I have been working on this map for awhile now, and have gotten to a point where I want to share its development with the rest of the beamNG community. Given that everyone seems to be wanting large open maps now, I think its appropriate to make a thread now. I have not forgotten my other mods by the way, I just want to keep myself inspired and motivated by making various different projects The Blue Collar series is getting an update at the same time Beam Mountains is at the end of the week! Its on an 8192x8192 heightmap, or in other words, a 4x4 grid of 2048x2048 heightmaps. Its too big to give a top down screenshot of it right now with any ease and show off all of the detail, but I think the following shots are going to do to give you a sense of the scale of this map. The map contains many different roads, the ones that are started or complete are being shown here. First up is the main road. Instead of in Beam Mountains, where the entire map was a series of back-roads, here you have the equivalent of what you'd find as an interstate highway. It will be a split roadway with 2 lanes going each direction, making a roughly diagonal trek through one of the corners of the map. Perfect for maintaining speeds in excess of 55 MPH consistently, or hauling goods in your T series without sweating. Right now only the first set of lanes are complete, and just as if there were real highway maintenance going on, they're temporarily marked as a 2 way road. The orange mesh road shows where the second set of lanes will run. Next up you have winding "back roads" This provides highway access to a small town, and a route to the highest point on the map, which turns into a dirt road. If you are familiar with Beam Mountains, then this should be instantly familiar, as for these are the kinds of roads that map specialized in. The last main road type I want to cover are trails. There is one main dirt trail, climbing the face of one of the steepest mountains. Its a long way down, so motorists will have to be careful when driving. Speeds above 20 MPH are deadly, and its advised that motorists drive very slowly. The road is in horrible condition, being washed out in several places, with some areas barely wide enough for a D series to pass without falling off the edge. A narrow stance, low speeds, and a small liftkit is your best bet for getting through this without risk of fatal injury. Towards the top you have the leftovers of what seems to be a failed mining operation or quarry. Its completely above the treeline, with only grass and a few small shrubs growing here and there. Commonly used for rallying, though beware, on the other side of the mountain in these shots, there is a steep uninterrupted drop of several hundred meters, and falling off will result in a deadly crash even with the best rollcages and structural reinforcement on your vehicle. The last thing worth showing off now is the small mountain town; Its got a lovely backdrop of the highest peaks in the map. The town consists of mostly just small homes and mom and pop shops. Estimated population of 1500 or less? It will probably be the only one of its kind on the map, and may be reduced in detail depending on file size. Fully AI drivable, however the AI doesn't exactly know how not to cut corners here, and crashes often. Right now only a quarter of the map is filled out, though the remaining 3/4ths of the map will be filled out as I figure out how to blend in the roads and other objects into the other parts of the map. Map creation is like painting a canvas. The larger the canvas, the longer its going to take to fill it in with a quality painting. Its been an off and on project for me since the start of the year, but I plan to have a release here on the forums or in the repo depending on file size, around december or the start of the new year. Credits so far; Ouerbacker; For the wonderful textures he made for Beam Mountains. They still have their place here today, even if he isn't making very many maps anymore. Go check his work out too, you might be inspired to make your own! BeamNG; Default assets used Driv3r1142; Heightmap, and map layout. I do plan on making some more custom assets for this, such as more variations of trees, and buildings. I do have to be mindful of file size though, because even my google drive is not big enough to host a super large map. I have one other 8192x8192 map in the works, ironically its the predecessor to this one. It won't be ready until next year sometime because of some technical issues unfortunately. Check back for posts on progress. There is alot of stuff I probably didn't mention here, so feel free to ask questions and leave comments on what you see. After all, that's what the thread is for. TL;DR? Nope. No download yet, its a Work in progress. PATIENCE my friend, PATIENCE
This Looks insane man 10/10 The one thing that would top this map off is an extreme road, so a 4x4 road that has logs and things fallen over it like a abanded logging trail. but other than that man this is a sexy map and keep up the work because we need more map makers that can do this scale.
Are any of the trails going to be filled with rocks? The Crawl Central map has plenty of great obstacles you could look at for inspiration if you do have a few rock crawling trails
This looks great. I have been wanting a map like this for a long time now, with very winding roads. Are the backroads two lanes wide or only one?
Where is this map set? do you have a specific location in mind? I think it resembles Canada the most though.
