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

I have done a ton of testing over the last 2 months, im in the process of compiling the data in chart/graph form as opposed to posting the videos (I do have all the videos recorded though)
The following were tested, all with a 5090

Core Ultra 9 285k
Cores Ultra 5 225
9800X3D
7945HX3D

I also changed up the number of E and P cores on both the 225 and 285K systems. I did this in Los injurus and other maps, once I get the data all completed I'll post in this thread.

A teaser is the x3d helps in this map a lot but once a ton of cars come in to the picture, more cores do win out. One thing that is for sure is in minimal traffic scenarios the X3D chips do have a higher average frame rate.

 

Want to know what's REALLY fun? The elevator door texture broke on one model but not on another. STUPID TECHNOLOGY!
Seriously. It's the same texture. Same name. Game is working fine to slap it on one model and completely just throwing it's nose in the air at another.
I know not what this thing does, only that I'm sitting in-front of it, all the while wondering where it's neck is to choke the stuffings out of it.
IT. HATES. ME.
I blame AI. Seriously. Computers didn't use to think for themselves. Games used to be easy to make stuff for. Doom is the GOAT. The original Doom was so lovely for that. I just hope one day it's going to be that easy again.

---

In other news, I found a solution to another problem. My MAYA LT complimentary subscription ends soon. I received this subscription the other year when they quit supporting (and selling) Maya LT, which was a restricted cheaper-version of Maya. So now I can get the indie price for it, but it's still going to cost me nearly 400$ a year after tax. Problem? That's got to be paid in ONE lump sum! OUCH! Big OUCH! I was planning on spending that toward a new computer. Well, no new computer for me. I will use project funds for that. I have all but about 60~100$ that I need to pay for that in the project fund (which also pays for my 61$ a month internet). So entirely, I will be able to do that in around two weeks when my subscription runs out with me floating the remainder until the project funds come in for that. So just know the funds are going for a good cause.
Hopefully over the next few weeks I can make the Unreal editor do it's thing with exporting more of the stuff I bought, and locking up / crashing less. It likes to CRASH and burn. I did get about 5 texture sets out of it thus far already though. Five of maybe 100. I won't be using all of those, but I WILL be using a bunch of them. I'll get it to behave eventually, hopefully before the next computer is thrown together as that one will be 100% Linux.
Going to try and keep the current computer together so that I can pull up a level with WORKING smart AI traffic signals while I try and try and try again (and again and again and again...ad infinium) to get them to work.
AND I still don't have the foggiest why my models are MIA in game. I'll eventually get it sorted. Somehow.
Just figured I'd drop a line here.
--The Bob
--- Post updated ---

If you get ahold of a 9950x3D that would seem to be the best of both worlds. I'd really like to know how one of those fares against the Ultra 9 in THIS game, since the e-cores are actually useful to this game VS being ignored (or worse, cause an issue). I know it's expensive, I'm saving up for one of those personally but it'll be a LONG while before I get one at this rate as there's a LOT of other expenses in the mean-time - such as the software cost I mentioned above.
Thanks for the data you've already provided, it helps me make Los Injurus a better place to be!

 

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why the following models refuse to show ANY of their detail (visible) models. The collision mesh works, however.
It just refuses to show up.
Check Warehouse_01 and Warehouse_02 DAE files in Los Injurus in art/shapes/buildings/metrocity folder inside Los Injurus. Also, the apartment_3flr_H_var1.dae and it's 5flr twin, do not show up. Only one surface shows up on the one warehouse, one single red square under a man-door and that's it. None of the apartment's surfaces show up. I dunno but some folks broke something in this last version or two... because nothing I can do here changes it. Tried it on Vulkan. Apartments were made by me here custom, the log is no help (as usual), and the warehouse is a purchased model I worked over a bit to clean it up / attempted to reduce draw calls.
I need to know what's breaking this stuff so that I can avoid it in the future. I can't be spending hours / days / weeks on models for this project and then suffer a roulette in regards to if they show up or not.
NOTHING shows up in the log.
This is the #1 thing that kills development (that and waiting on features).
IF ANYONE can figure out why these models don't show up, please give me a heads-up on this. I need to know what's going on and I just cannot figure it out for the life of me.
I only have possibly one more idea, but I'm not even sure that'd work. They change stuff between versions and I'm left in a fog wondering what the heck is going on.

