Beiträge von itchyboy

Zitat von CentralEuropeanTime

Daaaam. Brooo be blessed and the next 7 generations of you.

Em4 is back.

If only we could have a better traffic and how vehicles and pedestrians behave

If you're talking about me, I will clarify something very important:

That's not an Em4 map with functional buildings and working assets. It's merely a mock up. I will not lie or clickbait you any modding developments.

All that it is, is a way of plotting out Em4 maps based on real areas, including buildings. However this setup only works on major US and Europe cities. It is completely missing data for most of Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the middle east.

Never tested on AUS/NZ areas either.

What I was saying with this is that there's no easy way to do it, no matter how big the map gets.

Zitat von Bernt112

It will easy to decode the launcher and we are not dependent on them. I have already made my own version as well.

Dude this is freaking awesome. Thank you for putting in the work to make this editor substitute. You don't have to post all the information but how did you do this?

If I may ask, is there a substitute editor for the lights? The Blender tool is nice but I want to be able to see the patterns and lights in real time with some kind of renderer or what. I'm probably asking too much but that's one of my biggest issues with the editor. Everything else including map making I could tolerate otherwise.

Zitat von Antiphon

So your trust in the "legends" was not in vain.

Hey thank you for responding. It's an honor hearing from you and I appreciate your insight. I learned a few new things about this game and you set the record straight on this. You explained that so well, I have nothing more to say...just need to process it really.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah I'm just gonna wait this one out especially if the disc version is not compatible. I'm not switching all my things over to steam just to keep a second version of all my mod files, for something I probably wont use anymore. I just dont feel like anything is worth contributing anymore because it's ironically gotten harder to mod this game, due to the increased scope and required labor of modelling and research.

What I mean is that I've always had dreams of my own 'perfect' representation of LA and I do have tools available to me to make it happen. The problem is that making a super high quality map texture, and hundreds of buildings (even when I'm selectively picking and choosing them) is still a ton of work for this game's maps. Even with all these new modding developments, the basic process of doing this still hasn't been made 'easy' where I'm just able to use a building model directly and it has a level of quality I can be happy with. These are super low poly and ran using generic textures, so I'd still have to model everything from doors, to windows to architetctural elements like columns and fascades.

And with Em4, no matter what tools are made, I still need to plot out the ground texture so that buildings fit, roads are curved the right way, grass is set and has smooth transitions to concrete, and so on.

That '4X bigger maps' thing is real, but it was likely done with AI code and assistance.

Let me explain:

The group who made that mod had no prior programming experience until June 2026. In April, their mods had no working vehicle startup spawn scripts and had many scripting problems. All of a sudden in June of this year they began releasing insane things like vehicle pursuits and heavily scripted events.

Now in July 2 they suddenly 'crack' Em4.exe and are able to add anything they want? Also very curious why it wasnt legends like Fry or Antiphon who did this first? Why these people from out of nowhere

Being blunt: I don't trust their competence...where did that sudden increase in skill come from? Why not show this earlier if they already knew how? Regardless it's none of my business that they use AI for this stuff. If this means we get something better longterm with the use of technology, eh sure why not. Bugfixing will be their problem though and I'd hate to debug a vibe coded project.

Another thing worth considering: The decomp of Em4.exe in this case is closed source....where's the github page showing their source code and the inner workings of the injector, decompiled dll and an exact accounting of what their launcher does to our computer? From a purely opsec perspective it's rather unusual that this entire process is so opaque and being done via...discord of all places. I'd expect some kind of documentation for how this was programmed by them if they knew what they were doing.

For reference, projects like scriptHookV (I'm sure some of you know what this is) or silentPatch are very well documented on places like github showing exactly what the code is doing and how it adjusts the original games' exe to fix things or improve the experience. I can't help but be weirded out we're not seeing more transparency for Em4's biggest new modding development.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anyway I do think what they did is legit and there's a lot they can do. They used .dll injection and a 'launcher' to load into the game and it is likely not in violation of game TOS.

However converting this to 64 bit might, if they end up breaking the game down to it's bare foundations/source code. I have no idea where that sits regarding the law as I am not a German citizen. You guys will have to explain that to me.

