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

It's beyond maddening, but thanks. I am doing the best. I took a little time away from it for sanity sake, and to see if I could think of some other thing I may have changed, or way to fix it.
I fixed a few of the textures, but for some reason it's not reading any new materials I add (even if I clear cache). Going to convert to new material format for indices before the end of the weekend, see if that makes it pick up the new textures (it should, as if that doesn't I'm out of options and have to send this in to the devs).

Ugly pee-colored old concrete on roadways (previously pictured) has been fixed.

Tunnel mouths being covered by terrain due to format conversion errors on 0.24 have been fixed, I think I got them all but who knows I could have missed one. I guess we'll find out soon enough if I did, as there's A LOT of road tunnels, culverts under roads, and "cheated" AI paths where I did janky stuff with the terrain to make it work. All 3 of these things use the terrain-hole feature, and that broke when saving old maps in 0.24, so they all had to be put back. So there might be random stuff with the terrain that shouldn't be the way it is (tunnel mouths closed off if I missed any, odd spiky hills). I double-checked the subway tracks, and stations as those use it too, those are fine now and I've got those taken care of.
Random holes might have made an appearance in the mountain-sides of the terrain, I think I caught most of them but if you find one in the next beta, kindly let me know. It's due to how the terrain editor doesn't always hit what you're clicking on, even though the cursor says it's in one spot... yeah... I wasn't too pleased. Maybe there's 2 or 3 small ones somewhere, again I think I fixed most of them that happened when I was fixing the culverts/tunnels so who knows. One of the police department garages also used the 'terrain hole' feature so that's fixed too.
Random no-texture issues abound. Again this is a large part of what's holding up release. Fix one thing and two things break. Try to fix those and realize you cannot. Still working on this here, not happy, but trying my best to make this happen. Some of these no-textures are due to me moving files around to try and make this stupid thing load new textures but to no avail. It's only a few textures here and there that were broken by me trying to do THAT though, so that shouldn't take too long, as the log actually picks up on those.
There has been a substantial re-organization of files in the map. The next update (provided I can get these issues fixed) will no-longer conflict with the old so-cal, and no-longer conflict with the older version(s) of the map. I have started to change the file structure so that it's easier to work with as there's just SO MANY files and it was getting too cumbersome to work with. This helps eliminate duplicate files, entries, and help fix/prevent bugs like the traffic lights not working right on below-max / below-medium settings for graphics due to duplicate files with only one being updated last-time.

 

This is probably one of the maps with the most potential on BeamNG so far. My friend and I love driving the seemingly endless roads. However, there are some roads that just seem to end. I know that the map is not finished yet, but I think it could do with some more in-universe road blockades, or something similar. Also, just because I want to, would you be able to add a couple of disused Civil Defence Sirens around the map? Anyway, great map!

 

Expect those 'road just ends' issues to disappear as time goes on, though I cannot give a firm date of precisely when, I am expanding the map all the time. If I add blockades, the AI would smash into it and it would jam up every intersection that has them at one side. So I just usually don't block them off unless they're closed for a while (if in the town sometimes I do, but even that is rare).
Honestly I try to complete the roads up to the next route they intersect and not leave them half-finished requiring players to turn around - but that isn't always practical. I will do what I can though, and do try to put 'this road to be under construction with tentative date to and from when' when I plan on ripping things up in the near future. Sometimes I get things done within that time, sometimes not.
Not sure about the civil defense sirens, but those can be considered in the future in the final detail passes. Submit some pictures of what you're interested in with that and maybe I can model one up (or find a cc-0 free model to use).

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The bridge is hungry! Almost time to feed the can-opener bridge.

While the blue texture on the bridge structure isn't yet properly configured, this shows the concept of what I'm trying to do here. This should prove quite entertaining, and this won't be the only low bridge. There will be a 12-foot-4 version (11-foot-8, plus-8), and also some other rather low bridges sprinkled around the map to offer challenge to truckers who don't know the map by heart yet.

--Just wanted to give a shout so you know I'm still working on it. Still trying to get some textures working over here and it's not happy with me, among other things I need to fix.

 

Yeah, thanks for the info on the roads. Here are two examples of sirens that I think might look cool in Los Injurus. I don’t think that there are any good models online of them, but they shouldn’t be too complicated to make in some software. As I said, the map is looking great so far

 

I'll keep my eyes out for some freebie models with those, or make some 'basic' modes like that in the future. Won't rule those out at all. Thank-you for showing me some source pics so I know what I'm looking for. We don't have sirens out in my end of town but west of town there are some as they get tornadoes every year there. We had tornadoes come through in 2020 and 2021 in March / Feb both years, could really use some here in Tennessee where I live in my part of (rural) town. We've seen no less than 3 clearly and heard a 4th from the house in 10 years - but thankfully the TV's and my PC here go batty when there's tornadoes so at-least I get some warning.

