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

YES THIS MODEL IS A HOT MESS! I've been trying all week to clean it up - 98% of the time is waiting for the program to respond. Doesn't look like modern computing can handle these scans yet (not at this size or detail!).
I will fit this to the scene of the rest of the map. These bridges are all over (all over this country, and this world). This map is not solely California and not solely west coast, it is a little bit of everything. Part of this example is the abandoned mall area, that is set up like the rust belt part of the north-east USA. I didn't want to limit this to just one city or state, but a large majority currently will be from California.

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I will be doing this one chunk at a time but it's holding up the next beta for a number of days / a week, so we'll see how far that gets before it gets cut off and I just use existing mesh object chunks to fill the rest. The good news is if I can get enough of the road stuff in and cleaned up and re-bake the textures, I can then have realistic sidewalk textures for my map. Possibly may get some road textures out of it but not 100% sure yet. I think I can work some layering magic here to get them up to snuff.
If I can't get the model into usable condition (in chunks) this weekend, I will just do the trace-over and use-it-as-a-3D-guide method. I would have done that already, but anytime I did anything with that model open in Blender or Maya it absolutely locked up solid for some-time between minutes and all night. A few times I did stuff and just came back to it when I woke up the next day.
Sure would like to get this release out, so I can close out most of the tabs in my 725-tab web browser window. Ugh. It's getting BAD. "Where the heck did that tab go!???" This happens all the time now. Only close out what I'm done with project-wise.

I have other buildings I am also working on in the pipeline, for this next release. This next release will hopefully have the orange-sky bug fixed, but y'all will have to tell me when you get it.
There won't be large changes to the map like last time, but I will try to get in as many buildings as I can. If there's some pop-in when you drive up to the buildings or the LOD's aren't that great, know that it is only temporary. More work on the LOD's, Collision, UV's (texture faces) etc will be done post-release. This will help FPS a bit but more-so help presentation.

Included is an example, where the bridge scan itself is highlighted to be exported (which I have), but not the rest. I will work on the models individually. Each building will be worked individually, the road will be worked (in it's entirety if possible), and the bridge it another model to itself along with the stop-light sign that says 'OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN'.

 

So, the one-chunk-at-a-time (or rather a few at a time) works great!
While it still took 6~15 seconds to move up to 100,000~200,000 triangles at a time, at the start, to get things where I needed them - now it's much easier to work with! Poly-reduce / Poly-remesh is now working also without murdering the texture information. I will make absolutely positively sure to re-bake these textures before they get shipped to the game though, (aside of some road/sidewalk surfaces) currently they're literally looking like the US bombers missed the terrorist hide-out and hit a wall-paper factory in-stead.
I will conveniently not say or otherwise mention how long it took Maya to un-freeze when I ran poly-reduce on it though.

There is no top on the bridge, I will add that manually with a combination of my existing rails and also some bridge textures to match it.
Picture is after ONE 40% poly-reduce. Once the bridge itself is somewhere under 100 draw calls it can be put in the game (my bridges are usually 10 or less per section and sometimes only 2 draw calls per section).
LOD's and collision will be created manually.

 

I cleared cache and this map has no texture. To be fair. There might be a mod causing the problem. I'll try to give you an update on it when I can. Thank you for making an awesome map.

UPDATE: The traffic lights aren't working either.

UPDATE 2: I cleared cache and disabled mods and that helped with the cache. Sadly, it didn't help with the traffic lights.

Anyways, this map is still awesome and I love playing on it.

 

i love this map, but it took hours to download (due to beamng's servers) so I would like you to upload it to google drive which has way better servers

 

I love how Bob writes essays every time there's an update. He just sits down: "we're gonna write a few words now", and his ideas just flow. That's awesome.

 