I need to stop sleeping in sometimes Alright, long post inbound; I could squeeze in a more washed out trail down the other side of the mountain. Just need to figure out how to lay it out. The way they're set up now is actually quite simple. I edited the Beam Mountains textures so that I had a flat color on the rocks, instead of the shading. The textures themselves are a variety of cleverly set up layers, each playing a different role.Maybe I can put together a post explaining how to create textures like this. Sure why not, I don't do alot of rock crawiling in BeamNG, but its something a mountain map would naturally have. I have space on the other side of the main mountain, so I can easily squeeze one in. I as also thinking of some forest access roads. The main highway is a split highway with 2 lanes going each direction, as you'd see in the interstate system here in the United States. The back road is a narrower 2 lane road with sharper curves. I plan on more of these kinds of roads, as seen in Beam Mountains. Hmm, Canada... That could be any part of the canadian rockies you're talking about. My inspiration for most of my mountain map projects comes from things I've seen in the state of Colorado over here in the states. Its not set anywhere particular right now, but could be seen as in the same general area as Beam Mountains is. Last night I got some pretty decent progress in that I had been meaning to do for awhile now; I managed to finish the first part of the second set of lanes done. The next part is going to be interesting, because I need to expand the highway through a mountain. Since importing heightmaps into blender is a pain, especially just for using it as a reference, I use some other assets instead. I have been using consistently for awhile now the tunnel object that used to be part of some of Ouerbacker's maps, and I use it along with some rocks to make it seem as if I cut a hole in the terrain. I think today I want to get some roads on the back side of the mountain. Most of the roads will be trail types I think, like forest access roads, as for in a realistic sense, there aren't a ton of roads in the mountains. Usually either a main highway and a couple minor highways along with some paved private access roads. Thanks for the positive feedback so far, I am definitely working on getting some of your suggestions integrated into the map. I am working consistently on 2 map projects, this one and one that I've teased all over the forums lately on a 4096x4096 heightmap. Its much simpler, and could possibly be out in October. Then its a straight shot with this map through to the end of the year. I am planning my weekends as time to make progress on my maps, then the weekdays as time to make progress on my vehicle mods. Keep suggesting things and asking questions, I will try my best to answer them
I had to end work on this early yesterday because I was having some extreme issues with the level editor. I won't be working on it much this week, as for I am prioritizing the Blue Collar series and Beam Mountains, both of which I want to get updated before the end of the week. But I will be working on this throughout the weekends consistently, so I should still be able to get quite a bit of progress in, as for 1 week working off and on with my other projects is about equiviant to the working time I have in the weekends. So Its a nice balance. I will show some pictures when I load the map back up again. Given that its such a pain to load this up when I am not going to be working on it, I would rather spend time working elsewhere doing things instead. Sorry guys, but if you've ever loaded any of @bob.blunderton 's maps, especially the ones that require a lot of ram and computing power to handle them, then you will know some of my pains. Even with 8 GB of ram, I have to close out every application on my computer other than BeamNG in order to load the map without crashing. I did get the second set of lanes done on the main highway, and I extended the backroad out to the other edge of the map, although I still need to finish placing the decal roads and the materials for the last thousand meters or so. Its coming along quite nicely, although I do have to say that it takes patience to go back through and detail everything This week I will again, be working on some of my other projects, so keep an eye out for that aswell. I am excited to see that people are looking forward to this map. As long as it doesn't crash while saving, which happened to another map several months ago of this same scale, I can say this will make it to some sort of a release.
Don't leave your minimap open as a HUD app, or even if you had 16gb or more of ram, you'll find that after a while, the UI exe will consume up to 12+ gb of ram. DO backup. Backup on MEGA.nz , they offer like 20+gb of space, more than i'll ever use. I have a: I do a backup on the main drive of this computer about every third day. Backup here on another RAID array in my computer (it has two). Backup to another single-SSD. Backup to a few different HDD's (I switch them each time so I can step back in time if I must). These don't stay connected, so spyware or ransomware won't be a problem beyond losing a few days of work at the most. Backed up to Mega.nz . Backed up on other Beamng.drive beta tester's computers. I refuse to put 2000 hours (it's getting close with Roane County) into something and not have so many different backups. Evidently Alabama USA doesn't backup as well as I do. They just had to pay ransomware to get 7tb of data back. Idiots. Don't be an idiot. Your maps are @#%!ing awesome bro. Keep it up and BACK IT UP. You may use my textures if you wish from my maps. Open my ROANE COUNTY map up and find the invisible AI guide texture or just search roads/materials.cs for AI_GUIDE entry, i think it's like completely_transparent.dds file in /roads directory. Use this for your AI pathing in the town. Keep nodes close around turns and intersections so it doesn't make big auto-junctions which is exactly why it likes to eat signs/poles/curbs whatever on corners. You can use the AI control app on the HUD to see the NAVMESH grid near you. It shows where the AI can path, and it's likely to rail the corners a bit when you have SPLIT ROAD / IN-LANE feature *ON*. Watch your NAVGRAPH/NAVMESH grid and keep an eye on it. This will tell you where the AI will curb up or eat signs/poles and keep your obstacles out of it.