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The developers have fixed some things wrong with the editor!!! Hooray!
Now the forest object tool is no longer broken to insane levels. It shouldn't randomly delete entries now and should be easier to click on, plus the terrain texture updater is rumored to work now, purportedly anyways, we'll see how that goes.
In other news I haven't converted the textures yet to the new format, nor the file indices, but will be doing so shortly (I had been busy building things in the map). I have about a mile of city roads to build (that is faster in the new editor) but was also slowed down by alot of the above bugs which should now be fixed (about to fire up 0.25 tonight).
Let me know if anything is any more broken, if my maps don't load, or don't work at all (even my other maps as I might not see the notification right away). Doing the best to button this one up, again, sorry for delay after delay but I am pushing this through as fast as sanity allows me. I refuse to put out half-broken barely working stuff, I just can't put that rubbish out with my name on it after people support this map and such. I want it to work, and work well, and be immersive and enjoyable.

Some buildings might seem same-y and lack some variety, this is just the way it is for right now until I get more buildings in and balance VRAM resources better. Consider flipping texture detail down a notch if it's too slow for you folks when the new version comes out, I promise the city will still look good on medium with what-should-be a 3 or 4gb GPU. So seriously, stay tuned, and sorry for the roller coaster ride but this mess pushed my sanity to the brink and I needed a day or two off.

I can only hope the fabled 11-foot-8 and it's sibling the 12-foot-4 (or 11-foot-8 + 8) can make up for my sorry hide making delay after delay in what seems like an endless stream of excuses. However, excuses they are not, it's me calling out for help when I need it most after throwing my hands up having exhausted all options. I want this to be every bit as awesome as we dream a 3d immersive city could be, only limited by the game engine itself. I won't stop if there's still a way for me to achieve this goal either. So worry not, I think I've gotten through the worst of it, just provided 0.25 will allow me to get my [censored] textures working or not. Will have an answer on that within 48~72 hours though as there's TONS of textures.
IMMEDIATELY post-release I will update both my and any carried-over base-game assets to PBR for realism as these textures need absolutely any boost they can get in any means possible. So DO know that PBR is in the works, I have some 25 GB of PBR textures here both purchased and what has been acquired via nice cc-0* free licenses.
*CC-0 is creative commons 'free beer' licenses with credit being option. Credit is given as I amass the mess of credits. This could take time - you have been warned - but the credits will ship with the map with the most prominent ones going on placards around the map in parks or wherever, including Patreon member's names to whom I am eternally grateful. If it wasn't for the support of YOU and countless others, even if just voicing opinion or support in place of donations, it means the world to me as a physically disabled person trying to find a good hobby and purpose. Who knows, maybe one day I can get a professional job in this and make something even better with the backing of a large corporation (who hopefully doesn't rush it and screw everything up).
Please continue to pest the devs for full streaming into and out of VRAM support for the game engine so I can continue to provide super-duper high quality immersive assets without such a worry of overloading VRAM. If *ANYONE* knows of any legit website where one can purchase a full streaming kit in C+ code that'd work with a 3D DX12/Vulkan game-engine like this, PLEASE give me a shout. I know they have model / texture / sound or music / asset sites out there commercial and free, but I usually don't see code for sale. Something to consider if I can save up enough money to purchase it or bribe the developers to see the light at the end of the not-enough-VRAM tunnel. This project really needs this!!!
If I can figure it out, I will post a poll for VRAM sizes, so I can get a grip of what you've all got going on in your 'puters. When I figure that out, it'll be up so please participate.
Also, please send in your favorite building or infrastructure pics! Can always use some inspiration over on my end to see what brick box I can slap together next.
--Cheers from a noticeably happier Bob, for now anyways!

 

I found this Google Sketchup model of the ‘head’ of a Federal Signal 500AT siren, the rest of it should be relatively simple to model
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/c1432e6c746c10238ac14b139fe35791/Federal-Signal-500AT?hl=pl
I am not sure if Sketchup is what you use, but this is the only (good) model I can find of this siren

 

Thanks! I will check the license on that model and the credits to add into the credit glossary.
If only more people were as outgoing as you have been. Thank-you Sir.