I don't have a google account. I tried to make one and it says I already have one (hint: I do not to my best knowledge). When I tried to make another, it wanted a cellular phone or other phone capable of getting texts. I do not want to sign up using someone else's phone (I don't pay monthly for a cell I'll never* use and in-fact absolutely HATE), and the land-line here (yes I have one) doesn't do texts (to my knowledge, which admittedly isn't much on that service).
If someone wants to make me a google account, great - I'd love it, but I'd have to be able to hook it to an email address I can get email on. So I think it'll wait** until I decide to not be such a cheap [censored] and pay for a cell phone plan (I have a few several-year-old phones I paid a pittance for when needed for long-distance travel, I just don't activate/use them unless I need to drive further than an hour or two away).
Best-case would say that it'll wait a little while yet before I get one. You're not the only one bothered by the speeds, assuredly. However, DO know that it's still much, much faster than my internet connection typically is - which gets 120~200kb/s on a GOOD day (that's download speed you see on a fire x-fer).
That said, if I can manage to get a hosting plan that's fairly reasonable and something I can FTP to, then I could certainly host the download manually on a dedicated server. For now that's precluded solely due to cost - I may get one late spring early summer of 2022 when I supposedly will have gigabit internet service (that's waiting for the highway utilities to get up this far, they haven't even gotten all the pre-cast concrete bridge & steel culvert spots done). There's a big highway project happening less than a mile from here, and while it will take years to even finish the first phase, utilities will be upgraded by around mid-2022 and then I should have better internet. The internet upgrade lines from the end of the highway project (boundaries of which) to here, were paid for by a grant from the US GOV'T and the state of Tennessee (God Bless the Governor). Service to the house has already been installed, we just need to wait for the phone call to tell us we can pick up the equipment and sign up for an account. Trust me, it will be worth every penny and 100x faster than what I have. It is literally gigabit fiber with gigabit speeds, and I'm going for the full monte on it as we're paying that for rubbish internet now already. It's only around 6 months away, May, at the absolute earliest. Then things will change, and so will my upload rate. I am very dissatisfied with my current upload rate, which is around 4~8 weeks between releases (more to due with me having been 5x as busy since August and it only dying down recently, and also working on lots of models, but this internet is NOT helping)

I thank you highly for noticing, thank-you for making me feel good, I needed that today. A break from the pain with some kind words is very nice, and a treat for the soul. I was private-school educated and also born in the 98th percentile intelligence-wise, and I paid attention (even if I didn't really want to) in school so I didn't get my hide whooped silly when I got home. I don't want to boast but as far as education goes, I got very lucky and my parents were very good providers for doing such a thing when they could have bought fancier cars or bought a house-boat / vacation house for what it cost. While my father passed in mid-2011, I still take care of my mother and her 2-acre property to this day and that is one of the reasons I use to justify it (not that I should need even one).

So basically, I say when comes to my mind as it comes to mind, based on a pre-thought-out structure I try to stick to when typing these otherwise-impromptu books up. I can only type how I speak, I am limited in that manner (though not in a mentally disabled way, it's just more the way my brain works than anything). So stick a voice to this and imagine me speaking it all out to each and every one of you. The rest as-far as excuse-for-a-book goes is that I absolutely love to share information / teach / and just plain blab for what seems like forever. Surely my English is far from the best you could find, and my sentence structure is even worse... but this is the only way I know how to do it. Thank-goodness I can type fast - and thank-you for caring enough to bring it up. At-least I know more-so it's not wasted, though I will spare the knowledge about the box-full of worn-out keyboards in the closet.
I have so much knowledge, and never feel like I have enough time to share it nor enough people to share it with. It does no good after my death if the knowledge dies with me. This is also, why human species has gotten a leg-up on most of the rest of the species on this planet. So never fear, you'll always have something to read - hopefully you like reading.

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I have purchased close to 100 (yes) models for this map this past week, as there were no shortage of wallet-emptying discounts to be had by retailers both brick-and-mortar type and virtual online ones. Some models I purchased as cheaply as 30¢ on the dollar (70% off). US dollars for clarification. This pushed back release a little bit, but there should be something getting uploaded sometime between a few days from now and the end of next weekend. Included in the next release will be the 11-foot-8 bridge (height may need to be adjusted an inch or two here or there as-needed, you will be able to click on it and raise it up or down). I have had to re-create the model using the existing 3D-scanned one as a template as that'll be easier and provide much more reliable collision and performance with no hidden bugs that only show up after release. The roadway under and near the bridge will match map assets as it'll be created in the editor, but the bridge pieces themselves will be made in modeling software. Most of the main pieces are 100% done and just need to be assembled, but I'm currently trying to get the rail track to both match my other track assets and still fit seamlessly into the bridge & the rest of the scene. While I could have stuck the 3D-scanned one directly in the game, collision wouldn't have worked anywhere without eating vehicles and it would use up most of the entire render budget and a quarter (or close to it) of the VRAM (8gb). There were too many odd UV's (textured surface arrangement) and double-layered sections (where camera positions scanned it from more than one location), not to mention anything that was in the lee of a pole or support or otherwise blocked from view would be missing entirely from the scan.

The building with the subway station will become a surface / ground-level entrance to the subway system like normally exists on sidewalks of New York City, and I will have other buildings that fit nearly around it so it does not look out of place. Some of the buildings that will be new in this coming beta will possibly be subject to pop-in (like the oldest models on this project sometimes do), but the collision should work well enough and be accurate, and the performance shouldn't be too bad (I will go back to increase performance by doing another QC / optimization pass on the models as-needed).