Thanks man, I love your work too. You, @DoullPepper and @Ouerbacker have made some of my favorite maps. Even if they can lag down a system with an i5 4690k, 8GB of ram, and a GTX 1070, they're still awesome I lost a map to a corruption because I didn't back it up, though I will be remaking that one and preparing a release. What stopped me from backing that one up was because I was, to quote you, being an idiot and not backing it up in the first place. After all, it was my first 8192x8192 project, and I didn't really realize the importance there until I threw a bit of a temper tantrum when I lost the entire thing. I will back this map up before I work on it again, thats for sure I also typically keep my HUD mostly empty, aside from the few things I need for debug on occasion with my vehicle mods. Thanks for allowing me to use textures from your maps I will take a look at them closer, and see if I can find anything that might help this map out. I am also kinda hoping West Coast USA comes out sometime soon, it seems to have some forest assets that might help this map out some. The pine trees are a bit, eh, redundant if you ask me Well, to restate, I am spending my weekdays working on my vehicle mod projects, and mods I am preparing to release or update, while the weekend is going to be dedicated to working on this. If I think I have time to work on the map during the week, then I will.
Yes, always back up, it doesn't take long to make a .zip or .7z file of your map when you're done editing for the day and you like your work. Keep doing this a few times a week or whenever you've spent more than an hour working, and when you successfully do something that's tough to do (like plot out an entire town etc), and BEFORE things like texture changes, messing with the forest brush by adding new things in via script, etc. If you diligently back up, you can make great maps happen. While I'm still on the same Windows install for a mere 3 weeks short of 3 years (when i built this computer, Windows 7 ftw), and haven't had issues there, every one of my maps would have been lost due to some error, mess up, on my part or the editor's part, or just general mishaps that DO happen when you're editing. Why Windows 7? Because it's stable enough for productivity work, content creation, etc. It's rock solid. Windows 10 is not. Windows 10 crashes, bsod's, locks up, and clogs the internet with it's telemetry and it's constant updating and pandering me to restart. Nothing I hate more than coming back to a production/content creation machine when I deliberately left things like GNU Image manipulator, Paint.net, Notepad++ and various folder windows open so that I could continue working, back up a script change if need be, blah-blah-blah. Sure, I'd love to build a new computer, Windows 10 might work great, but this one works, and until I can't get reasonably priced main-boards for it, etc, I will continue to use it until it explodes. Once you have everything set like this, it's a wonderful thing to work on maps. Just try not to fill up the computer with Beamng.drive resources like I do and need a drawer full of HDD's to hook up (HOTPLUG!) to the PC whenever you need to swap stuff in or out (backups, texture sources, those add up fast too).
I'm happy to see this screens! There are too few peoples how make nice landscapes and very details and realistic map and roads... Please keep your work, it's nice...
Very little progress has been made this last week or so. I have been working on the JBeams for an upcoming car project, that this isn't being worked on much. It will be completed though, just not very quickly. I hope to work on it again sometime this weekend, since I really want to get some other things done. Stay tuned!
I was off for most of October, so there isn't much to show for this. I am playing catch up so that is going to take awhile. I want to resume work on Saturday for this mod, as for I have a ton of other things to catch up on that I spaced out that I want to get taken care of between now and then.
Personal life comes first, I think most of us understand that haha. Glad to hear it's not dead though, looking forward to updates!
I have been working on this again, and I have quite a bit of progress to show off. I made a new interchange to merge the 2 lane highway (Top curving down and exiting the left,) and the split 4 lane highway(Coming in the right and terminating in the middle.) Absolutely no overpasses, only logical merges. Not pictured is a small piece that allows those coming down the 2 lane highway (top to bottom,) to go onto the 4 lane split highway aswell as continue on the normal trajectory. Earlier before I had to leave for a month, I had extended the 2 lane highway out from the small mountain town to the edge of the map. The 2 lane highway will be the only road that goes from one edge to another, and thus will be the longest road on the map. The new portion is really dangerous, inspired from a road trip that took me and my family down the million dollar highway in Colorado. There is barely any banking on the sharpest curves, so keep your speeds low. Racers beware, there are a ton of blind curves, and some that seem shallower than they really are. I still have a huge amount of space to fill, and with the forest brushes now trying to crash my PC for some reason that's gonna take awhile. (Anyone have some ideas as to how to fix this?! I can't upgrade my RAM since I can't afford an extra 8 GB right now, and I am afraid that it's the culprit, since the last time I let it sit out, It crashed with a memory error, and my PC was practically unusable until I restarted it.) I left a few extra screenshots in the attachments, I have been working on this post for a day off and on, and I forgot what shots I had used and which ones I hadn't.
