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

Yes, I just got some of the new road textures working now. Undocumented early access game + issues moving a map format forward to new versions and hitting all kinds of bugs DOES NOT equal fun.
Turns out, you need to not only have ROADANDPATH (all one word) as a tag, you ALSO need to have DECAL as a secondary or tertiary tag, too. That 2nd one was not told to me by anyone. I figured it out about 10 hours before I had to be at the church to open it up for everyone for mass, before I even got any sleep. That said I did sleep like a rock at which point, having finally accomplished my goal.
I wish this was easier, but if it was so easy, everyone would do it.
However, it's slowly getting better in time. Time is my only ally right now and I will be busy all week tying up loose ends, squashing bugs, getting the last of the texture index data moved over (the converter missed about a dozen different things, plus I found a TON of bugs like typos, wrong paths, old format graphics that looked like they hadn't been touched in FIVE years, and so-forth).
That said while sitting in a field in the car, I did take a snap-shot of the city skyline. I am somewhat satisfied with how this is turning out, and hope you will be too.

Most of the building textures (98%) actually WORK now. Hooray!
Did a bunch of normal / specular mapping for some things last night for a few hours. I seem to work best overnight if that hasn't been obvious already - always have been a night owl.
I will work on this more tonight most likely.

 

Cannot seem to get road textures I've added to come up with this broken janky editor. I have regretted every last dying minute that I've switched over to the editor 2.0. In all my years I have never in my life used such a heap of absolute stinking rubbish.
This thing is so damn broken, that I don't know how the hell ANYONE gets ANY working material into or out of this heap.
Trying to work around this, but currently this release coming up looks like it's going to be marred with a lot of no-texture issues. We'll be forwarding all bugs to the beamng staff team pretty soon at this rate.
SFW picture linked because my internet connection sucks about as much as Editor 2.0.
https://prnt.sc/jryoW88r8RnQ
In the picture is the index (new format) of the texture I'm trying to pull up for a road, with the roadandpath and decal tags needed but it isn't coming up in the decal road tool because some GENIUS decided to LIMIT the decal road editor to ONLY stuff they want it to show and not 'any graphics' in the map like the old one. Who the heck makes something more limited than the old one???
I'm sorry but I regret every minute of moving this project over to the new editor and am likely going back to 0.20 with editor 1.0, because this 2.0 business, is rubbish!
I've currently lost over 50% of my map dev time in the last 10 days alone just to editor bugs. I have no clue when the next release is coming, but it's whenever I can get the damn road textures WORKING (which is whenever they fix the broken editor and broken game) then I can put out a release.
NO clue when.

 

Maybe I need to rant and talk dirt about the editor more often, because now that I've bashed it, insulted it's mother, and swore worse than a construction worker hammering his thumb or finger, now SOME of the textures are WORKING. SOME of them is better than NONE of them (of the new ones). Sheesh
I've laid 3 of them out here, one on the right edge, one on the left edge (a repair patch thingie), and the dual section down the center. These are less than perfect, obviously have been there some time. Expect more. (they aren't supposed to look striped, but that's how I have them laid out for example in narrow bands).
Stupid technology!
Pictures may be duplicated due to sporadic internet issues which are beyond my control. Please ignore the orange no_texture as I use a mesh road for road-grading speed-hack editing. This is an entirely new section and hence is unfinished.
The CONCRETE bridge that cuts across diagonally over the road is a new model, as-are the pillars (which themselves are a narrow version of the trapezoid shaped canal pillar bases). You will see more of these new pillars in due time especially in some more narrow / smaller canal sections for more realism.
I have been very hard at work when I'm here at the PC on this map update, please understand there may still be some bugs, but the update will be out as soon as I finish a few blocks of road, so that it's decent enough to drive around this side of the lake while not entirely killing the immersion.
Expect many more traffic lights though, as this editor features a (requested by me) feature to copy-paste the traffic lights in the forest brush now. There is also a super-fine adjustment feature when rotating an object and holding CTRL as also there is a manual input coordinates feature (you may have to reload the map or nudge the object to get the coordinate change to update it's location).
The new diagonal bridge will fit the Cabster (just barely!!!) unless it's got a lifted (impractical) suspension but the box-truck (T-series) and any dry-van style trailer WILL NOT FIT and in-fact will be as tall as the rails across the bridge on the higher side. Figured I'd give some truckers a run for their money here. There's plenty of ways to drive a truck to bypass the low bridges, though; so no worries for the Truckee's (truck drivers / lorry drivers) out there.
The map WILL eventually have a truck body-shop, I used to work at one years ago.