 

What do you plan to add to this map Bob?

 

It's at-best 40~50% done. LOTS of things to add, as the game engine develops. More on that when I don't have storms bearing down on me.

 

TRUE STORY here:
So I asked one of the staff to help me check out why 2 of the models I have are just NOT loading in (I haven't the foggiest what's up / what's changed).
"I can't help, the level won't load on an 8GB GPU. My 4090 is in the shop so I'm using this 8GB xx50 card." DERP.
Well don't I feel stupid. Then-again, this is also why you don't see all the new buildings I've made in the last 12~16 months showing up. I've got well over a dozen new buildings (possibly two dozen), and beyond a few hundred more models of all kinds of things (some buildings, lots of props and decorations like electrical panels, greebs (HVAC / vents), building variations such as bay/box/bow windows to change things up, landscaping and 'foilage' etc).
Folks, for those of you with 8GB graphics cards (a 'GPU' here, in computer terms), what settings do you use to enjoy Los Injurus without lag, including by the airport where the tunnel area slows things down? I'd like to know! I used-to use medium graphics detail and it'd be OK *BUT* that was 2 years ago before some nice soul donated money for a better one (thank The Lord, it was appreciated).
New bridge pieces for the two-lane, bidirectional type of bridge with the open railings (what the majority of individual bridges have in Los Injurus).
These new pieces are all half-length units, good for shorter bridges or those with slope changes - something I didn't have before for these:
Half-length units, otherwise identical:
7.5, 15, 22.5, 30, 37.5, 45 units up or down in either direction (this isn't degrees, it's a bit less than that, 45 units of bend would come out to around 25~30 degrees of slope change).
I also substantially improved the collision mesh for the normal length bridge span, specifically to the barriers/railings on either side if a vehicle was to impact it rather quick (such as an over-height load or a vehicle engages in what we Los Injurus fans call 'vertical passing') from the outside of the bridge or if a vehicle was to land on-top the barrier/railing.
I removed a lot of skewing on the texture of the top of the barrier where the bevel is, which took a lot more doing than it should have - but it's done. A few other bits of skewed texture were also fixed while I was at it.
I think the LOD's are just 1 or 2 lower draw call amounts also, since I fixed up a little bit of the geometry that was done 'quick and fast'. In-fact the 2nd lowest detail is some 6 draw calls lower. It's not a lot, but if every model was that much lower, it'd help performance notably (to the tune of 5~10% but it's still an amount you can see and possibly feel).
Over the last week to ten days I've managed to put down several city blocks worth of curbing where there was none (took a few days!). This includes a lot of grading for the lots behind the curbing and also the required slopes put on the roadways (and cross-slope for many of them).
Basically these few blocks are ready for houses now. It's near the new spawn points I added not too terribly far from the really big dam.
A large new bridge also exists and that has a bit of a raised portion towards the middle. Using flat bridge sections to do this didn't work out so well, thus I've made the extra bridge units to be able to put more stuff like this together.
BUGS:
Elevator texture on subway station building model (the one you can drive inside of) doesn't work. Might be a naming issue, not sure.
Two building models (warehouse pair and 3/5 floor building models like the apartments near the 11-foot-8 bridge don't show up). Will fix when I figure out what is wrong here.
Large complex building with the store names on it (KVNT TV building) doesn't have any detail levels showing up, strange but not THAT big of a deal since it stays visible as long as you're within a block or so of it. That might be my doing, or the game throwing a fit.
Now for the fun of switching to a new version of Maya since mine's 5 years old and it's basically been on a grace period for a LONG time since they don't support Maya LT anymore. Yes, that's expensive, but it's worth it - because this project is worth it.
--That's it for right now.
-The Bob
...and just in time here comes another thunderstorm. Gotta love it.