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Now hopefully the texture indices converter program works & makes these stupid things work (and then the no-texture everywhere will hopefully go away). It's gotten to the point where I had a dream and in that dream EVERYTHING WAS NO_TEXTURE. Ahhh!
This is very possibly due to a bug in the game engine, or I evidently did something profoundly stupid (wouldn't that be such a surprising plot twist, eh?).

Whatever it is that's messing up the new building textures is messing up the new road textures, too. I really think it's my old texture-indices formatting. I am really truly unsure of what it's doing internally.
I've checked pathing, I've checked file location and formatting of said graphics, I've checked my set user-paths (as I wouldn't get the map up without it), I've even checked where it's saving the changes to. It's not picking up differences (e.g. add a new texture entry or two) I make in texture indices unless I change an existing texture (even if I change file names to it, which doesn't make any sense).
Will keep folks posted. Derp. Whatever happens, it'll be posted tomorrow as I've had 2.x hours of sleep last night. Failing that I'll send it over to the staff, and it'll likely cause everyone to get a hot-fix, or just for my brain to get a hot-fix. Wouldn't be a first for either, far from it actually, but I won't get into it too much, at-least the editor is a lot better now.
Stupid Technology!

 

I have about 15GB of VRAM, would I still be able to run this map smoothly?

 

You should be fine I would surmise. Keep in mind you will want to try low/very low if you only have 1~2gb of video memory too. If you have 15gb of SYSTEM RAM, you likely have 1gb of video memory portioned off for an IGP (integrated graphics). So try the low video setting, or try lowest. It needs a lot of video memory.

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ALL attempts to convert the texture indices have failed. I tried to convert the map over to the new JSON format, but it does not work. It crashes the game when I run the converter, and the map just crashes when I try to load it, and OF COURSE the log is USELESS as always.
I tried for hours to fix this but to no avail. When I'd fix one bug there'd be another, and another, and another, and it went on forever, even referencing files that did not exist!
That means this map will keep the CS format and go on until the CS format is unsupported soon in one of the coming versions of the game engine.
There will likely be a bunch of no_texture issues in the coming update of the map. I can't fix these as it's just too much to figure out anymore for me. I have tried everything, but it does not pick up my changes that I make to any texture indices.
I have absolutely no idea why it is not working anymore.

 

The joys of BeamNG programming, eh?
The only way out I can imagine would be contacting the devs, but I am not sure how helpful they might be (as in it may take a very long time for the errors to be fixed)
I wish I could be more helpful and I hope you find a solution

 

I assume you know the issue in the screenshot above is not a no texture issue but a no material one? Otherwise you would have tried to fix the wrong issue
Also I've heard the black PBR textures can be caused by your textures not having a power of two as size

 

At this point this is the only thing I can do, besides try running the converter on one of my older versions of the game (if the unmodified version loads at all there). I have all versions back to 0.19 and a few older archived versions beyond that, for reasons like this.
I have the staff aware of it but I have not heard back. There isn't much I can do here.

PBR isn't relevant right now as I haven't implemented any of that yet, converting the texture index format (the scripting which defines the texture options and what files are used) must come first.
Textures in question are power of 2. There was a few that weren't which were fixed this winter (such as one of the airport runway textures which DID cause some lag, which got blamed on the tunnel).
The game isn't picking up any of the changes to the texture indexes at all, it's like as-if I never hit save on the script editor I use to change them. I cannot explain this behavior, nor can I work around it. I cannot move forward without this as these textures are required by the models I made. If it was as easy as just text-hacking another stucco texture etc into the model, I'd have done that, but these textures were custom-made for these models and they look GREAT with it. They don't look great with orange no-texture.

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Map Update...
So the map is backed up online, so the staff can look at it. If they can't fix it, I will clean up some floating stuff and release what is here, until someone can 'rescue' the map to allow progress to continue. I hate to sound like this, but really I'm up the creek with a turd for a paddle at this point due to game engine issues/bugs or some unforeseen issue I did with the map that I can't figure out.
While I can never rule out me being stupid, I've had this issue for around a month now and I don't know what to do. I had issues before with some things not working but I managed to work around it until a month or so ago... I just can't continue with nothing working however. When they fix the game engine (or someone fixes this map) I will be able to push new updates not-too-long after.
I'm not happy. Everything worked fine in 0.20. Now nothing in regards to map resources works, not even the converter! The converter crashed the whole game, and the map never loaded again. I had to delete it and restore from backup it was so bad, after trying for hours to fix whatever it messed up (a lot). Since I updated from 0.20, it has been nightmare city non-stop.
Is it too much to ask that things just work more often than not when I try to make something in this game? I get it's pre-release; but 0.20 was rock-solid stable and super-hard to crash unless you un-delete a decal road with undo (then it would crash fantastically 100% of the time leaving you with a party for 1 on the desktop all by yourself). One step forward, two steps back.
At this point this project is NOT cancelled, but updates are going to be on hold until whatever this bug found to be is fixed, be it my fault or the game-engine having some issue. The log does not tell me anything I can pin-point to be the likely culprit. This is part of what has been holding up the map for so long, each new version has crept in adding more bugs. There's too many now and it looks like rubbish and won't load at all with the converter run on it.
I do not have a time-frame for the fix, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be several weeks. I will keep everyone posted and be transparent where possible when possible.