 

Slowly getting more and more textures working / corrected. Must be careful with the material editor as it's quite easy to screw stuff up.


Hope the pictures worked, but the map area is a work-in-progress so yes things are unfinished.

 

Wow, this is a lot of progress for such a short amount of time!
Keep up the great work!
Also, not to be nagging, but how far on are the sirens in being added? I know that there has been this NO_TEXTURE phenomenon, so I understand if there hasn’t been much progress…
Again, sorry for nagging!

 

ayyy theres some airport i can use

 

You have a choice of three airports.
1.) Semi-rural private airstrip. This is a short runway for small engine / light private planes to take off or land at, and has a hangar or two at either end. This can be challenging as there is a good slope to the runway similar to Nadeox's one rather-arid map I forgot the name of (oops).
2.) Military base air strip. Pair of fairly long runways (almost a mile?), with plenty of hangars and taxi space. There isn't much out here yet but plenty of space and easy take-off / landings here.
3.) HUGE regional / international airport, the California Regional Air Port. A pair of runways similar in length to the military air strip on the other side of the map. There's also a pair of several-miles-long runways on the ocean-facing side of the airport, loads of room to taxi, some hangars (temporary), and 5 huge concourses similar to Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta Georgia USA. There's also a dual-level terminal and probably over 1000 parking spaces (I never counted, could be 2000~2500+).
I hope this gives you some enjoyment with aircraft of choice. You'll have to bring your own aircraft though.

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They will not be in the next beta. I am rushing trying to catch up with the progress I wanted to already be done with, before I got stuck on several bugs. Good news is I am working around or fixing most of the bugs already if not very soon. I will try to add them within a month or two. You're not a nag, it's okay to ask as that is what this thread is for.

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I did get a lot of new textures in for road surfaces put in. These will slowly edge out the base-game textures that are still featured in a few places in the map. There seems to be a bug when using both main materials json file + materials json file together in the road texture directory. I have passed knowledge of this to the devs but I am not sure 100% on this being the bug. However, as I said, I did get things working.
Please ignore any orange bits, they're just left-over from road carving. I need them to do the cross-slopes on the roads before I remove them (I hide or remove these when I ship a beta). I do cross-slope by incrementally raising the entire mesh road underneath the roadway you drive up. I work my way to the center of the road incrementally as I raise the mesh up. This gives you a beautiful smooth cross-slope that's both realistic, and entertaining. Cross-slope not being present can cause much difference when taking corners (regardless if it's rural road corners nicely banked, or city streets with a steep *cant / cross slope), or trying to recreate accidents. Trust me, I wouldn't pass up opportunities to make the AI or myself go airborne in the game by hitting an intersection too fast, even if I'm not hauling pianos. Cross-slope lets water drain off of the road in a gutter to a storm-sewer inlet, or lacking curbing a road-side earthen ditch in unfriendly weather.
Rural roads are generally not cross-sloped especially ones with lots of turns, I just rely on banking or hills to allow the water not to pond on the road - However as I said I try to put cross-slope on all city streets when possible.
*Cant is just the official term for cross-slope where roads have a high center compared to the curb side. Wider routes on more flat terrain require more cross slope (like by the mall), narrow routes and those on hills require little to none depending on the hill grade and shape of the route / and if there's curbing or not. The terrain resolution is partly why rural routes don't have this slope, as to have higher resolution (double in x and double in y) for a terrain, it'd bloat another 0.5gb to the map or more as they're not compressed any higher than the existing 4k terrain I am already using.
I created some nice patch textures that you'll see more of in the next beta and beyond as I get to updating and detailing more things.
There is some slowdown on some of the new buildings, or at-least one of them (literally cutting FPS in half). This is due to extra unused UV layers I have to remove (will do that tomorrow), as it's cranking draw calls to the moon. Will do the best I can here.
I have a lot of traffic signals and signs to place in the next few days. Expect more of those in the beta.
THE VRAM REQUIREMENTS WILL BE HIGHER IN THE NEXT VERSION, consider one's self warned.
Texture detail VS GPU memory is as follows:
2GB or less - Low,
4gb or less - medium,
10gb~24gb - high texture detail. Some 8gb cards may pull this off depending on drivers, but if you FPS goes down by 50~75%, you know to switch detail down a notch.
Restart the game to invoke the new resolution changes, though I think you can switch it up and it will work immediately. MESH detail levels should be left at max unless you have a very old CPU.
I am not 100% sure the 11-foot-8 and 12-foot-4 bridges are exactly at the height they need but they're easily corrected as-needed and it only takes a moment to do so. Will refine this as I go.
Roads in the newly laid out area will be rather simple and seriously unfinished, because I was held up by bugs-o-plenty, but you can zip down them relatively unharmed.
Not sure if the new underground parking garage will make it yet. We shall see. Trying not to let this project (or game bugs) make me bonkers over here.

