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

Its a theme pack I surmise. I found it and I am going to install it.

 

That is currently planned. Good idea, of course!
There will be the city beltway and county's outer beltway.

Stardock makes software called 'Window Blinds' and you can get any old Windows look you want.
Also, I have START10 to return the taskbar to something I can use.
Windows 8.x and up is complete and utter rubbish, dumbed down with 'tiles' like one of those telephones the kids use. I said 'I don't need to click through the digital equivalent of a children's picture book here, I need words, you know, since I can read and all that'. Sorry if any of that sounds nasty, but I loved when I upgraded to Windows 95 especially OSR2.1 w/USB support - it was pretty solid then, or Windows 98-SE which was pretty solid. Windows 2000 was awesome despite losing MS-DOS mode. Windows XP was meh, just flashy colors on Windows 2000. Windows vista stank, and Windows 7 was the last good OS that Microshaft ever put out - especially when set to classic mode.
Trying to use Windows 10 immediately puts my blood pressure in the 'danger, Hospital NOW' category, it is akin to drowning with no arms or legs to swim. Not kidding about that, laptops give me the same feeling. With a classic themed desktop PC, I know how everything works - just as it's been for 25~27 years now, and can switch between applications and access things in the computer lightning fast. I want to work when I am able, not sit there trying to find things or figure out why they changed something that didn't need to be changed.
Regardless, there's still not a 3 day period that goes by that I'm not swearing like a sailor at Windows 10. I miss my Windows 7 on my old computer so terribly that I already installed a 30$ USB 3.0 card in here, in-case I want to go back to Windows 7 on this machine.

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In other news, I have been quite under the weather, my blood pressure is spiking hard-core to where it's pulsing my hearing, even right when I wake up, got dizzy spells / vertigo something severe, can't do much (not even play through Max Payne, which I was trying to do at day's end). I've been feeling this way since Monday. Not fun. Might have to take it easy for a bit in regards to working on my house, so maybe I'll have a little more time to work on the map here, if I feel competent enough to do so (otherwise I can make a wreck of things if I am not on-top of my game).

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Goals for short-term map work:
*fix stupid AI bugs, including some reported ones
*make sure that tunnel is fixed that is closed off erroneously.
*introduce buildings which are almost ready to be imported aside of textures
*down-scale a ton of textures so to balance the GPU VRAM load better
*More road signs, street names / route names are sorely needed, expect more next time around
*make sure folks who paid for MEGA NZ subscriptions to download the map without waiting 6 hours are refunded. Yes, I wanted to get that done already but I've been feeling trashed here like I said. It'll get done when I feel better as it requires a lot more brain than I am currently capable of today. Only subscriptions dating from on or before about Sept 18th or so will qualify.
PLEASE DO *NOT* PAY MEGA NZ. I WILL HAVE A PRIVATE DOWNLOAD UP ONE DAY SOON.
My health has been absolutely the worst like I said before, so I haven't really accomplished much of anything this week, and the rest of the week doesn't look good.
Hopefully my next post isn't from the hospital. No pity needed please, but I cannot understate how awful I feel. It isn't even like a cold or flu or anything though... just trying not to garnish my 60$ keyboard I paid 5 bucks for with my last meal due to the dizzy spells.
If it doesn't knock off by the end of the week I will get blood drawn to figure out what is going on with me, because I haven't the foggiest. I'm just not in a hurry to get MORE doctor bills, if you know what I mean. I'm really trying to save my personal money up to get a GPU with more than 8gb of VRAM without using the map funds if at all possible before the 20~30% tariff's / VAT comes back for US folks in 1/2023 (as far as I know). This isn't a 'want' but a need, because I don't feel I should have to take map preview / status pictures in low or sometimes medium detail, since this game engine feels the need to load everything in the entire map (including what you cannot see) into video memory / VRAM at once.

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Beamng team: Let's create this awesome cutting edge tech driving simulator!
Me: AWESOME!
also Beamng Team: Let's not give the game engine full streaming support, for maps larger than the VRAM pool in the PC, you know, like every other game engine has. It's not like games are larger than 8gb today or anything.... (!?)
Me: WTF?
To this day, I cannot figure out why this decision was made, but the idea light was really out over there that day, that is for-sure. There are even FREE use, or open-source game-engines, that feature this.
Don't get me wrong, I love this game, and the team too; I just don't necessarily love all their decisions.
*bangs head on desk*

 

thats alright bob. get well soon. when the update is done i am going to delete the old version and therefore download the newest version

 

There's a free alternative out there to the classic start menu thing but I forget the name of it, it helps bring back a proper start menu. There's also other stuff too. Maybe 'classic start' is it, not sure?
Stardock stuff goes on sale yearly on Humble so if it's ever a dollar again I'll pick up a few of them to hand out keys for. If it's more than a few bucks I'll just send the link here and folks can throw down for it.
All I know is I could never and will never be able to tolerate the Windows 8.x or Windows 10 look, it's awful. It's like Windows 3.1 / 3.11 but much uglier and without the 3D buttons even Win 3.x had.
The worst thing is, is when there's no OK or APPLY / CANCEL buttons on things. How do I know if it applied changes??? Those were added 30+ years ago because it gives the user positive feedback.