 

That's how the converter works on big maps. You get a few .jsons at a time, quite randomly. Keep the map in mods/unpacked. Run the converter, and after the crash move the new .jsons from 0.25/levels to the unpacked location and delete the original materials.cs files there.

I usually rename a generated materials.json to main.materials.json and merge it to an old json if there was one in a folder.

Empty the 0.25/levels before another conversion run. Repeat the steps until all the cs files are replaced. Sometimes the converter stops finding anymore cs files, but you can force it by copying the unconverted folder to 0.25/levels and in the editor pinpoint the converter to look only there.

The excellent part of the converter is the quality of the files it makes. You don't even have to open them and crosscheck the materials. If the cs worked, the json will work. It just needs some gentle kicking to get all the files done .

I tested the converter in 0.25.2 on your repo version and after the first run and crash plenty of jsons were generated. Unless you have completely messed up the map over the past year, you should find something like this in the 0.25/levels:

 

This seems quite the predicament - generally in these situations, when (correction: if) I figure out what the bug is, it is usually the most obviously stupid mistake that I have somehow glossed over multiple times. Lots of people are very passionate about this map, so you take your time to find and resolve the issue one way or another.
“We’re all rootin’ for ya, kid”
-Sans, from Undertale
(Sorry, couldn’t resist that quote)

edit: haha, I spoke too late. A fix has appeared

 

I don't mean to be rude, or to bump this thread; I apologize. But when can we anticipate the next update?

 

Bob wrote about this yesterday

 

Can we blame him for wondering where the update has been??? It's only been what, HALF A YEAR? Shame on me, and shame on the stupid bugs that wrecked my sanity to the point where I welcome my weekly yard work.

THANK YOU!!! I tried to run that thing for hours and just made a crashing MESS.
I actually saved some JSON files from the crashed out version last night from the recycle bin, just-in-case. Again, I wish everyone was as out-going and involved as you are.

Very soon my friend, very soon. Well very soon for supporters, ~2 weeks following for others and general public consumption, provided that the private supporter beta isn't as mangled as it is right now.

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I HAVE FIGURED OUT WHY THE MAP DOES NOT PICK UP TEXTURE CHANGES!
Finally, I have figured out that the game WILL NOT pick up any changes to CS files on subsequent runs of the map. So if you run the map a few times fiddling with things to get it upgraded, and then add some new stuff in to CS files which are texture indexes for roads, buildings, and everything else you can see, it won't notice. So you don't get your changes visible, just models with no_texture everywhere, and I'm not even a big fan of OSHA Orange. CS is a legacy format soon to be unsupported.
So now I must try and convert the stupid thing - or do what I think I am going to do anyway, which is just add the new updated stuff that is absolutely positively needed into the main materals JSON files.
When did I think that this could be the cause? Well, I was in 'my office' using 'the thinker'. When else?
Seriously. If it wasn't for that time and the time I spend day-dreaming whilst crashing through stuff in the yard while on the riding lawnmower, I'd not have solved anything around here - be it in real-life or inside the computer.
Glad I figured it out now because we're about to run low on bathroom tissue.

 

Nice, you figured it out!
It's never a bad thing to move away from unsupported stuff, especially if stuff starts to break left and right

Sorry to correct you, but it has been a year two days ago.

 

Last supporter beta came out end-of-fall or beginning of winter, sometime around then, you may mean the public version. The previous supporter beta was due out December, it is end-of-June when the next one comes out providing I don't hit any more show-stoppers. That's where I got six months from.
The bugs have been undocumented, couldn't even use the editor 2.0 to a reliable amount without serious issues until 0.25 landed.