I hope you enjoy the new textures that should help the immersion of this map. They will slowly propagate to other routes but I am not going to try and create even more work to hold this release up.
I have higher resolution highway textures almost ready to go, but they'll go in the next beta following this release once I get feedback from other players on the VRAM requirement increase.

 

Fixed a few goofy terrain textures, still haven't fixed all of them yet.
Recently installed streets have all been graded, but need a little fine-tuning near handicap ramps etc.
Picture 3 shows the road taper, this was the cant / cross-slope I mentioned yesterday.
Some details here:

 

All of these changes really bring the city to life! When do you think that the next repository update will be? Also, do you think it would be a good idea if there were a couple of other Mods that support this map, like police, ambulance and fire liveries for cars? Just thought that I would throw that idea out there

 

At this point I don't want to keep promising dates with the early-access state of this map, this game engine, and that editor (2.0). The switch over to the new editor really threw me for a loop, combined with texture format changes, texture index format changes, and a bunch of undocumented strange bugs along with my usual nice tall glass of 'derp' made for making dates impossible.
Swearing about the editor normally goes here but has been omitted. However, that aside, I've got a few blocks of city to tidy up and connect to the road and AI network, and it shouldn't be too long from now.
There's still a few building textures not working (half a dozen or less, I hope, that's all I could find!), some model fixes to implement, and I have to finish up the parking garage model enough to put it in the map, and then I can consider releasing this provided nothing else goes wrong which holds me up. There has been a lot of stuff going wrong in the last two months as I'm sure any reader / regular here can attest.
A lot of new buildings and my new subway stations didn't make it in yet, which I'm none too pleased about. Those I didn't have time to put in yet due to brevity sake in getting this release fast-tracked to make up for as much as bugs set me back. I also when mentioning texture indexes needed to get all those converted over (I think I have???) because of the following:
ALL MAPS USING MATERIALS CS INDEX FORMAT WILL BREAK BY THE BEGINNING OF FALL 2022. THIS FORMAT IS NO LONGER ADVISABLE TO USE. LOS INJURUS HAS BEEN CONVERTED AS OF NOW BUT MANY OF YOUR FAVORITE CLASSIC MAPS AREN'T UPDATED YET. Please make an archival copy of your BeamNG Drive installation and mods folder so you have a backup just in-case you REALLY want to play any old maps at a later time.
Seriously, back up your old map and car mods you really treasure. I keep several older versions of the game solely for this purpose and to trouble-shoot or convert maps later.
Now for nicer terms, yes, all that stuff held back the map and caused me much misery over the last 6 months. While you would think since I had 6x the time or more between releases that I normally would, there won't be 6x worth of content (but there are a lot of new roads graded and sloped) compared to normal monthly releases. I am somewhat against putting anything less than my best work into the map, so do keep that in mind while playing the soon-to-be-update when you get it, as it helps further the immersion and hence enjoyment of the map when things aren't eating you or looking like rubbish.
ANY MODS THAT USE LOS INJURUS THEMING ARE 100% PERFECTLY ALLOWED, JUST KEEP IN MIND THE MAP IS NO LONGER USING /TSH/ FOLDER BUT IS NOW /LOSINJURUS/.
It is best to stick to more developed areas of the map that have all their buildings, trees, and such to avoid routes being changed, blocked, or changed too much which could break missions or races. Also, older highways and rural roads that use the 'old' style textures and/or original alignments which have not been changed since SoCal Interstate map version, you should avoid using. You'll know the current highways from the old ones just by the textures they use.
If in doubt, send me some areal screenshots and other infos about where things start and finish and other areas in-between; then I can tell you what is good, not good, or what could possibly use improvements for other reasons.