I am concerned however at the idea that their 'launcher' and .dll fixes will essentially force all Em4 projects into their ecosystem and mods. All things moving forward might have to go through them as a monopoly, which ironically enough...the same thing they accused me of doing a few years ago.

Oh well, we will see how this goes.

Zitat von sQuetch

The vehicle has a total of 47.573 polygons: of which 32.664 belong to the base model, 14.153 to the doors (all of them are separate, including the trunk) and 756 to a single wheel. It is not a high-poly model, but rather a medium-poly one.

Why Polish modders tend to create models this way? To this day, I honestly have no idea where that approach originated from.

We (myself and Duszkarczyk) create not only the model itself but also a complete UV map for the entire vehicle. Because of that, smaller details can easily be represented through textures. Larger modifications, such as changing the shape of a wheel arch, have to be done manually by moving vertices.

In general, this is usually easier than editing the texture, although of course it is not always the better solution.

I see, so mid poly is under 100k, I understand your reasoning.

I also dont understand why you guys model things that way. I'd just keep it under 10k or even lower and call it a day.

Gotta be straight honest with you though, manually moving vertices sounds miserable. Personally I wouldn't have the patience or mental fortitude to do that.

Zitat von Duszkarczyk

Work in progress

What's the polycount on that if I may ask?

I'm curious how you manage high poly models. For example, if a fender or corner piece or the rear has to be adjusted for shape. How do you manage a high poly model. Do you manually move vertices one by one?

I think what did it for me was realizing I love modelling more than I do modding the game.

In the spirit of the thread, here's some old modding screenshots from 2010-2011 that I've never released before. I don't actually feel nostalgia or want to come back to this. I much enjoy myself now as a person where I am in my life, being able to do whatever without needing to be limited by things the community couldn't make. These screenshots show how primitive things once were.

Here's the first ever screenshot I posted publicly of something I've made.

Happy 20 years to the game.

I've said plenty over the years but for me it's probably goodbye for a while. I feel like I've ran out of things to do here and I'm just bored. With it being so difficult to get a project going nowadays and all my friends having left this community, there's nothing really left for me here. For those who do choose to remain and continue make high effort mods, I wish you well.

I wanted to release these for Halloween but I ran out of time and motivation to produce additional content pieces. Regardless, this is what I've been up to the entire month.

Apologies for the English.

I'm just commenting to say that this thread is quite inspiring.

For over 10 years, I've been unable to produce my own map textures due to overthinking and ADHD getting in the way. However, seeing how you do map textures gives me alot of hope that it can be made easier, even using solid colors as a reference. I just need to not give up after a short time.

After many months, these models are finished. They don't have wheels yet but that's not difficult to model.

The Mack truck is a Club Of Four cab and can be modified into the Renault, MAN and other variations easily.

I have my own standard of 3D model usage terms, which are different than the poll options.

Rather I look at the amount of work on the model that is still mine.

I require credit as long as 20% of the model (vertices or polygons) is unchanged. Additionally, I allow the following edits of my model:

Attaching parts, cutting doors (making functional doors and equipment compartments), scale adjustment, converting a sedan to a wagon, making a truck cab have additional rear doors, a variation of the cab, or even converting one vehicle into another, with shared parts, and any major/minor editing is allowed. I also allow converting of vehicles from one generation to another (facelift, downgrade to original version) or full retexture, re-UV map. I am also fine with replacement of wheels, though in that case, the wheels are yours and not mine.

In those cases, you don't need my permission.

However I also have many models where I forbid editing, use or inclusion to other mods. Those are strictly not allowed for use at all.

Otherwise, my publicly released community base models such as the retro car set, modern car pack, or the lightbars are free use with credit.

If you copy the model by creating a new model on top of my work through tracing, but make the vertices and polygons yourself, the new traced model is yours because you made the vertices and mesh.

Zitat von Fry

I added the rotators as a child. For the lightbar lenses i opted to add them as doors.

For the problem with the windshield and lenses: Try to add it as a seperate object i.e. door too. The 3d model of the should be below the pivot. That should fix the issue with the transparency.

Thank you for the advice, I'll try it out. This answers my question regarding Em4's rendering order on some materials. The pivot setting is something I did not consider and I will be trying something out with that too.