Will keep an eye on Fanatical and Humble for bundles with Stardock software. They might have one soon again because START11 just came out for Win11.

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Thanks, I am truly feeling like rubbish today - hope you feel better than I do! I hope this is going away not getting worse. There's several symptoms the doctors cannot figure out what is causing them though, so maybe this dizziness is just finally rearing it's head enough to get noticed regularly. Can only hope for the best.
Just hope I feel good enough to take my church's donations down to the place that feeds those less fortunate, tomorrow (I do runs every 3~6 weeks or whenever the box for them fills decently enough).
EDIT:
Classic Windows interface for Win10 (and 11?) is available as CLASSIC SHELL at classicshell dot net.
It should be free.
http://classicshell.net/
It is now continued on github as OPEN SHELL, link for forum thread with further links:
http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8147
There are a number of classic 'upgrades' you can give awful Windows 10 here:
http://www.classicshell.net/forum/index.php?sid=66123801d7ceaf88e161decc8b4a48e9
Do enjoy and let me know if any of these links cause issues (my browser plugins and virus/spyware scanner aren't flipping out at all, so it SHOULD be good, using pest-me-plenty AVAST here currently).
Web-of-Trust (WoT) can be downloaded for Firefox users at the plugin site, to help decide what links are good or not when searching things btw. Just in-case you didn't have it (not a Google user here).
Back to banging head on the desk for me.
STARDOCK makes commercial solutions alike to what's listed for free above here, which aren't too terribly expensive and they're usually pretty game-on about fixing issues. Now if they can fix my Windows 10 search function that randomly doesn't work I'll be 'just ducky'.

 

I never realized there was this much stuff to change the look of windows. Off topic but kinda cool.

 

Almost like me not realizing how many people despise Windows 8.x and 10. There's a TON. I could live with Windows 98 / Windows 2000 forever. Even Windows 95 OSR2.1 with USB support from 1997~1998 was great. It wasn't as stable but they had the UI down pat and PERFECT. It made PC's relevant and usable by almost anyone.
Let us not forget the advances in the 1990's operating system category of life, and how everything was right where you need / expect it to be.
Newer versions of Windows than Windows 7 I just despise. I only use Windows 10 because I have to. It doesn't have to look like it though. I still cuss it almost daily, that will never change.
Productivity and ease of switching tasks and digging through the file manager is the #1 reason I hate 10. When you have a ton of apps, the computer to run them all, you don't want to be trying to figure out which one you need from a picture book - I need WORDS.
This is not a cell phone. I hate cell phones. I don't like using them for more than a call now and then. Too bad scammers think otherwise. I just want the computer to be easy to use and things to be right as they've been for the last 27 years since I got Windows 95 and I'll be quite thrilled, and most productive. Sorry to sound self-absorbed (that happens), can't really help it, but also can't really help feel they missed the boat on the UI in Windows 8 and 10.

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Currently converting models over from one format to another that I've bought both this month and in the two or three years prior. They are coming through with almost no texturing / optimization (am I the only one outside of BeamNG team that cares about draw calls / fps?). So it's taking time *BUT* we'll also going to have a lot of neat-looking realistic almost-AAA grade buildings when I'm done to fill in the less-pretty areas of town. Tired of the same-old same-old I tend to make when modeling buildings, and these will be just the ticket.
Hoping to have the elevated rail tracks in on the next update, too. Might be missing some pieces though if I rush the update.
Will put in a double-decker highway if possible over on the other side of town, if it makes sense to.
No progress shots this weekend as I'll be doing other things. Expect progress shots to resume next week shortly after the weekend or by mid week.
Please don't expect the losinjurus website to be up anytime soon, I just tried messing with it. What a DISASTER. I can't even figure out how to get in with my FTP client, and I think they want me to pay to connect to the website domain I purchased. What a MESS. I think I will just get a file hosting service and try and get a refund for this rubbish website service. I am rather steamed.
I can't even figure out how to put the html page up on the site.