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NO ONE needs my permission to make mods that ADD content to Los Injurus city map provided it's not disparaging to myself, the entities with whom I transact / do business with / interact with which is not limited to BeamNG staff alone, and it does not detract from player's general enjoyment and engagement of the map. It must also not copy commercial textures / models / sounds / music etc without purchasing a license from separate entity, and must also remain within the censored* general-audience scope of this website beamng dot com. NONE of the business names are commercial nor are their respective sign graphics purchased commercially, just to be clear; so those are totally rights-agnostic / free use within the scope/game of BeamNG.

So seriously, everyone and anyone can make races, content, and so-forth for this map. If you would like your content to be included in the map, let me try it out and I'll see that it gets made part of the campaign or mission system / free-roam system in the future.
I do however appreciate you writing in with the courtesy to ask first though, thank-you.
*When I say censored, Driving around in a Stool bus from the poo-poo processing plant to fertilize fields is okay, but requiring the player to haul a truck full of dogs to the ALL-POO meat processing plant (to be turned into food) may just run afoul of the censors on this family-friendly nature of this site. Boo hoo. Swearing, adult content, pirated stuff, anything that involves the insides of creatures being on the outside / being harmed or worse is all bad. So let's not go putting trailers full of cows through the car crusher no matter how bad we want beef pancakes, as for some reason they frown on that here.
You can however make piano hauling missions to your heart's content, or anything else I really don't care.
I hope that clears it up and my examples are good enough! Make whatever you like. This map is entirely made to let anyone build their own city streets, highways, bridges and tunnels, train-tracks and subways, with the contents of the MRK folder. So seriously, go wild, make whatever you dream of.
Just try not to tank the FPS too badly...

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More bug fixing, texture index mangling and un-mangling, and more detailing and road grading / curb installation... and even some testing!