What has The Bob been doing the last TWO MONTHS? Modeling - lots of it - much of which is kept from public knowledge and much of that the supporters don't even know about. Have to leave something a surprise. The texture conversion progress is decently far along though it may not be in the next beta yet as it could get held up. I have to get infrastructure (roads, train tracks, flood control canals, etc) in before I can make most of the buildings, and I need to be able to judge my selection of said buildings in how I am building up an area - so almost a catch 22. Trying to add new stuff and not slow the map down by over-doing the VRAM buffer (like it does by the Airport when on high detail), is an exercise of patience to put it best. Had I not chosen to build or purchase new buildings in this phase I would have been re-doing the highway as planned, but the city needs to be a city after-all and not everything should be the same boring 'brick box' block after block. This was brought up not too long back - and it's surely correct - the next few updates will help this out.

Next update will have:
New buildings along a few decently detailed roads!
11-foot-8 bridge (possibly 12-foot-4 version too) - get ready to see a LOT of this on Youtube crash compilations!
Possibly the new subway station I was working on for a bit. I can't 100% promise it'll blend 100% seamlessly with the existing tunnels nor can I promise your train won't detail going in and out of it until the tunnels are upgraded (or until the following beta), but it'll be very nice to look at and otherwise usable. Keep in mind the existing subway system (except for ground-level and sunken sections) is mostly a place-holder or 'proof of concept' at this stage and that is why it is very plain to look at. It is only designed to be a concept and have zero affect on the rendering engine compared to it not being there, but it'll be nicer sometime soon - much nicer.
MOAR new textures / resources and less old stock-game-content stuff as I'm deprecating the old JRI/Industrial/old ECA assets since they don't fit the style of the rest of the map.
Fixed ORANGE SKY bug, that sure was bad and I thank folks for reporting that. I had no idea what-so-ever it was that bad or even existed at all. I tried to make sunset realistic and obviously I did not do it correctly - DERP - live and learn!
Fixed new-ECA gas station pump island base / curb texture. That's only because it finally annoyed me enough to fix it, but that model will be replaced one day in it's entirety for the new U-pump-it & Snake Oil gas station models.
I can't give a firm date because it depends how much work I need to do to get the rest of this update's buildings in. The buildings near the 11-foot-8 bridge won't be exact on this beta VS the real-life Durham counter-parts, but they'll be something within reason for now. I will be working on making those match much better over the next few month's model work, so the in-game result is much closer.
I promised a bit much for this update, but I plan to fulfill it even if I miss my deadline here.

This is not the last pre-Christmas update. There will still be another update and it should be a little bit more than a bug-fix if needed, adding just a little more content. You still have a little more than two weeks to report any bugs to be fixed prior to the next public update which will happen mid-December or there-abouts.

I would show a picture of the bridge but I haven't assembled all the pieces yet nor made the 3D wooden ballasts that hold up the rails on the bridge, so it'd just look like a ram-shackle pile of parts. The beams and columns are already done & OCD-textured though and that's 85% of it. Draw calls on said objects are as low as I can get them, and any place that has more than one instance of said object (ballasts, rails, beams, concrete supports) will batch-render at almost no render cost. The over height must turn sign will be constantly lit, and not flashing on demand as I won't have the script in yet (nor do I currently know how to make one, but I think I know a way) - though it will be it's own object and hence removable if scene should require. Bridge will be fully height-adjustable as stated before (though you'll have to re-level approach tracks if they're visible in your scene), so that you can use it to shave a variety of trucks, because this bridge is an equal opportunity can-opener. Expect chamfered (beveled) top edges on pillars and smoothed edges on I-beams, the detail will be about AAA-quality as this is a strong feature and will have a spawn point near it (a place-holder bridge is near one spawn point already, but it will be moved a few blocks away). It will be in the more run-down part of town where I can afford to move roads and track-height around to facilitate realistic design, so that it does not look 'tacked-on'.

Signing off from another 'Oops, Not again!' book,
--The Bob

P.S. ...Words...

 

I will now download the map and update this post when done (on wifi 5, in case you're wondering)
--- Post updated ---
Alright, 22 minutes later (and I was watching 1080p video at the same time) I am done.
--- Post updated ---
I believe the bottleneck here is still my wifi card in my computer, so I'm not sure what issue you're experiencing...

 

I'd say avoid creating a google account unless it's absolutely necessary. I think it's good to not rely too much on megacorporations.
Ftp is alright but idk about pricing. There's other 'free' alternatives, such as MEGA, onedrive, mediafire. Some of them may be better than others.
I regularly use onedrive and google drive. I'm not familiar with the upload experience of the others.