 

Well after one system lockup, I did manage to get some stuff done.
Imported 16 objects (one replacement - the update bridge model for the bidirectional surface road) and the 15 new slope-change bridge objects.
That's the new bridge objects. Not all of them but that's a few. A half-length bridge piece is about one length of concrete decking (the road surface, from seam to seam, basically one slab-length).


So, lots and lots and lots of NEW curbing placed. Most of this curbing has the lot space behind it leveled up to the back of the curbing as best as possible (very time consuming!). Roads have fairly basic detail, needs more signs and such. Of-course there's no buildings here yet, and I haven't toyed with the AI any so that has to be done too. The new bridge is in though, so you don't have to get on the highway and drive way far away just to get across this inlet (the water here).

Near to the default spawn, this retaining wall had a bug with stone terrain showing through the wall, this is now fixed.

Fixed the burger world parking lot near the default spawn.

Improved (read: replaced!) highway retaining wall texture. This replaces the plain flat-grey concrete texture. Quite a bit older but matches the canal texture set I made in the last year or two (or three?). This is also used for bridge railings AND for jersey barriers.
TO-DO:

Chevron texture ON THIS MODEL is broken. This is a model level issue, changing the texture settings doesn't make this transparent.

Elevator texture is broken. How did this ever work in the 1st place? This is a model-level error, but I can fix this in text editor or the texture index (by creating a second entry or additional map_to field). Does not affect Police Dept / Court House building parking garage interior, that one still works fine!

MISSING BUILDING ROSTER BELOW! Anything with the 3 or 5 floor newer apartment building, and anything with the silver-metal-clad exterior warehouse. These models DO NOT WORK as of 2025 versions of the game, and I do NOT know why.

There might be another one somewhere, but only one pair of triangles (one rectangle) works on the warehouse, a small red rectangle which measures 1 by 3 feet and is horizontal. On the apartment buildings (3 and 5 floor models otherwise identical), nothing shows up. Collision works on these though. Broken model list:
Apartment_3flr_H_var1.dae
Apartment_5flr_H_var1.dae
warehouse_01.dae
warehouse_02.dae
...
Not sure if I'm missing anything else on the missing list.
Some turn arrow (or turn prohibit / straight only arrows) made out of mesh do not always show up over other textures, but this is a minimal issue as these should be decals or decal roads used for these anyway.
So, that is the errata list for this, and the former shots were progress shots.
Good with the bad, I think it's doing OK. Now if I can keep this from locking the PC I'll be able to get done what I want to get done and get other things fixed. Hopefully an update gets out before the magic smoke does. I will keep you posted to whenever the staff will let me push an update - because I'm close to being ready to (despite some models not working, that's only some 1% or less of the buildings anyway). The buildings worked in 0.34 but by 0.36 they were GONE. Totally MIA. Maybe they up and left and went to another level, though I don't know why they would.
--That is all for the moment. Figured you folks deserved some progress shots, and I did want to share the bug-list with y'all so we're on the same level (oops?).
-The Bob

 

Bob, this looks amazing and I can't wait to cause chaos driving around on this.

 

