[IDEA] 1:5 Map Rescale Mod

[angrybirdseller]

I used the map editor would take months to build 1:5 scale there are holes to fill with landscapes, and roads are landscaped certain way to grades are drivable up hills as well. The promods for ETS2 know how to do it, but overtime there maps take longer to longer to build compared to early days.

[Brian Benton]

@Trakaplex Where to find so many people with a good level of training? It seems to me that this is not possible unless the SCS takes care of this issue. Look at the quality level of almost all mod cards compared to SCS reference products and questions will disappear by themselves. If we recruit a team of hundreds of self-taught people with great desire, but without skills, then at the output we will get a pencil drawing drawn by a child. And what's the point? Is it stupid to achieve a 1:5 scale goal at any cost, with the side effects of poor quality?

[Trakaplex]

@Trakaplex Where to find so many people with a good level of training? It seems to me that this is not possible unless the SCS takes care of this issue. Look at the quality level of almost all mod cards compared to SCS reference products and questions will disappear by themselves. If we recruit a team of hundreds of self-taught people with great desire, but without skills, then at the output we will get a pencil drawing drawn by a child. And what's the point? Is it stupid to achieve a 1:5 scale goal at any cost, with the side effects of poor quality?

The other easy part like I said is that terrain is easy to copy-and-paste even stretching roads, so really no worries. These terrain and roads will have the same vanilla textures. That will take the largest part. Only custom assets would need more skill. There are plenty of people who run well-done mods with custom assets, like Paris 1:1 and some other dedicated 1:1 maps. Much of SCS's maps in fact have recycled assets. Modeling 50-100 more towns in an area won't be pain for the amount of people who actually do custom assets.

Like in SCS DLC's the quality for all areas won't be balanced like you're saying. Since much of the land and buildings would be there, it would be easy to replace with higher quality assets. In this case, we might actually need to present instructions on how to keep the map quality consistent.

[SabR]

The couple of ways I see this coming to fruition is;
1. If you are able to gather hundreds of map modders, have a detailed plan layout on how to go about it & most importantly
2. SCS announces EOL for ETS2 & ATS. Meaning no further patches. This would mean that the map modders can build such a monstrosity just once & don't have to keep patching it. Bugs are a certainty so these creators should be willing to put in the extra time as well.

I wish you luck finding all these people who'd come together to undertake such a mammoth task for free.
Time & Team would be your biggest challenge.

[Shiva]

Trakaplex, would you use the current usa_bgn? Current size is 12000x9280 pixels.
But x4 it in both directions?

Planning and modeling towns, that is one of the hardest parts. What do you include, what do you not include.
Recaling. Who sees that the cities and towns are placed on the right spot? and elevation?
Changing those after roads are already connected, or close to, would not be a fun job.
1:5, might be possible, but a lot of work.
Who would oversee that all map sectors and works, work together and are driveable, when merged?

Point 1, if SabR's post, very important.

[Trakaplex]

Trakaplex, would you use the current usa_bgn? Current size is 12000x9280 pixels.
But x4 it in both directions?

Yes, just expand 4x in both directions using the current size in pixels.

Planning and modeling towns, that is one of the hardest parts. What do you include, what do you not include.
Recaling. Who sees that the cities and towns are placed on the right spot? and elevation?
Changing those after roads are already connected, or close to, would not be a fun job.
1:5, might be possible, but a lot of work.
Who would oversee that all map sectors and works, work together and are driveable, when merged?

Point 1, if SabR's post, very important.

Obviously in the SCS editor, there's a faint Google Maps overview in the background if you zoom way out. We can just revise it so it fits to be 4x wider and longer. Then we rescale the roads, then the terrain. The cities will be copied and dragged to different areas of course.

[Shiva]

The editor background map is 12000x9280 pixels.

24x28 sectors, is the map, Before Texas DLC. 33x37, with Texas.
There will be empty sectors in the total calculation.

Let's take Denvers map grid/sector. And 4x it.
Original borders are the image size. the faint grids are the map x4'd.

This is Denver in the original grid.

One would place that Denver here, in the x4, for starters.

A step after this, atleast for Denver, would be to separate the Peterson/Peña Blvd area from Central Denver.
Then it would be time to think of what to add of the following stretch of I-70.
Adding US-225? Or rather something else than that?
Colorado E470, could fit east of the Peterson area.

Atleast some cities would be needed to extend too. Unless making them smaller than their background map area.

[Trakaplex]

The editor background map is 12000x9280 pixels.

24x28 sectors, is the map, Before Texas DLC. 33x37, with Texas.
There will be empty sectors in the total calculation.

Let's take Denvers map grid/sector. And 4x it.
Original borders are the image size. the faint grids are the map x4'd.