 

I do have One-Drive here (I recently got it going on here - last month or two as I needed it for something but I completely forgot), but I don't use the MS email service much at all. I do have MEGA on here, and use that for the supporter betas - though it can be a little pokey if it's not off-hours when you try to download it. I've had very good luck with it as it supports dropped packets when transferring a file - something years ago the BeamNG Drive servers (here) do NOT support - hence no-one on wireless or with satellite can upload - especially if it's slow service. So MEGA it is usually. If these servers are too slow, or if the official servers are too slow - help fund the project if you're able to (if not it's perfectly OK, I've been there more than once and do understand eating comes 1st). If I can get enough going with the Patreon (there's a few nice folks on it! thanks!), then I can afford a monthly server plan to host the file so that it transfers pretty well (for 10~15$ a month, likely paid quarterly). I think Drop Box is good too, but I can't vouch. Mediafire used to have an issue with the ADS making security risks/issues etc - so I've stayed away from them BUT that was some 10 years ago, so I don't know how it is today. I've got some sort of blocker on here to keep the ads at bay for the most part - but have it switched off on known-good safe sites to support site staff.

We shall see what the future holds. If I find a reasonable plan and a place supports dropped packets (because yes I wirelessly connect, yes it's satellite, and yes it sucks and yes it is a dumpster fire and then some), then I can pay whatever small amount it costs. I can't afford to fund the project off my fixed income (Disabled) - but if the folks on Patreon keep supporting it, and it gets a little higher, I can likely afford something better.

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Intel wireless good, Realtek & ASMedia wireless bad.
I don't know what I have here but it's likely a Broadcom chip USB device. They're a dime a dozen and I have a box with half a dozen in there that I got for about five or ten bucks total for the whole box a few years ago. They're just cheapies. I could buy better ones, but I had too many driver issues on the 70$ super-duper-fancy supposedly-well-made Linksys one I had, so until I get gigabit internet it's not worth bothering with. This motherboard has one built in (ASUS x570 TUF Laming wifi-plus ... I think it's the plus model? forget, derp, just know it works), but I never switched it on as without downloading updated drivers, Windows will BSOD as the built-in MS driver for it crashes the whole system. So I just disabled it in BIOS and used the USB one and forgot about it / never felt bothered to get new drivers and fix it (easy, but didn't feel like messing with it).
If folks wish to upload an unmodified copy of the PUBLIC version of the map, feel free to do so. Please don't re-host the private supporter versions (but you may link a friend or two, just tell them not to re-share it and please don't make the links public out of respect & fairness for those who support the project).
I will consider putting this on MOD-DB if it supports my connection issues. If not it will have to wait 6 months (sorry! I wish I had better answers here).
I hope this helped answer stuff.

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11-foot-8 bridge progress:
supports - DONE
beams - DONE
ballasts - DONE
texture color beams - DONE 100% match
texture color supports - not done, texture subject to change/replacement before the beta as time allows, as I've got some CC-0 / CC textures of worn old grungy concrete to add in.
texture color ballasts - fine as-is
abutments - not done - will use parts of support to re-make this and keep draw calls minimal as possible
abutment color shall match support color as is same material
rails - will import set of rails from one of the railroad kit pieces to ensure good usability.
Crash beam - have the beam part, not the supports yet (unless they turn out to be beams, but I do have round columns if needed that I imported from my road-spanning bridge support model so this should be quick.
Crash beam texture - will use a re-color of steel texture / industrial beam textures for this similar to the bridge beams, but in yellow in-stead of brown. Won't have as many wear-marks as the original but maybe you can make some

Stats - 4000 polys, 8450 triangles, 11 or 12 draw-calls total currently. Will be ONLY about 15~18 draw calls when completed - which is EXTREMELY good. That's what takes so long - and I couldn't speed through what will be a focal-point for the map because - who doesn't love the 11-foot-8 / 12-foot-4 bridge??? There should be a shrine just for that one this website!
Pictures should be self-explanatory but shows bridge from two sides and a close up. There's also a wire-frame one so you can see just how much detail (at the edges especially) is present. This should look good in the map.