Putting in curbing is about as much fun as watching paint dry. The grid feature doesn't even save me most times (though it can be handy especially if roads are at a 90 degree angle or at-least one of the 15 degree angles that holding ALT plus rotating gives you - something you'll find a LOT of my roads follow). HOWEVER, it's so much fun to be able to design the roads themselves, as I've always found that entertaining but also sometimes challenging. Gotta make that road look good, look real, function properly, shed water properly (also why I put in retention ponds / drainage stuffs), and many roads will also feature cross-slope (in the city; but in the rural areas you get roadway banking in-stead of cross-slope). Steep roads don't always get cross-slope much because they don't need it very much since water doesn't stick around long on meaningful hills, but the regular city roads all have it especially if you look at the wider (4~5+ lane) roads. I think the typical cross-slope I put on maxes out at around 0.2m per 2.6m MAX on the outer lanes, it's more like 0.1m per 2.6m in the center though. Code would only call for 2% grade on things, to make sure water MOVES meaningfully, but it's rarely only that much because WHO DOESN'T LOVE JUMPING THOSE INTERSECTIONS? C'MON ADMIT IT! The flatter the terrain, the more slope you have to put in to move the water. Combine that with wide 5-lane collector roads, and you have a recipe for some vertical passing at literally anything above the speed limit, and even at the speed limits of 35 or higher you will easily go airborne. Welcome to Los Injurus, where you'll hear GET OFF MY LAWN! a whole lot more than you planned (once I put in the sound effects anyways, I have a great old-man voice you'll get to hear one day).
Oops. Sorry about the rant. Maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better about having to put out 400$ for a year's subscription to a 3D modeling software despite the (very difficult to learn) free Blender3D existing. More or less I'm doing things this way VS using the free options out there because 1.) I get support and 2.) I could buy support for Blender 3D and pay to learn it, but then I still am paying money and have to learn new software, plus all my add-ons for buildings/city stuff + my texturing/UV-work suite won't work and I'll have to buy new stuff. So it'd be coming in close to 400$ anyway. So I can either be modeling and pushing this elephant-in-the-room excuse for a project forward, or trying to learn with my hobbled brain which is VERY VERY DIFFICULT these days. Who would have thought modeling, building, and detailing an ENTIRE city / county would have taken this long? And it's still barely half done.
THAT SAID, I can't wait to building some Venice-style bridges into the areas I've set out for them. Not so much Venice Italy, but the little raised bridges like both Venice California and rural America often features, with the big hump in the middle so small boats (or a lot of water and occasionally very obese sharks) can pass underneath. What does that mean for folks playing this? MORE JUMPS! Because yes, why build a boring FLAT BRIDGE like I've been building for more than half a dozen years when you can have them raised up in the middle now? It's not a race course no, this is a driving simulator, of-course I expect you to go appropriate speeds over it. But if you want to do 100+mph over it with a load of pianos filled with feral cats, have at it. You will find much to do here in Los Injurus, as always. Not responsible if you get clawed or end up with piano keys for teeth.
IN BETTER NEWS, 0.37 game version did NOT bring extreme load-times for Los Injurus, thankfully. I was happily surprised. Maybe it took two or three minutes... I didn't count. I will do so next time I clear cache prior to the next release, surely (or whenever I'm testing to see if I have fixed those stubborn invisible buildings). It also didn't seem to break anything else that wasn't already broken in some way - a major first.
So thank-you. I appreciate the kind words as always. It helps, especially when sitting for more than a few minutes - especially after several hours in a day - can bring much pain. It's not going to be long before I have to drag a recliner in here, or do my editing from a bed... but I will still do it.
--That is all for the moment.
-The Bob

 

Neat. hard-locked the machine earlier [device lost] while editing terrain after a minute.
Got about 10 seconds into editing terrain now post-hot-fix, and it locked up the game-engine entirely video-wise (however, I could still save it).
Reported it again. Going to update the video driver. Hope that fixes it or I won't be editing terrain until 0.38 comes out.
I'm on Nvidia driver 546.33 if anyone else is getting this issue, Windows 10 x64 (last year's version + last year's updates).
Stupid technology!
I haven't had this much fun since a herd of porcupines took up residence in my underpants dresser drawer, while changing in low-light conditions.
Ouch. Ouch-ouch-ouch!

 

Hey bob, as always love the progress on the map you've been doing. Do you however think you could add a barrier in the middle to seperate the two directions of freeway in this part of the map as the rest of this freeway has it but this section doesn't

 

The devs just introduced texture streaming on Vulkan. That should help at lot with this issue but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet.

 