First shot shows MEDIUM detail of textures up close so you can be the judge. Yes, these take A LOT of memory compared to stock maps, but it's worth it entirely as this is supposed to be current gen stuff, not MS-DOS Doom.
Second shot shows me testing how much speed you can get in my turbo Pessima before hitting the small slope just to the left of the concrete retaining wall. If you hit the wall, you will be knocked over onto or just past the angled overpass between the two iterations of the 11-foot-8 bridge. The diagonal overpass will JUST let the cube van (moving truck with Cabster van cab on the front, not the T-series) pass underneath of it on one side with just a bit of roof scrape. T-series anything doesn't stand a chance there. It's actually lower there than the 11-foot-8 bridge but as I said, there'd be a few low bridges in this map and I wasn't kidding. These are just the start! Those driving truck around this city when it's more finished will have to always be diligent in watching for low bridge and clearance signs, lest you end up with a convertible T-series unexpectedly.
Last shot shows relation of where the 2nd 11-foot-8 is in relation to the large derelict 'Packard' plant which was present (near the mall) in the last update. It hasn't moved but there is new development on the other side of it which used to be open fields. You've already seen the other 11-foot-8 on the previous page.
All the orange visible in the shots are roads that will be graded and striped before the next beta. I have several blocks to do yet so it'll be a couple of days yet - but at-least the textures mostly function now.
*Many signalized intersections will be finished and more signs placed prior to next beta release. AI tests will be performed after this.
*I may update the old rail bridge into something more modern like the slimmer bridge I made last week, unsure at this point if I should or not before the beta. Time will tell.
*Will go around getting rid of floaty things.
*There's 3 or 4 selections missing from the forest brush database, will try to get that corrected before I release the beta as they're all MRK pieces IIRC. This was an editor bug causing them to delete.
*Elevated rail on steel framework is NOT going to be in the next beta, it will be in the following one.
*Have to fix one of my models as it's causing FPS to cut in half center city, that's very bad, will fix before the beta (this is required! likely due to missed UV layer / set on the UV of one or two of the new purchased buildings I edited sucking FPS all up).
*Again, new subway stations didn't make the cut-off, but subway lines go further now a little on each side by where I was working.
*No new missions on this next beta, but others can make them until I get around to learning how to, keep in mind the folder changes listed above in the mess. Campaign mode is planned.
*Lots of stupid random texture bugs got fixed but there's a bunch more and some missing layers I have to work with yet. This is mostly required for textures already in use, but rest is optional.
*IF there is a model/texture map cleaner that removes unused objects or resources from the map, I will surely use it before release provided it doesn't eat the map, to lessen download size as it's over 4.5gb right now. Ouch. Unused MRK models will be preserved for convenience sake as they're not huge files individually for the most part.

That is all. Very very busy the next week or so, but still doing daily editing runs hours long between bouts of my back being in complete utter fiery agony - and that's understating my back issues as they've been BAD lately. I wish this distress on no one!

 

The removal of materials.cs support is something that was inevitably bound to happen. I mentioned this in the Update Speculation thread last year, in part due to the developers removing all instances of the TorqueScript engine. This included the old World Editor, which was removed in 0.24.

It's disappointing for some people, but the developers did introduce newer iterations for people to migrate over. There has been plenty of time for the transition to the new World Editor and the main.materials.json material format since 0.17 was released back in 2019. Of course, not all mods have been adapted over to the latter, which could explain why materials.cs remains supported up to this point. If Bob is able to corroborate the demise of the materials.cs format, then that leaves 0.25 as the final update to support it, with the next major update, 0.26, removing such support entirely.

And it goes without saying that there is Car_Killer's material converter utility currently available. As previously stated, this may pave the way for an official program to convert from materials.cs to main.materials.json since Car_Killer is a staff member. In other words, in terms of converting material formats, at least there's an avenue to take right now and in the future.

 

Any and all mods using CS formats will need to be updated.
You can ask the staff with any questions you may have in the mod support section of this forum. They will know *A LOT* more than me on this, I am merely just passing this on so it doesn't sneak up on anyone.
This is also what caused literal hell to break loose on my map project here. So yeah, I'm cleaning up the last of the mess currently, and it should be good once it ships out (hopefully in a few days?).
If you have a mod or mods that rely on the old materials CS format, it will need updating. when using car_killer's converter, make sure you point the converter to one subfolder at a time if it has a habit of crashing for you when doing entire mods. It may need to run a few times and there may be remaining graphics index-entries that have to be entered by hand, but that shouldn't take too long or be too intensive. The converter does the bulk of things anyways.
When my other maps no longer load due to the future materials CS formats not functioning, they will get a 'quick and dirty' fix and be re-uploaded. This is only a minimal servicing and won't fix all the bugs, but will make them playable and presentable. I will fix the roane county 'no normal' errors when I do that later this summer. I didn't bother with it before because I knew I was going to have to update A LOT of stuff, it's pretty intensive and might take two weeks or more with all the graphics format updates and rooting out all the bugs. I'll do it when I have to, however.