Again I would like to thank everyone who supports or just chimes in now and then for your continued patience, while I make something awesome to bring you hopefully many hours or nights of fun rampaging and crashing around in. I cannot wait to see just what can be done with this game-engine, especially with the new Vulkan renderer, in the near future. I have so much planned but only two hands and one brain to do it all with. This map will likely not feature any free CC-SA models, as due to that 'share-alike' clause, this could never go commercial and it would be a shame to hold back the possibilities of this map just for a few models. They are used as reference points at that rate, just like NC licensed* models are. The only non-paid models (models also not from contributors/supporters) that will make it into the final release by the time this is done will be CC-0 models, with credits listed in a readme txt that will eventually be in the map.
This map is not just a fun place to crash around in or drive about for hours and hours over many play sessions, it's also a resource. Supporting this map project supports the whole community, so thank-you for your patience and support. I will make sure the wait is worth it, as lately I've been able to purchase around 80~100 (forget!) buildings for this map and am trying to also cram some of them into the next update. Expect to see more photo-realistic sidewalk textures in the future at some point, too. License-restricted commercial models, textures, and other assets will be in a 'commercial' folder so folks know that you could run afoul of licensing issues if you re-use those buildings in your own map. I am always 'on the horn' speaking with model authors to get in writing that it is okay if other users (for this game only) make use of these purchased models / things occasionally while making maps - if so I can move them out of the commercial folder. If I can get BeamNG staff to update the asset index to where we can use dependencies while making a map and pull textures from the base-game stock maps without having to duplicate said resources in your own map - if they do this, you could then read the resources from my map data files and not run afoul of some asset licenses. The existing engine CAN sort-of do that now and could sort-of do that for a while now, but in it's current state, that's a less than reliable way to do things as of right now.
I should have plenty of time in the next two/three/four weeks to work on this map (there will be a release in the middle of that provided nothing gets crazy here), so do expect more progress updates. I cannot say which day for certain the map will update for supporters or on the public servers sometime after, but I'm doing the best I can over here without burning out. For once I am happy to see winter, cold and all, at-least I got caught up on other duties now. I've got even better stuff than this slated for future updates, so do stop back in once in a while - especially if you like to read (heh!).
Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving holiday and/or long weekend too - though with that said, if I eat one more Bird Sandwich, I think I will pop.
--Splat

 

I have a minor issue with the traffic lights, they are broken per se:


Anything I can do to fix it?

 

I thought I had that licked the last time around, but I guess I hadn't as it was reported again just post-release. I will try to see if there's a copy of the old model somewhere yet. You can try clearing cache but I don't know if that'll fix it yet.
This bug happens when using low/lower settings and very rarely happens on medium for some folks. It's because the traffic light cycle (the color of the light currently) works via a very long slender graphic - as in 3 pixels wide slender - but quite long (128 pixels or so). So when you load medium*, low, or lower graphics, the game loads every other or every 4th row of pixels of graphics by down-sampling textures to the appropriate size. So if you have a traffic light cycle that is long and slender, and you try to down-sample it, you just make a big smear of all color. That is what you see. The colors differ by driver version, game version, version of my map, and video hardware itself not in any specific order (that's beyond even The Bob's hardware knowledge). I had long ago fwd'ed the info to the devs who fixed that long ago - possibly without my help (it was around the same time), but to fix it on my map I've been a bit behind on that. I will make sure to have another look-see to see if I can find any traces of the old graphic (which may over-ride the new one that's recently been put in there) yet in the map resources by mistake.
Cutting down textures reduces VRAM usage, for older and/or less powerful graphics cards. Going over the VRAM limit will cause the video processor to pull models from system memory which by comparison is a lot slower - making your experience go 50% ~ 10% of the speed it normally would. If this map runs too slowly with only your one vehicle loaded, you likely face a used-too-much-VRAM issue (this listed here for everyone, whenever I get even remotely close to said topic).
Stupid Technology!

* sometimes the bug presents itself on medium texture detail and below, sometimes it only happens on low and lowest. I don't know how or why there's a difference between some users. Most game-engines have a fail-safe in place so that drivers and game-engine code don't allow for cutting down of textures less than 8 to 32 pixels in any one direction, but obviously we don't have this here.

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Speaking of stupid technology, I should have the 11-foot-8 bridge model done tonight. This leaves me most the rest of the week to stick in buildings and actually get some changes into the map (versus all the behind-the-scenes / out-of-the-map-editor stuff I've been doing). This is a large part of what's held up release - I don't have much in-map changes to show off right now as most of my work has been on models and resources.

Bridge abutment is done and textured. Kept a low-detail single draw call unit to the side for easy collision/LOD use later. I spent TWO HOURS (or at-least a little under that) making this stupid bridge abutment. I even used a half-pillar with a slightly widened base to keep draw calls a few lower (the lower portion of the real bridge abutment is actually square, where the beams sit upon, but it's rounded here because I cut a support in-half and used that for draw call reduction). I model SLOWLY, nothing is fast, otherwise I screw up everything. So as-it-is, Maya messes up enough stuff (though I'll say from experience, Blender is absolutely no better, they both have tempermental things), I don't need to make this worse with haste. Haste makes waste - let's not forget that. Ever. Didn't get started until after dinner today either.
Just have to make the crash beam, it's pair of supports on either side, and then the gangway along the bridge. Will put the train track on it last, that's but just importing a short straight section of rail track and two cross-cuts to remove the stone in the center where the bridge is. Will be doing more on it tonight.
Also, egad, it won't end; I've got about two hundred messages and notifications back-logged over the last week or more. It's going to be a little while until I can get to everyone who messaged in (except those on this thread). I didn't even get through them all the last time or even before then. Some could be waiting weeks already. I am sure someone will give me the bamboo-sticks-under-the-fingernails torture for it before the week is out. If anyone has any patience left, it's appreciated.