I will also try experimenting if superchilds or other objects interact in different ways.

Hopefully this solves my issues and allows me to go all-in with some ideas I've had.

Zitat von Fry

Are you sure? I animated the rotators in my mod. Though i had to add the cover of the lightbar as seperate object.

That seems to be the only way this can be done, unfortunately.

Using that system, the lightbar lenses must be their own unique object (per vehicle) and I'm trying to avoid that because I don't like working with the ingame editor. It's a ton of vehicles with unique lightbar placement and sometimes different lenses depending on the configuration of the bar. Sometimes childs dont like being overlayed on top of other childs as well and the transparency just wont work on my end no matter what I do.

I've done "open top" fire apparatus and the childObjects for passengers (fake person models) do not show up through the windshield and any side facing windows on the vehicle. Apparently, the childObjects dont get rendered through any transparent surface on the inside.

What method did you use for the rotators themselves? Are the rotators just childObjects, or are they part of the model itself?

I'm asking because there are situations like dlk_support_out where I need an animation on the vehicle itself to play, and it can't interrupt the main rotation.

I also need to figure out how to make childObjects inside of other childs. Intersection sweepers and oscillating lights could also be really cool but until this transparency order thing is figured out, I will have to compromise my ideas.

Thanks for confirming that this idea is possible.

Zitat von fresh freddie

Does it run on EM4?

Yes but there are alot of rules and limitations that I've discovered.

I've pushed the animation system so far, I've found out things that can break it.

I also found out that certain things can or can't be done like overlaying or having animated child objects inside existing objects. This is why the childObject animation method for rotator lightbars might not be possible unfortunately.

While I have time, I will try to investigate every lead possible so that we can definitively rule out what's possible with the game.

I don't know where else to post this but I've finally animated my LED messageboard models.

They're a bit imperfect at the edges but I am very pleased with the result. The method I chose was a bit unsual but it is possible to use animated objects as childObjects to achieve the effect without needing to animate every instance of the model.

Unfortunately due to circumstances, I've only been able to model a vehicle or two.

For a long time, I've been wondering what is the cause of the weird behavior of the ladder parts whenever the vehicles move. I thought this was only a problem with mods such as LA mod, and other American mods.

However today, I did observations. I was wrong - the glitch with the ladder parts rapidly shaking/vibrating is actually a problem with the base game assets. Even with no mods, the original game ladder truck has this issue too.

Can anyone else confirm this happens to their ladder trucks in other mods? Does it happen to all mods, or only some?

Has anyone figured out if there's a solution to fix this? I am hoping to get as many observations from the community as possible. Systems where this issue happens or it doesnt etc.

Thanks.

Ever since my last post, I've barely made anything. I don't have much new to share other than some models that I am really proud of.

Here are some helicopters:

My trademark move of not completing assets continues:

Finally, some assets are fully completed:

Zitat von Fireveit

Zitat von Sauerländli

Zitat von Leutnant_Lunte

I appreciate the responses. It's comforting to hear that the few things I do aren't being taken for granted.

My plan is to release maybe 5 or 6 vehicle models, and updates + addons to some previously released model sets. This is not final, though I hope people are grateful even if I can only provide a little bit of content. It won't be much, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately we already did the "deadline for December 25, 2014" concept for Montana Mod 2.01, and it was so stressful. The bad feelings surrounding that experience are why it took 9 years to release the update for the mod.

At it's core, I like the adventCalendar so much is that I can release small things and still contribute without anyone's expectations.

I hope this clarifies my previous posts. Thanks.

I have enough content to contribute for several 'doors' but it would be awkward. Afterall, it's the German Community Advent Calendar, not Itchyboy's Advent Calendar.

Don't get me wrong, I am still commited to producing something for this years event. But I won't try to be selfish and dominate the whole event. It's supposed to be everyone's.

I'm also not sure how much is worth putting out if nobody uses what I contribute anyway. Regardless, I await the decision on what everyone wants to do.

Starting last year, I have made it my tradition to make European vehicle models in July. Here is this year's progress so far.

All of them are unfinished and there will be textures implemented in the future. Also, I won't stop even if the month has ended, I'll still continue but the pace will be slower.