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At points when I didn't have my migraine today (those things are downright debilitating, seriously), I got some gfx work done on 3 separate road detail / patch graphics. I will be doing some more of these over the coming weeks. I have been taking time with access to commercial AAA quality graphic sources now to update the details in this map. I need to get some areas super-detailed before I finish building stuff in the city so I can see how badly it impacts the FPS budget, in a testing sort-of way. It shouldn't beat the FPS up too bad but I still have one of my buildings munch on FPS a bit too much. I'll delete the textures off the stupid thing before I ship it out like that if it comes down to it. I can always put them on later on when I get the UV (texture) maps fixed up a little better. It's easy to miss layers put in by the model authors when buying and upgrading models to be put into this simulation engine, or when getting freebies (the quality is almost always suspect, on ALL models, it's rare I don't have to do hours or days of optimizing on models I get). Sometimes it's just easier to make your own.
Here's 3 graphics smooshed into one file for brevity sake (see below), I've been getting A LOT better about good edges on this patch graphic files, to make sure they blend into the surrounding pavement perfectly to look like they're part of it. I mean sure it's a patch it's supposed to be a bit different yes, but it should not look like a sticker painted on the pavement either.
While the background on the picture looks white, it's actually clear, to aid applying these to textures.
The full detail files range in dimensions from 0.5k & 1k up to 2k.
I don't mind if half the budget of VRAM is eaten up by road textures, that's manageable with the texture detail setting if needed (my previews are on MEDIUM and sometimes LOW otherwise it's a slideshow, and sometimes* it STILL is). This is a driving simulation / crashing simulation. Cars go brrrrrrrr on roads. Roads get fancy graphics because YOU like to drive on them. I am also allergic to MUD textures
How good do I say the incoming road textures are going to be? Possibly the best you'll have seen yet in this game from any mod, and it might rival the stock game in some more recent areas. I want you to be the judge without bias on if they honest look "the part" or if there's a way I could do better. There's even a 4k x 16k 450mb two-lane concrete texture I paid almost 8 bucks for, that I don't think will even make the beta coming up until I use it for something (or it will be down-scaled). This texture IS PBR but I have it rigged in with the standard gfx until I have all the layer-workings down for this game.
For the record, PBR is in the works, PBR will not be in the next private / public betas, it will come soon though, definitely before the year is out unless something crazy happens and the game engine tries to eat me.

*Yes, my game is often 5~10fps, I seriously need to add more VRAM to this thing, like yesterday. PLEASE help support the project if at all possible in any way, as I can't afford to buy a bigger GPU right now and have to spend that money on other stuff like going to the home-store and getting stuff for my house so that my house doesn't fall on me. Having the roof garnish my noggin is NOT on my bucket list (I've fixed that thing more than once). If you cannot support the map project, other than saying 'hey this looks awesome' or 'you idiot! that sucks!!!', I will never get mad and never look down negatively upon you for I have been at that end of the rope more than once in my life. If you think like I think, then when you're down in despair and have bad luck, the only way you can go is UP.
Editing the game at 5~10 fps absolutely sucks big time. However, even if I cannot afford a newer, higher capacity video board (GPU) to edit, I will do it in 5~10 fps if I must, for eternity. I will not stop this project if there's any way to move forward. However, to those who read this, worry not, the map runs great (Except for one stupid above-mentioned building), and should be just dandy for all if you set the texture detail accordingly.
@baarry5444 Thank-you for your input. That will help others who read this book of a thread, if they don't die of old age first on the way here with all this text.


I *MIGHT* be able to get everything tied up with this update in the next few days. I am trying very hard but there's been some other things that have been eating up my time. I am working on this as fast as I can without going bonkers.
--Be safe and enjoy life, for tomorrow is never promised to us.

 