 

"Secks drive" would be an interesting road name

(high school humor, I know)

 

What about putting a Frederick's Sporting Goods?

 

that is amazing.
also
uranus fudge factory

 

Got a building optimized today. Took a couple of hours (typical). Collision mesh will share simplicity of the lowest LOD so that's not an issue with time. I was supposed to be working outside but didn't feel so well, so stayed in and worked on the project some.
This was a purchased building. You may have seen this in other (cheap) games, including mobile games. It was purchased as a huge pile of objects along with proprietary game-making software, but the license for the add-in products does not preclude using them in other games (regardless if you made it in that game-maker software, or not). Yes, I checked. That's some part of what eats time. I wish I didn't have to chase rights-holders down to make sure I'm in the clear as often as I must, but it must be done so we don't get a DMCA for lunch.
Windows/doors may be changed later to better fit the environment it's in, as-needed.

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For those in the loop looking for a new computer system or hardware upgrade, intel and AMD both have new processor lines out now. Going with either is a good choice, just make sure you have a beefy cooler, beefy power supply, and a good well-thought-out case providing good airflow. For those on a budget who don't do competitive multiplayer high-fps gaming, anything from 12th-gen or 13th-gen intel or 5000/7000 amd series will provide a good gaming platform. I can't recommend one over the other but you should check reviews to see what's fastest for what YOU do on your budget. For those on AM4, if you don't already have a 5900x/5950x, get a 5800x3D and have 90~95% of the performance of the new platforms on your old (by comparison) AM4 platform.
Radeon 7000 graphics cards will be coming out in two weeks in the first week of November, to my best knowledge. There is possibility there could still be a delay, but I haven't seen anything on that yet other than Ray-tracing performance and general raster performance will make a nice leap forward.
That said, I will be keeping my processor/motherboard/ram for quite a few years yet, as it's still wonderful for content creation, sans the 8gb GPU that is always running out of VRAM. So if you're like me and on the Ryzen 3000 series, no need to upgrade yet unless you truly are waiting for the CPU in your work-flow.
Oh, and for those who know, I did get word back when I sent correspondence to the hosting service I have, and they let me know how I can log in to set up the files for my website. So maybe I WILL be able to get the thing online after-all. Ugh. I lamented in my wording to how it was 'so much easier' 25 years ago when I put my last website up in 1997! I detest over-complicating things, anything.

 

Sounds cool. Also, PowerstrokeHD made a pretty interesting point. It would be cool to see some more factories and industrial sprawls in the more remote areas of Los Injurus, maybe behind one of the hills?

 

I have a lot of industrial buildings in the to-do model pipeline right now. It'll be some time before we get serious warehouses with interiors, but there should be some more industrial/factory buildings where logistics (and reality) permits.

 

Will there be a junkyard/scrapyard ?

 

Just curious. I'm not trying to pressure you, so take your time, but will an update for this map come out before January?

 

YES! At-least one. Not as big as some monster pick-a-part / pull-a-part yards I've been to when I used to live in PA (New Ringgold, Hazleton PA both have monster yards and are a good 40 minutes apart, car part heaven!!! could live there).
It'll be a place to park your car when you're done with it, when it fits right in with my daily beater I'm so cheap I make fun* of myself over it. Proud member of the 'no car payment' club though. The 414$/year insurance bill on that beater helps a ton!
*not making fun of myself in an insecure way; but in a way as to say, such as when you have to run convoy / follow someone some place & they drive fast 'Come-on, quit driving so fast, parts are going to start flying off!'. Can't truly live life if you don't laugh.
That got off the rails fast. Anyways, yes, totally will be scrapyard(s). I have some models already but they aren't converted into game formatting yet.

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Yes, yes, yes, definitely. I'd like to get at-least two updates out before then actually. Half my problem is I feel I just have gone a day and a whole month goes by... with my memory going, the knowledge of time passage went, too. With that said, no worries, it doesn't seem to be a progressive thing, my brain just started off like that one day and never fixed itself.
So to those people who I forgot to get back to, to those who suggested things that are STILL not in the map, to those who had to tell me sometimes more than twice - a big collective apology - my memory just sucks. Hopefully the map doesn't. I will not get angry for folks repeating things to me, I am pretty used-to-it by now any-who, so no worries there!
Not an excuse, just sharing my situation. That along with being over-extended because of being Mr. Fixit and often being 'the only one who cares' to a lot of people (it warms my heart, even if it keeps me busy). Being busy is the key to long life, but being too busy can physically (among others) wear you out long before your day would otherwise arrive. Finding the right balance FOR YOU is key, and differs by the individual.