Yes, of this I'm aware. I think it's been in for a few versions, but it's getting worked on each version.
One problem, models are also part of VRAM, along with shaders/shadow/lighting data (for rendering) so it's not just textures.
That said, this game engine isn't done yet and the future of said engine holds many possibilities that will be quite helpful to large limit-busting game environments like Los Injurus. There's always a way to make what you want to make, it's not easy though. The grander the vision, the grander the challenge.
The texture streaming REALLY helps with the 4gb and 6gb cards that are right on the edge of medium or high settings, to a point. It won't cure everything, but if you're on at-least x16 link width (full) pci-express 4.0 or 5.0, despite going over VRAM limits, you should retain manageable FPS that won't drop below the 20fps limit (where dropping below slows the physics engine). It won't be truly enjoyable, but you'll still be able to experience Los Injurus. You just won't be able to drive as well as say, someone who has the settings a bit lower and doesn't end up running out of VRAM thus relying on using system ram to make up the difference (system ram is several times slower than video ram, but DDR5 system memory can do 1080p OK if you've got an x16 link width on the card and board (and cpu). Some low-end Nvidia cards (and previous AMD cards) limited the PCI express bandwidth link-width to x8 (and even x4 in some cases!) and thus rendering from system ram would become very very bad and definitely not playable (they actually make video cards that use an x1 link, for certain use-cases like adding an additional card into a system without an additional x16 slot for it, but you don't want to game on those). Even things as simple as adding an NVME SSD in the wrong spot can cut link-width in half on some intel boards (and possibly some AMD boards but it's less common except with G-suffix processors, which may only run an x8 video card link width no matter what).
Computering are complicated! Yes, I said it like that to make a point. There's SO many variables. One thing the devs can control is the game engine. Giving this engine more features to help with open-world designs like what I'm doing here with Los Injurus (and even Roane County, despite it's many texture issues currently), will not only help THIS project, it'll help lower-end computers run the main game levels, and it makes the IP (the game engine and it's physics setup) more valuable to potential folks looking to build a game world in it. So over the years I've been working on things for this game engine - since the beginnings in Nevada Interstate (and this city's previous 'so-cal' iterations before a single building was built), I've always pushed to increase limits. 2048 object limit was hit on Generic City. I hit the 4096 limit on Roane County. I hit the 65535 AI node limit on Roane County and the entire level's AI broke. Oops. I asked for larger terrains to be supported if they're not going to do tiled terrain (it was on the road map for development when I start modding this game), we got that (but how large I'm not 100% sure), you'd have to ask, but you CAN get an uncompressed 8k terrain into this game engine. I asked for carving tools to help make roads with the existing terrain tools - and that we got in 0.07 (that long ago!) - and they did one better with the road tool as of recent versions (man did I break the heck out of that thing in every way possible). I was even the one that pioneered using invisible decal roads as AI guides, something even the main game levels used for a while (I believe this was moved over to dedicated modes for AI navigation).
All things considered; the devs - while busy as always - especially if I'm awake and crashing the crash simulator, so real it even locked up the computer no less than twice to where I had to power it off - they also understand the plague of 8gb traps released by GPU manufacturers from all 3 teams (AMD, Nvidia especially Nvidia, and intel), and what it means for folks that want to experience immersive game worlds. So while I don't really know what they're working on at the moment (besides something probably pretty awesome, isn't it always?), I know they're trying very hard, as hard as possible with the limited hands on deck, and I know when it's done and worth seeing they'll ship it out.
Still, I appreciate you mentioning it. There's lots of goodies the devs have jammed under the proverbial hood of the game engine - and even the simulated hoods within it over the last several versions. I haven't even gotten to try them all.

---

Road roller-coaster? BRIDGE roller-coaster! Or however you spell it. I can't believe I don't know how to spell that. Whoops.
The flat sections in the middle will be tourist pull-offs (flat sections of bridge are temoporary for testing) and access to the little islands. This is the access road to the military base, and it's on the same side of the level as the other shoreside area, just a few miles away. It's right by the airforce/army base thing that hardly has all but a runway, some hangars, a checkpoint and not much else. The island airport with the long bridge, somewhat visible on the right, not the huge civilian airport with all the terminals which is all the way across the other side of the level. This will basically be the on-base housing / residential access for those stationed. I'm testing out various angles and sizes for the bridge. While a bit ridiculous, it's quite fun as you have a good amount of road to get some speed up here and boy o boy do you go flying. In the shot above, I launched off the 1st, most distant rise in the bridge, as fast as I could get the old Pessima to go. Crashed down on the 2nd rise, and slid up onto the top of the 3rd and final one (the on-base housing checkpoint is around 100 feet / 30 meters behind the camera on the right).
Another picture from the other end of the same bridge is below.