This is Denver in the original grid.

One would place that Denver here, in the x4, for starters.

A step after this, atleast for Denver, would be to separate the Peterson/Peña Blvd area from Central Denver.
Then it would be time to think of what to add of the following stretch of I-70.
Adding US-225? Or rather something else than that?
Colorado E470, could fit east of the Peterson area.

Atleast some cities would be needed to extend too. Unless making them smaller than their background map area.

Obviously, the big problem with 1:20 is that the cities swallow almost half the state. The pictures you showed really puts 1:5 to the table, because it would be possible to fit the city size to the background map with more backroad. I-70 between Josephine/York and Pena would obviously need to stretched, and parts of East Denver/Colorado Blvd would be included, and E470/I-225 (all the freeways everyone's been asking for). This won't overcome all the scenery problems, and we could easily map more scenery towns along freeways (including Boulder). Some cities need more size especially larger ones, while others just can stay similar in size like Cheyenne. I think @Optional Features was talking about starting with CO/WY, and I think it's a good place to show how cities and mountainous terrain really would interact with 1:5. Good for not so out-of-scale cities.

Colorado would also teach the skill on rescaling cities and mountains.

[Optional Features]

Some cities need more size especially larger ones, while others just can stay similar in size like Cheyenne. I think @Optional Features was talking about starting with CO/WY, and I think it's a good place to show how cities and mountainous terrain really would interact with 1:5. Good for not so out-of-scale cities.

Colorado would also teach the skill on rescaling cities and mountains.

Yep, I would strongly suggest Wyoming I-80 as the starting point. It's the most desolate interstate highway in America, some of SCS's newest work, and wildly over urbanized in game. Taking what SCS put in place and spreading it out over a larger area would probably suffice to start with more detail added later.

The beauty of I-80 is that if continued it could push east to Salt Lake City (which needs some help with its mountain ranges and grades), the Great Salt Lake (which is currently a large puddle), and eventually Donner and Sacramento (which is way too close to the mountains).

I would add to this suggestion a corridor focus. Smaller highways and such could be added later, but getting a proof of concept done with just one long highway would be a great motivator (and something to enjoy).

The current time to cross Wyoming is about 25 minutes. 4x that is 100 minutes or a bit over an hour and a half. An hour and a half of open interstate driving with rural scenery is better than anything on the map right now.

That's my four cents.

[Trakaplex]

Some cities need more size especially larger ones, while others just can stay similar in size like Cheyenne. I think @Optional Features was talking about starting with CO/WY, and I think it's a good place to show how cities and mountainous terrain really would interact with 1:5. Good for not so out-of-scale cities.

Colorado would also teach the skill on rescaling cities and mountains.

Yep, I would strongly suggest Wyoming I-80 as the starting point. It's the most desolate interstate highway in America, some of SCS's newest work, and wildly over urbanized in game. Taking what SCS put in place and spreading it out over a larger area would probably suffice to start with more detail added later.

The beauty of I-80 is that if continued it could push east to Salt Lake City (which needs some help with its mountain ranges and grades), the Great Salt Lake (which is currently a large puddle), and eventually Donner and Sacramento (which is way too close to the mountains).

I would add to this suggestion a corridor focus. Smaller highways and such could be added later, but getting a proof of concept done with just one long highway would be a great motivator (and something to enjoy).

The current time to cross Wyoming is about 25 minutes. 4x that is 100 minutes or a bit over an hour and a half. An hour and a half of open interstate driving with rural scenery is better than anything on the map right now.

That's my four cents.

Yeah, it would solve a lot of things.

So the biggest problem about this is that this project won't be a reality if we don't advertise. We might need to paste this forum link in SCS's media or something... right now it's only a few people talking. But the highways are a good idea first. The first teams can do the interstates. It's the most important since that's what the player would primarily see. As said, CO is a good one for learning how to expand cities to fit the back map and mountain and terrain rescaling. For example, Glenwood Canyon is currently eating up space for Eagle, Avon, and Gypsum. In current scale, when you leave Eisenhower Tunnel, the bottom of the down grade and you're already at Vail. No Silverthorne or Dillon Reservoir. Moving the grade west of the tunnel and Glenwood Canyon would create tons of space. Just moving I-80 and I-70 would really show the capabilities of space.

Problems though the non-redone area of the base map is still crappy, so I'd guess that rescale would need to hold a bit. But it'd be one heck of a horror to rescale this part. @SabR, I think if it was to jocularly sell each region the price of an SCS DLC, that'd be funny. And of course, whoever runs this in the future (remember I said I won't be able to manage due to time constraints) could give a share to developers. The same would apply to ETS2 DLC, only we're more in the ATS example because ATS is just, worse mapped? So both games being rescaled to 1:5 in a mod.