How does BEING BUSY give you a long life? We all need 3 things in life: Shelter (your home), Goals (what do you want to be or do in life?), and a means to achieve said goals (your job makes you money, your car gets you there, do you need a college degree?). Break one of those 3 things, and you break the person, or will at-least be rather unhealthy/unhappy mentally for starters.
They never taught me that in school, not even in private/boarding school. I learned that & a lot more from good-old-dad.
OK sorry for a lecture, but I figured I'd share this for some of the younger members of the forum here who might see it. If it helps even one person for one minute, it was worth typing (and now my fingers aren't cold!).

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And now ladies and gentlemen, introducing a revolutionary, amazing, earth-shattering (okay maybe not).... *drum roll*
BRICK BOX!
(forgot to post I got this one done the other day, this was a purchased asset + two hours of optimizing by me, completed)

 

Another exciting brick box is almost complete
*UV optimization done
*LOD done all but lowest
*Colmesh complete (collision data, helps for fast physics and not getting stuck)
These buildings WILL have variations larger and/or smaller and other shapes etc.

When Los Injurus is much more complete, if there is CPU render/draw call budget and a bit of VRAM space left, I will consider pushing modular building pieces into the map structure. This enables more use of the same texture and abilities to build buildings like Fallout 4 settlements let you do (or Player Unknown Battle-ground / PUBG let you do AFAIK, if that's correct as I've not played PUBG).
This would mean pieces of buildings such as walls with doors, windows, roof pieces, corners, concrete slabs and so-forth along with greebs/decorations. Yes, that means you could build yourself a building if you truly wanted if I go that route (with a few but not all buildings).
I still have to do interiors for some buildings so you can have a place to truly call home, in a variety of buildings, some not even residential. Want to live in an abandoned moldy mall because you want convenience (and crime) of the city but are truly a closet-hermit? You CAN in future Los Injurus versions!
Eventually, this will be a game within a game, like a huge DLC, but as a voluntarily-community-funded one so that everyone has a say.
I will make sure player-home interiors only load when you are within or right next to the building. If I can get them to load/unload via a player-side script (triggered at a door transition) I will do it that way. This is due to how many draw calls an interior typically has and would hit FPS by about 10~20% to have decent detail, and due to how multiplayer mod is currently handled. This way it doesn't slow down for everyone. I still have to figure out how that script stuff works so don't expect this overnight.
However, the next version of this map will have a lot more new buildings if I can help it, more curbing laid down, more roads, and possibly more work on upgrading the OLD original highway sections from So-Cal Interstate.
I have sound effects, soundscapes, and music/BGM that I've purchased for this map. I need to learn more to get this working though. Thankfully this is something that DOES NOT go into the VRAM pool - which is my main hinderance currently.
For now, work on converting/optimizing buildings continues. They're not the most detailed, again due to VRAM limits, but they'll sure do just fine to make something immersive out of the older city sections by the mall.
DERP, almost forgot the pics. Blundering as usual over here, but work continues.
--- Post updated ---
This post for you folks who make models or those who just like not getting stuck all the time in maps.
Just showcasing collision mesh tricks to make sure you don't get stuck when you end up on the roof of most/all buildings.
While the paraphet wall around the edge of the roof, used to keep water retained to focus it down proper drain channels, would normally prevent a vehicle from going over the edge. Well that's not fun. Just slam into it and you'll go over it because the collision mesh that your vehicle interacts with (NOT the visible mesh!), will allow it to ramp over. This keeps immersion a little better and you don't have to go free-cam to reposition or go back to your spawn. The idea is not to interrupt the player, no matter what stupid antics they pull, myself definitely included! Don't get stuck in or on objects, and don't 'block' the player's desired path, but instead encourage the player to take pre-planned paths through the map by making them more obvious paths, enhancing map flow.
That was some San Andreas got best out of many many games. GTA-V is also very good with map flow, too - if a bit small of a map.

NOTE: The enhanced 5-lane routes that were previewed in 12/2018 but lost due to a data crash have been recovered and placed into the map. This means enhanced roads with 3D reflectors for much much better night driving!
Thank goodness I sent them to someone a week before that data loss. Will place some pictures of them in the next few posts sometime, whenever I am mapping for the day / done with modeling for a day or two (breaks = sanity, folks).
*I had only lost about 18 days of progress in that crash though it took down the entire main drive/system, so it didn't end the world. Back up twice a month minimum folks!!! I have a spare powered SSD that is not mounted by the OS (not 'seen' except in hardware/device manager, so it's data cannot be changed but it stays energized), this I can use if the entire C drive gives up the ghost or if the file table gets so corrupted that it's toast (which happened in 12/2018).
BACK. UP. YOUR. PC. SERIOUSLY!
Don't forget your Steam workshop mods / BeamNG downloaded mods and saved games, too.
Work continues as usual over here. I will be busy for the next 2 days minimum working on my &#$%!ing house.