As I mentioned this is a concept/test. I wanted to test out how fun it was, and it is fun, but I think it's way too pronounced. Besides that, there's a similar bridge I already put in near where I made the nice long arched deck bridge. I'll include a shot of the OTHER bridge (which is staying) below just so you know what I'm speaking of.

This bridge pictured in this last picture (and the bridges in the distance, both the arched-deck bridge and the flat 'standard' concrete girder highway bridge) is/are staying.
Not much else to show because I've just got the new Maya on, a new video driver since the game was locking up (along with the whole PC when it'd do that 66% of the time), and a few other odds and ends I needed to do. I mean, it's hard to edit terrain when within the first dozen or two actions the whole machine locks solid.

Would these bridges be fun? Are they too outrageous? Am I completely out of my mind introducing this into Los Injurus? Let me know what you think of the bridge with the 3 lumps/hills in it. Maybe you want MOAR of them? Maybe you want an entire road (bridge?) roller-coaster? I don't know, so I'm asking (and not just how to spell it). Hopefully I hear from folks sometime soon - not just on how to spell it. Derp.

I totally get what you're saying here. That's quite dangerous actually the way that's setup. It used to have a mesh barrier but it got eaten near the beginning of the Los Injurus project. However, that said, I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with that spot yet. I will definitely be getting some barriers put on up there, or separating it enough to not need one all the time. Like I said I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with that area yet.
HOWEVER, if anyone has any suggestions for that spot, I'm ALL MOST(ly?) EARS.
--That is all for the moment. Here's to hoping the new driver prevents the editor lock-ups. Otherwise maybe this machine is in-need of replacement. It IS over 6 years old sans a few bits I've added in since then. I'd rather not have to replace it yet, BUT in the event I do have to (most likely CPU/RAM/Motherboard and a free installation of Linux), please remember your support of the project matters! Thank-you for any consideration of the matter. I just shelled out nearly 400$ for a year of Maya so it bit a big chunk out of the project budget - but it's a necessary evil.
-The Bob.
--- Post updated ---
So I tried editing the terrain, seemed fine for a few minutes and then hard-locked the system. I'm stuck now here, don't know what to do.
I hope maybe DX11 will work but I'm done locking up the computer for the night. Eventually all this lock-up the computer stuff will break the Windows installation and at that point there's not going to be any more Microshaft Winblows on my computer because I'm full-well sick of how trash Windows 10 has been and I'm definitely whole-heartedly not using nor paying a single red cent for Windows 11 with it's spying and automatic desktop-screen-shot type of tactics. NO THANKS ON THAT! Have to draw the line somewhere.
When the devs get this bug licked, I'll update you folks on it. I've provided them with all the logs, and screenshots of the errors in the Windows event viewer in addition. It's taking out the Nvidia kernel-level driver, nixing ALL output and thus locking inputs too. All software stops, can't even hit caps/num lock. All other software on here works just dandy except this, the one thing I really need to work. Nice.
Someone somewhere in the render coding gone-done screwed up the code for 0.37 because 0.36 sure didn't do this.
I just hate the idea of having to use the performance-hobbled DX11 mode and then have the graphics possibly not come out right for everyone else.
-Ah well, this one's out of my hands.
--The Bob, the very very steamed Bob.
STUPID TECHNOLOGY!
(maybe I'll just go outside tomorrow and spend the day beating up the Kudzu or however it's spelled, the vine is trying to literally eat my house/garage/yard/etc... well at-least until my back gives out and I have to drag myself back in the dang house again and then figure out how the heck I'm going to shower to wash the dirt/mud/poison ivy off of me)

 

Hard-locked the system again...
But this time I had the debug mode active so I had some GOOD SOLID EVIDENCE (unlike some others I know) to send out to the team so they can check it out and fix it, or try to fix it. These things aren't always obvious at first-attempt to solve.
Oh the joy of Early Access. Definitely not holy matrimony over here, fo-sho, fo-sho.
So we'll keep fingers crossed, maybe say a prayer or two, and hope the devs can figure out how I manage to keep crashing the game and whole PC.