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*Check back here for the process of conversion updates. This will be edited and updated as I convert various directories.
Terrain directory converted. Duplicates (every one) searched out and removed by matching available unique ID's in old file with dupes in the new file. Verified working, all things working before are working now (I have some new layers I have to figure out that are buggy, and were buggy in 0.20).
Signs_USA folder converted, needed a lot of hand-work on that one. Had to do manually.
Objects & Misc folders converted. That went fairly smoothly.
...more tomorrow at some point.
Trees mostly converter over. Bugs with the sign conversion exist, will fix. Trees seem fine.
Have to convert a few folders, test the map, repeat.
Signs still have issues.
Road folder converted. Had to do by-hand and go-over 2500 lines of code with a fine-toothed keyboard.
Now to building textures so you don't see this hot mess of an object:

That's some of the new textures, we're getting somewhere because before-hand none of them were working.
Soon it might even look like a building!

If I hadn't noted this before, consider the gas-station curbing texture bug squashed. Don't know when this got fixed but it's recent, must have done SOMETHING right. Don't worry, I still have almost a week to break it again!

But yes, I say a week, I don't have a concrete date; but now that I'm getting past some issues, I have to fix bugs bugs and more bugs now that textures can be working in 0.25.x. I also have to finish the roads a bit in the new area where I hadn't been able to get things done when I switched to the editor 2.0. Luckily it has some speed hacks built-in so maybe it'll be even quicker.
Thank you to those who have shown exemplary patience, compassion/love/care/enthusiasm for the project, to those who have been super-out-going and even uploaded files or sent links to help my dumb [censored] out, and to those who graciously support this map. If it wasn't for each and every one of you pitching in a little, or a lot, this project would have been dropped. I won't drop it so long as people show interest, support the map financially, and provided there are ways to figure out and fix bugs. I am very passionate about this project which is why I seem so angry and DO vent out some of it (sorry), when the you-know-what hits the fan. If I didn't care, it wouldn't bother me so much, but I do and in this case that's my fault - but it's not a bad one nor am I shameful of it.
This post will be amended as more things get fixed / converted until I start creating more scenes / blocks in the map in 2~3 days (or sooner). First thing on the agenda is to merge the sign directories if possible and fix the stupid bug (which might fix itself if I merge the folders). I have been simplifying the folder structure* a bit. All road textures are in the roads folder, all terrain textures that are not commercial are in the terrain folder, and so-forth. No more two roads folders, textures here, textures there, blah blah blah.
*Note: Some of the ECA buildings (most of them, except the old gas station, new gas station, new car repair building), have been REMOVED from the map sources. I do NOT have replacements for them in the production pipeline YET but I'm getting there. They were used in the old preview section by the skate-park stunt-park thing spawn. The preview section while only a concept, will keep it's skate-park, but the ECA stuff was merely a concept and showed it was not practical to use those buildings with such high draw calls for the intended density. So that area might be a little bare this summer, until I have new mid-density and low-density / low rise buildings in that part. You can still use the skate-park thing, though, as I enjoy launching cars off of it, too.
There is the beginning of a credits / attributions text that sits in the root folder of my map, which is just a text file that will eventually display in-game with a script. You have to view it manually for now. This will not be the only form of credits to be seen however.

To be amended...
OK, almost done with the textures conversion:

I didn't think this building would look this nice with textures on it. Now for the other ones and to figure out why they're not working fully yet...

Sorry for the orange stuff. Working on it texture by texture. But you can likely see why I was so angry with this thing before - just three models took over 100 hours here as they're so huge, not including some others and the 11-foot-8 model. The 11-foot-8 scene should be fully decorated and give you a choice of that height and the 8 inch higher version after it was raised 2 or so years ago. Height might not be 100% exact on this first beta featuring it, but I'll refine it in time if enough people say it's off by more than a few inches or I seem to notice it's not right.
These pictures do not include the condo model with the parking garage, that still needs it's finishing touches and collision model (that'll take an afternoon, then likely some more time to get all textures in place).
Also, textures will be worked on and given 'normals', 'specular', reflection, and some others where required.
95% or more of the map texture entries are converted to the new index format now. There may be a few remaining old ones that I may have missed, but if they are working I won't mess with it before the next beta, it can wait until after that.
I hope that aside of the orange rubbish, that these buildings will be a whole new level of quality for this map. Now I cannot make every building this detailed, as we'd run out of VRAM after about the size of West Coast, or sooner yet. However, I really tried very hard on this and wanted to make sure everything is top notch.
This post will be amended or a new post will be made when the next progress post goes up.
Yes, I backed it up, it's very very backed up, several times today alone in-fact.
This texture below got mip-maps now so further sections don't 'sparkle', much better than the old one it replaced!

I don't have the edging done / blended to the terrain yet but it will get done soon enough, before the beta.
Seriously, when I said I wanted to aim for AAA textures, I am trying very hard for that - but as consequence, it won't be easy on VRAM requirements.

 

So the supporter beta should be coming soon?