Dodging storms this evening, I still managed to get something done despite being out of town over half the day.
The LOD on the hotel (that I totally forgot about, my memory sucks) is finally done.
To make the collision mesh shouldn't be too incredibly hard (30~60 minutes). Then I just have to confirm texture references (this is where the model calls textures and what name they use from the materials CS or newer main materials JSON format).
To try to combat model pop-in, I've been slowly working on converting some of the old models over as I touch them up (a lot are not ready), to make them drop into lower detail levels further away so it's not so intrusive / immersion breaking as it won't pop-in or pop-out so close. Obviously, I do this with new models also.
As a general rule, I want full detail displayed when you're about a full city block away or closer, and a model with interior to go full detail on the outside while not displaying the inside until you can see it (half block or less away or closer). This game can do interiors, but they must not be too intensive and not display until you need them - this is how I can do service station interiors (such as the Re-Up store), subways and the stations for them (I have much MUCH better more professional models coming, they've already been purchased), and some other cool goodies like drainage culverts that run underground for up to a half mile or full mile at a time and the such. The flood control canals were so much fun in other games like GTA San Andreas (that was the best one IMHO), and a few other games that had them, that I only felt fitting to put them into this map.
After I get this update-from-hell online (sorry), I will begin working on the following:
--Elevated train tracks, like the Chicago L and old boston raised rail, and new york's raised rail.
--Lots of cheap filler buildings to get the open spots of the city filled in, as it looks nothing like a downtown yet because of all the open space.
--Continue to upgrade road surfaces, with the new textures I've recently started putting in now that the textures work (Muttley muttering).
--Background sound, city sounds etc and more
--Try my best to improve blurry canal textures
--Upgrade/improve houses made in 2018 / 2019 to improve FPS by a decent margin near the default spawn.
--Get more stuff out of the commercial folder and into the regular-use folder as I secure rights / permissions to do so.
--Get Patreon project supporter's (and those who donate models and any useful other stuff) names on roads and/or buildings as they deserve it.
--Build the highway up more (replace old sections with newer, better, much more immersive design).
So entirely, busy working on the map as always, but if anyone finds any cheap building packs for free or cheap price, especially American-style homes PLEASE let me know. FBX, .BLEND, OBJ is preferred (3DS works okay too!) in that order best to worst. Textures not required, even not having UV's done is okay though they take an extra several hours / days to get working.

That is all for tonight. I just wanted to post so you know it's being worked on, and that I am taking the feedback about the model pop-in seriously.
Sorry for the low-res screenshots but seriously I am on 1366x760 here on two screens - cheap but works for now.
Thank-you for your continued support.

 

Colmesh on above model has been completed (collision mesh = colmesh, that's what it's internally called and provides physics models for the car to slam into).
Just have to set up 20-some texture references so they call the right stuff in the map, so that I don't end up with brick or stucco displaying pantyhose or cat fur.
As with a majority of the buildings I put out the last two some years, the roof can easily be driven off of. The low raised trim around the edge of the roof that normally would entrap you (as it has even in some games for years now), is actually modeled as a 30~45 degree angle ramp, so any speed will easily take you over it. If you should somehow end up there, at-least you won't be trapped 20 stories up on the roof of a hotel.
I can't keep my eyes open anymore. I gave it my all.
--Cheers!

 

That's okay.

 

Hey Bob, what's your current GPU?

 

