a lot more real, and fix a few of the annoying odds and ends / bad looking junctions.

 

I've been playing around with PNG formats, but even at 24 BPP, there are still only 256 shades of gray, which results in terracing wherever you have a consistent linear elevation change. Using scRGB would be the most practical way to bypass that limitation, but it would require the world editor to have the option to interpret it.

I've been thinking about doing that. If there's interest, maybe I can become the terrain guy, and let others worry about making them into maps! I'll just have to work a signature into each map somewhere.