 

I just love how Bob is so devoted to this project. Seriously, it's been what, three years, and he's still going strong. You are what the BeamNG community should aspire to be, my man. Keep up the very, very good work.

 

I don't think there is any should be about it for many of us!

 

Game update has landed. *cries* While I am 65535% happy the game has updated and we get free new content, new features, new bug fixes, and so-forth...
I DO NOT NEED THIS HAPPENING < 7 DAYS BEFORE I PLANNED TO PUSH AN UPDATE!!!
I can't even download it until after 0200 hours because of our data limits in the day time... so keep me posted if anything's amiss after the update.
Will try to keep the update on schedule.

I cannot say this is the first (or the tenth) time this has happened. It's happened A LOT.
I only have the gang-ways to model on the 11-foot-8 bridge, everything else is done. Gang-way wire railing will not have collision and may not even be modeled in because of it.
Some textures will have to be scripted in to the texture indices (though they're re-colors of existing textures to save space where possible).

The free-roam mission availability will 100% be put to good use later this month, it's one of the features I was needing before I do missions. The template system will make it easier to do more missions in less time, but DO expect simple fetch or hauling missions first despite it's presence. These types of missions are good to introduce the player to the layout of the map and some of it's destinations or possibly more out-of-the-way places.

It wouldn't bother me if it takes me a total of ten years to do this map (it won't), the end result would be worth it to me alone - hopefully others shall agree when it's done. Some mods don't get finished because people's computers blow up, get viruses, hard drive corruption and not having backed up files (as I do regularly). Sometimes the mod author loses interest or has a life-changing moment such as starting a family or gets a better more-involved job position that leaves them less time to do game mods. Sometimes folks have mental illnesses that prevent attention being kept on things long enough (ADD/ADHD come to mind, a pretty common diagnosis). I don't have that issue here (only some rather nasty deep-rooted PTSD here, thankfully), so I have no issue keeping on things as long as my physical health holds out. Sometimes I just can't sit here any longer (MOAN) - other times I can go 8 hours without getting up (hooray for surprise progress!). Then there's times like this fall since the end of summer around August when I got SLAMMED with work - or even back in Feb ~ May when I was busy making a single-wide trailer livable again (it was a trap-house, E.G. really beat up, water ingress, holes in the floor, doors/floor damage throughout, no working plumbing, vacated by previous tenant due to being arrested for substance abuse etc). Sometimes I can't change what life throws at me - and being raised to help others ever if I don't make money, I often help when and where I can (never know when I might need help myself one day). What I can change, is what I do when I get done with these things or have time to myself to make game content. E.G. Lost a LOT of time yesterday having to run errands and then spent over THREE HOURS just scrubbing down doors out back of the house as they haven't been subject to a good scrubbing for YEARS and no one else will do it, as it's decided to be 60~70F (room temperature) outside lately and this might be our last blast of true warmth before the dead of winter.
It isn't entirely a write-off when I am not in good enough health to model or map, or am otherwise busy with other things. I often will purchase models to make up for the time I am not able to spend modeling or mapping so there is continual new content and to keep supporters happy that they're supporting something that would otherwise possibly seem dead for progress.

I've wanted to make exactly what I am making for the greater part of the last 30 years, so I am doing this project now that I can map AND model. I am going to keep doing it for however long it takes provided I can afford the software and asset fees. I am not going to stop for any reason, either, aside of the previous mentioned one. It's going to be good, but as with anything it'll take a little time to do everything right (or at-least try to). In the end, I hope I am able to share fluidly enough my vision of what a game can be despite not knowing 100% of what most developers know - learning what I require along the way.
Sure, I can't keep a deadline to save my sorry broken hide, BUT there's enough examples out there of Day 1 or Day 0 patches and unplayable bugged messes of games today, without needing me to make another to throw on the steaming heap.