This one, it's getting replaced as soon as I put together enough finances to do so. 2070 Super. 8GB VRAM has been not enough since about 3~4 months after I got it. I opened one city section I purchased (one of several) and am enjoying -1 fps because of the VRAM limits, and I don't even have the game open (I couldn't).
Need to get one of those 16gb cards soon, before the year is out. This is not a want, this is a need, big time need. My 2070 Super is plenty fast, and doesn't roast me out of the room I have the PC in, but dang if I don't hit that VRAM limit several times a week. Really slows me down on getting these models in because I have to split them up and re-do all the same work of texture names, later re-grouping buildings, and forbids me from copying commonly used portions as easy (doors, windows, roof and facade details like capitals and ornate roof-level wood/stone trim to the facades of turn-of-the-century architecture).
If someone has a used 16gb card (don't care what it is, even a Radeon VII or Vega 56/64 16gb creator edition) that they can part with or sell on the cheap to help the Los Injurus project, I will gladly grab it with haste provided I can see it working prior to purchase.
As far as RTX features, could care less provided the card can do at-least 10~15fps rendering as that's all you need for model previewing and single 3D texture rendering in Substance suite / Photoshop and GIMP. So seriously, I'm in a bit of a pinch over here. I also need to buy more memory for this 'puter as I frequently run full speed into the RAM limit on here a few times a week (though maybe half as much as the VRAM issue), just like a bird flying into a clean sheet of glass. WHUNK! *falls on floor*
So for those who can, PLEASE monetarily support the map project. I hate to sound like 'first world problems' over here but as I am detailing buildings more, making larger more complex professional-AAA quality models (some of them actually ARE now!), it's really getting apparent that what I've set myself up with is not quite enough anymore with the continual advancement of tech and software requirements.
The CPU/PSU/Mobo/drives are all good enough though. Plenty enough ~ more than enough for now.
Wish I could put my RX 480 8gb to add to this GPU or get a VRAM upgrade for it. Just don't have the money for it personally (as I normally would) as my house needs A LOT of work / maintenance this season.
So for those who can spare change, please put it on the Patreon, the 'puter needs a boost.
When this map is complete, at the current rate, 6~8gb cards SHOULD still be able to run medium when it's done, if not I will slim things down accordingly. Also, in later revisions, textures for the public version may be lower detail than the supporter version depending on what hardware people have (I may not need to do this since the surprisingly quick recent end to the mining boom has allowed normal folks to have a modern GPU again, how nice).
I will be slowly converting these buildings over from single-piece mosaics to standard tiled textures as time allows. I have at-least four whole scenes like this and they will be much of the 'meat and potatoes' of the city. The GPU VRAM issue is the #1 reason why the city isn't fuller. Every time I try to move the camera around, try to select things, or especially try changing / modifying poly objects, it's quite the wait and honestly scaling or manipulating things (that require dragging the mouse) is murder at low FPS as you often over-shoot before it has a chance to turn your inputs into output (much like low FPS on multiplayer first-person arena shooters).
Sorry to sound like a beg as I really hate mentioning it often, and please remember my constant reminder of 'If you can't afford to support the map, I will never think less of you; for I have totally been there and would give you the shirt off my back and split with you my last meal if you so needed it.'.
Oh ... and my 70-something age mother's computer is finally dying, yay another expense. PSU is on it's way out (that or the motherboard, but it's finally doing the BSOD dance even just playing solitaire). It did last 13~14 years though (I built it long ago when Newegg was king of PC parts, remember that place when they actually treated customers nicely?). Can't make a retired person pay for expensive computer stuff when she uses it to do church stuff / web browsing on... I'd just feel wrong.

 

sorry to be that guy, but any plans of near future repo update? not expecting one because you seem very busy fixing at the moment. nice work as always

 

I have to build about two blocks of main road, and spruce up about twice that many that are already carved and as such, am quite near a release.
The new release not only brings more content, but fixes a lot of both obvious and hidden bugs; many of which I overlooked a tons of times and a few I tried to fix that I couldn't until just now.
The new release should *hopefully* prevent the map from breaking when the next major game release happens (months from now)... Of-course you know how that always works out for me / my projects. Hopefully it will be good for the majority of the transition.
There's no crime in wondering where the super-duper late update is. There's also the fact that I seem to work somewhat randomly, as it creates a much better product when you do something you want vs have to do. So, while I am fixing bugs left and right, I am also modeling, texturing, mapping, carving terrain and placing buildings, editing texture indices, laying out roads / planning positioning and testing AI and so-forth. So sometimes I never know what part of the map I will add to the next day.

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Created two new window overlays from some CC-0 graphics I dug out of the interwebs (pictured).
There will eventually be buildings that use these, as I get time to finish them up.
I will be trying to finish up 'that two blocks' I mentioned above + the other ones that are half-done. This is what NEEDS to be done chiefly before I upload the next beta. Trying to get this done so that one can drive around the map (and the AI) without a significant gap in the roads as you go around the central like in the city. This helps keep the immersion as you drive. While it won't be all built up everywhere around the lake yet, it'll at-least be decent to drive on.
Feel free to send in your building submissions, regardless if they're full models, textured or untextured, or pictures of buildings you'd like to see in the map. This helps complement the building variety and offers some source of creativity aside of the reference material I have here on the drive (10's of GB's of it!). Just as long as you're not mangling copyright by doing so.