 

Attaching photos of new reflector roads. The new reflectors are *ONLY* available on *THIS* picture set of roads. It *DOES NOT* affect the other road sets (yet). I still need to make sure things are shaded right, and improve the road texture used here (it's a place-holder). Also, the width of the yellow lines near the center is increased 33%, to be more readily obvious at distance at lower resolutions (I only have 1366x768p x2 screens here, never hooked up the third matching screen as no room yet).
Pictures on medium detail, sorry if the color seems off/strange especially on the dark shots, as I've had to compensate for the fairly dark screens by spamming gamma-increase & it probably was not the right way to go about it.
That's 3 posts in one day, and my fingers aren't even on fire yet.

 

WARNING: I am nearing project completion(s) on the house. Building my desk will start shortly there-after, followed by a (thankful!) return to full-speed project progress.
When the next update (no clue on time right now, too many variables) gets pushed, there will be a wait time of one to two weeks until it's available (barring other stupid things) for the public to consume.
Why do I not give deadlines or time-frames anymore for the project? Well... just going off what I've been doing in the last few days:
Crashed Maya a dozen times or more just trying to clean-up UV's on the lowest-LOD (simplest) object here, resulting in what should be five minutes turning into several hours, as I'd do something, quick save, crash it, manage to get one step further, quick save a new filename in-case it corrupts (has happened!), do another thing, crash, try again x10, crash x10, finally get it, etc

That stupid building's UV's were a PITA, might match the lower floor better with the higher-detail LOD if this thing decides NOT to be so crashy for once! Things like this eating equal parts time and my patience, is why I gave up on formal deadlines. These just don't work in the modern game-dev pipeline, not without a lot of added pressure/stress for everyone.
Or, like what happened many nights ago (a week? I can't remember!), where I added in my texture entries, which resulted in ~2 hours (approx) of me trying to figure out why most of the road textures were broken and the game only telling me I was missing a , or a } at the end of the file - NOT where it was broken. Apparently I missed some stuff copying blank texture entries in and really botched things up, which resulted in the texture entry ending in ] not } which is apparently REALLY hard to see, because it is.
In-case I hadn't eluded to it, another building & it's collision mesh got finished among all this travesty of operation, this time a Gothic-style building with fancy stone work in breath-taking 2d surfaces, because VRAM limits LOD will be very very simple on this one as the building is simple to begin with.
Now it's time to load in some more buildings and get those completed as well.

 

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is free on Steam right now https://store.steampowered.com/app/552500/Warhammer_Vermintide_2/
AMD 7000-series GPU's such as the 7900XT/XTX cards will debut on December 13th for 700~1000$. Too pricey for my book, but maybe it will force some video card prices for older models down, or so I would hope. It would be nice for something good that normal folks (like me!) could afford. What happened to good less-than 300$ video cards? I'm not game for these insane prices!

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I was able to get a bunch of rock models done up nice and properly set. They're super-complicated up close (800~1400 poly-surfaces) but thankfully I didn't have to take longer than 10~15 minutes per model to optimize them. Finally something done decently enough that I wouldn't be better off making the thing from scratch. That said it's still way better to buy a bunch of models than to make them all, otherwise it will be what the map is guilty of now - too much 'same' looking buildings.
I did listen to folks who wanted more seamless LOD's. I will have nice LOD's for the rocks that I am going to import soon into the map, as they should be seamless. Provided the performance isn't tanked too hard for unknown reasons, this should add nice GTA-V quality terrain details to the map.

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Got a garage door texture straightened (and hand-made proper specular for) for the next model set I'll have previews of, and almost a dozen other door textures properly tinted. Included a preview (though low-res) of the homes that I purchased as a set - this is the 'next model set' that I mentioned in the previous sentence. This preview picture is from the resource page (sale page) itself.
Thank-you for your support of the Los Injurus City Map project. Without your support this project would have been dead in the water a long time ago. Work continues, and will pick up pace mid-month as I tie up other loose ends outside of the scope of this map project (work on the house, my vehicle, building my desk, fall-clean-up stuff outside etc).
So thanks to all who have had the time / heart to donate to, or otherwise support, this map project in any way possible.

 

I got my (used-new-open-box) 3060 for 300 bucks off of amazon. Keep your eye out on the "new-open-box" section on reasonable cards.