To that end I will be here, modeling, for a few days yet, getting what I need to get into the map prior to the next beta shipping. I will refrain from saying which exact day it will be as I don't even have the update for the game engine started for downloading yet (will have it tomorrow, I hope).
When I have a servicable update put together, I'll upload it and let everyone know. It shouldn't be too long now, as I'd still prefer to get it out in the next week if possible provided the game engine doesn't layer hate on me too bad.
Oh the fun of making an early-access modification for an early access game - and to think I chose this, too.
That's okay, it's a fun journey and without said challenge comes much boredom. No thanks, I'll just keep mapping/modeling/texturing and so-forth doing the things I do best, for all you folks out there, while I can still do them.
Still better than dating a Centipede with a weekly shoe-buying affliction that I'm expected to fund...

Again, do keep me posted if 0.24 brings bugs of any size or flavor, otherwise the beta is still on it's way in the next week or less. --Cheers!

 

I couldn't see any issues with the new update, the map is a little bit too big to fit in the overview map, but fast travel is just made for Los Injurus, it's a complete new experience and it's awesome.

 

Awesome, so it's (fast travel is) not just for Fallout anymore!
Great, glad to hear it. Maybe my monster of a map project is truly changing this game engine for the better - or maybe the developers just wanted to do all the same things I want to do (that'd be awesome). The more supported things I can get from the engine side of the project, the less I have to do, the more time I can map/model, and the further and better this gets for all (this 'engine-side' of things is stuff that the developers do, I just interface with them when there's an issue or there's something I need badly that would benefit the game as a whole - if it's just something for this project I don't usually / selfishly ask for it). @davidinark is absolutely going to love the FAST TRAVEL. I for one have downloaded the game (got it working late late LATE last night), but I haven't had a chance to get into it yet.

I am seriously hoping that we get more cool features - but I'll just keep hoping, begging (and maybe praying) that we keep getting more useful stuff like that. That said I don't mind manually driving places especially with gobs of AI going. Every time I run the AI in this map, I thank myself for getting a Ryzen CPU, and I don't even have to bake myself half to death trying to debug AI and test it fully like when I had the i7 4790k Haswell-era (4000 series was known to be toasty) chip. This Ryzen and the whole machine in general doesn't product much heat BUT can keep this room comfortably warm on colder nights in winter if I throw a DVD or Bluray in the drive and tell Handbrake (encoder) to make a digital version of it. If I did that on the i7 I might as well get out a pack of hamburger patties and a grill spatula... or at-least some marshmallows to roast over the heat that would puke out.

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Putting the final touches on the 11-foot-8 (or 12-foot-4) bridge here. I believe that it's quite close to being done. I have to fancy up my collision model (not shown) and remove the texturing from it (as I dupe these from the lowest detail level that's still true to the structure).
In the picture below, the bottom left is a scan I purchased, which I did not directly use any pieces of to build the bridge itself (I will re-do the overheight sign and add it to an existing traffic light model in the map). I just used the scan (since it was a UV and mesh-layout nightmare) to get a good idea for scale and how it's setup, as it made a good starting reference to build off of in a timely manner.
The top left is a video from yovo on Youtube, showing the real bridge, and a truck about to get a giant moon-roof courtesy of the bridge.
The majority of the right and center portion of the screen is the bridge model I've made solely for Los Injurus. The bridge, the abutments (ends of the bridge), supports, crash-beam and texturing (for the model) is 100%. The traffic light model is shown here and is from the scan / for reference, and won't be in the game. I already have traffic signals in the game itself, so I'll use those. The overheight sign will be modeled quickly and will be it's own deal that I can add onto the light. The OVERHEIGHT MUST TURN will be a separate object over the sign body itself, so that I can flip the text object 180 degrees (as it's single-sided, invisible from the back side) instantly as needed to make the sign appear to blink on and off. It may blink all the time as traffic is approaching, I cannot fix that as the trigger spheres are round - unless I use many smaller ones - but we shall see. I haven't touched trigger objects in 18 months, so I am sure there's some more engine support logic here now for things like that. If I have any trouble I will go crying to poor Nadeox and ask him exactly what the best way to simulate this sign is.
Los Injurus will earn it's name well, and proudly at that. That is after-all what this game is about, is it not?
I've lost some time this week due to the strangely warm weather we've had (it'll be gone sometime Monday), it was so warm the last 3 days or so, you can wear shorts and a muscle shirt and not get cold. Seriously. December and we're hitting 70F for a few days already. Glad to have some nice weather to work on the house. It's like the end of May or September here. Three cheers for global warming, I guess!

I will take some time to prepare an area to place this bridge and integrate it into the map decently / in an immersive manner. I will try to match the road layouts, building locations and sizes, etc.
More buildings will likely be added into the map right before or after the next update. Regardless, I'd like to get this out for public consumption by the holiday - supporters get it first of-course as-always.
Further versions of the map from now on will be size-reduced. I haven't really done much to the MRK in the last two months, but the size-reduction will remove unused objects and textures from the map.
I have refrained from down-sizing any of the textures currently but that may be an option I use in the future on some textures (not ALL!), to help keep the map running well and staying within VRAM constraints. If there was no video card shortage, I wouldn't have to worry about this - however if people cannot buy any upgrades due to no availability at a decent price, then fewer people will have 8gb or larger cards - currently it takes just over 8gb on highest details on many video cards. That is USED, not solely requested memory on the GPU, and is why some folks have performance issues (hint: turn down texture detail if so - especially if it slows by the large airport & tunnel nearby).
Spoilered note for those using the map editor (I just used spoiler to hide it if you don't do map editing).

Spoiler

If you're concerned with this possibly missing some things if you're editing your own map, it's not a big deal as it'll only contain the things that are used, and as-such can be copied over the old version's data structure to update the things needed to update all used models to the current form. For those not editing their own map or making changes here, then you should be OK to ignore this spoiler note. A complete version of the MRK kit (modular road kit) can always be obtained by request and will become 24/7 available to Patreon project supporters as soon as any of the tiling road sets are updated / redone. You can find this kit in the /shapes/MRK folder within the map data.

That is all for tonight.
edit: for clarification; the reason there's another bridge or two past the first is because those are the LOD's (simplified versions for rendering when far away to keep FPS up and CPU hogging down).

 

Oh, it's going to be a bit before everyone who sent direct messages on here gets an answer. I've been drowned in notifications over the last few days/weeks/months (I don't mind other than it takes me a while to get to everyone). Maybe my mile-a-minute typing speed will be useful here.
Bombs Books Away! (I just can't manage short posts, they end up as books!) Hopefully I don't melt the keyboard.

 

I could never imagine being as popular in that way. I'd go crazy hah
Good luck, and hopefully you get to everyone
I love your map btw. I upgraded my laptops memory just to play it with traffic

 

I wasn't even considering popularity personally - that is not the end-goal - but if the map itself is popular, THAT is what matters here!
It's up to 214 notifications now. Sheesh. I can barely tread water on this thing. I more-less mentioned it to let folks know that I have a TON of messages to go through and respond to, so they hopefully don't feel (as) cold-shouldered. I wouldn't want that. I am here to bring joy and fun to folk's day, not be a meanie (no matter how big or small).
Playing this with traffic is awesome. I will be looking into getting the lights working with the traffic engine this spring. It's not something that's just drop-in and go sadly. No, seriously, if you haven't played with 8~20 vehicles in traffic yet on this map or Roane County, it's definitely something worth upgrading for!
I put a very very large amount of hours into this map's traffic flow, as I did with Roane County to a lesser extent - despite that Roane County has graphic format issues a bit (for now, I will fix it sooner or later).

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BRIDGE IS DONE! Finally! I put small non-colliding boxes underground to show how far it goes from the intersection, which won't be visible when the model is in the map (they'll be buried out of view, possibly removed from the model after development is mostly completed). Didn't have much time to finish things up over the weekend as I was extremely busy getting everything done that I could possibly get done because it was WARM outside (70F!!! In December! it does this now and then but it's not common). I even took time to mow the Sheriff's Aunt's lawn because it was covered in leaves and her mower was broken - for free - I ask nothing as it only cost me a gallon of gas and two+ hours time.

"Cherish Thy Neighbor" and of-course a helpful sprinkling of "Do unto others as you wish done unto you" ... words to live by.​

For those wondering, you will be able to raise and lower the bridge as-needed (inside the forest editor), the crash bar moves along with it, too. If needed, I can make the crash bar a unique model split from the bridge model, but for now it will be as one. You'll have to mind if the train tracks (which approach the bridge using separate models) get odd-looking if you raise or lower the bridge, but you can finesse those, or just keep them out of the shot, too. The sidewalks, street, hills / terrain and so-forth will be other (individual) objects and can be manipulated as-needed for the scene you wish to make.
I have the wire-frame on in the picture, so you can see (along with the totals for triangles, polys, vertices, UV's etc) what the completed model entails. The train tracks will be applied with a tracks-only model that will sit atop the bridge. This way when/if I update the train tracks later on, those will update also - and more importantly match now and later on when viewing them in the map. It really stinks to have to waste time especially near the end of the project (not near that point yet!), to have to chase down all the different models you need to update (such as things containing train tracks), so this will make things easier later.

I will be processing / bug-checking / putting in buildings in the map etc this week, and probably finishing off a little area that needs finishing to accept the buildings.

 

Im actually in the process of RMA'ing my new desktops motherboard, then I will be able to really load up over 20 vehicles and watch my PC scream at me hehe

I love traffic, zooming around them is always challenging, especially when they randomly swerve for no reason xD