Best Mod Tool for BeamNG Traffic: Enhance Your Simulation Experience

For years, I’ve been dedicated to pushing the boundaries of traffic simulation in BeamNG.drive. This has culminated in a comprehensive traffic tool and a series of meticulously crafted traffic packs, all designed to maximize optimization and performance. My aim is to enable a significantly larger number of traffic vehicles to run smoothly on average PCs, far exceeding the capabilities of standard in-game vehicles. This article serves as a central hub for all my traffic projects, providing detailed information and download links. Please ensure you read through the entire thread to fully understand the features and instructions before use.

Alt text: BeamNG.drive traffic simulation showcasing optimized vehicle density on a city map.

Alt text: Optimized BeamNG traffic vehicles navigating a highway environment at high density.

Alt text: Diverse selection of traffic vehicles in BeamNG.drive, demonstrating vehicle pack variety.

Alt text: BeamNG traffic mod featuring realistic vehicle interactions and road behavior.

Alt text: Performance-optimized traffic vehicles in BeamNG.drive maintaining smooth gameplay.

Alt text: BeamNG traffic simulation with custom license plates and regional vehicle variations.

Alt text: Optimized traffic flow in BeamNG.drive demonstrating the mod’s efficiency.

Alt text: High-density BeamNG traffic simulation achieved with optimized vehicle models.

Alt text: Various BeamNG maps showcasing the traffic mod’s compatibility and performance.

Maps featured in the images (in order of appearance): Mediterranean Special Stages Rally, Italy (stock game), Polish Roads.

The Essential Traffic Tool

At the heart of this mod is the Traffic Tool, the most crucial component. This tool allows you to spawn dedicated groups of vehicles specifically designed for my traffic vehicle packs. It offers advanced control over vehicle spawning, exceeding standard game capabilities. One notable feature is the fine-tuning of license plates, adding a layer of customization and realism to your traffic simulations.

The Traffic Tool interface is easily accessible in-game by pressing the left square bracket key ([). If this default keybind does not work, you can customize it within your BeamNG.drive control settings. Once opened, the tool provides access to a wide array of functions, enhancing your ability to manage and customize traffic within the game.

Alt text: Screenshot of the BeamNG.drive Traffic Tool interface displaying various customization options.

Here’s a comprehensive breakdown of the Traffic Tool’s functionalities:

Pooled Vehicle Functionality: Efficiently manage and spawn large groups of traffic vehicles, optimizing game performance.
Parked Vehicle Functionality: Populate your BeamNG maps with parked cars, enhancing realism. Features on-the-fly parts switching, eliminating the need for duplicate vehicle configurations and saving valuable resources.
Region/Country-Based Vehicle Groups: Select specific vehicle groups based on geographic regions or countries. As the mod expands, expect more specialized and diverse groups to be added, starting with the currently available basic regional selections.
Custom License Plate Designs: Choose from a variety of license plate designs for your traffic vehicles, adding a personalized touch and regional accuracy.
Custom License Plate Models: Go beyond standard designs and implement custom license plate models. The tool currently supports several modded plate shapes, including:
- Italian small front plates by @gsbr_697
- British rear yellow plates by @JorgePinto
- Mercosur/Mercosul plates by @RealVector
- Cypriot front white/rear yellow plates by @RealVector
Note: This mod does not include content from the mentioned creators beyond the vehicle end plate parts. If you select an option requiring an external mod, you will receive a download prompt for the necessary repository.
Randomized Front Plate Usage: Specifically designed for American traffic, this option randomizes the presence of front license plates on vehicles, reflecting real-world variations in states where front plates are not mandatory.
Quick Start: For immediate action, the Quick Start option spawns vehicles already active and moving, saving you the step of manually initiating traffic flow.
Custom Spawning Code: Experience varied traffic with randomized vehicle appearances. This feature ensures rarer vehicles appear less frequently, reducing repetitive vehicle spawns and increasing visual diversity.
Region-Based Presets for Official Simplified Traffic Vehicles: Gain enhanced control over the official simplified traffic vehicles with region-based presets. While some plate options may be limited due to official vehicle constraints, this feature offers greater customization than standard game settings.

Important Spawning Notes: Spawning a large number of pooled vehicles at once might cause temporary game lag as the system loads all elements. This is normal, especially on lower-spec systems. The tool includes options to manage license plate generation: you can choose to generate plates on vehicle spawn or upon traffic start. For weaker CPUs, deferring plate generation until traffic start can prevent crashes, although it may cause a brief slowdown as plates are generated in bulk. A progress counter is displayed during this process to keep you informed.

The Traffic Tool is designed with open compatibility in mind. If you have your own optimized traffic mods, they can be integrated with this tool, provided they adhere to the same naming conventions for parked wheels and license plate parts and are structured in a compatible group format.

Diverse Vehicle Packs

To streamline content management, this mod is organized into distinct vehicle “packs.” While categorized by region, many car models are globally common, meaning most packs are contained within the main download file. Standalone expansions, like the Yakuza pack, are released separately. For instance, the EU pack includes some Japanese market rebadged vehicles and might lack certain vehicle types commonly found in other regions, as these are included in the unreleased US pack.

The flagship offering is the EU Standard pack, featuring 43 unique car models prevalent across Europe, with an initial focus on vehicles popular in Italy, aligning with the in-game map. The development process has evolved, transitioning from utilizing pre-existing models to creating vehicles from scratch. Older content primarily consists of late 2000s and early 2010s hatchbacks sourced from the FM4 roster. Newer vehicles (internally designated EU2) are being modeled from the ground up, promising greater variety as development progresses. All vehicles in these packs are fully compatible with the Traffic Tool features, including the fading glowmap system and all license plate options.

Alt text: European traffic vehicle examples from the BeamNG traffic mod pack, showcasing model details.

Alt text: Variety of European hatchback and sedan models included in the BeamNG EU traffic pack.

Alt text: Close-up of vehicle models from the EU traffic pack, demonstrating visual quality and optimization.

EU Traffic Pack – Content and Credits:

Fiat Seicento: Scanned by @Car_Killer, modeled by @Ezo
Kia Picanto: Scanned and modeled by @Ezo
Nissan Qashqai +2, Lancia Ypsilon, Toyota Corolla Touring, Fiat Panda, Mk1 Talbot Express/Fiat Ducato campervan: Modeled from scratch by @AgentMooshroom5
Saab 9-3: From FM4, with extra parts modeled by @Spiicy
Alfa Romeo 147, Fiat 500, Peugeot 307 CC, VW Golf 4, Toyota Yaris, and R56 Mini Cooper: From GT6
Mini Countryman: From TC2
Mk7 Ford Transit and F21 BMW 1-Series: From FH1
Peugeot 107, Peugeot 308, Mercedes A-Class, Vauxhall/Opel Agila, Chevrolet Aveo, Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1, Renault Clio III, Citroen DS3, Ford Fiesta, Smart Fortwo, VW Fox, Seat Ibiza, XE20 Lexus IS250, Ford Ka, Nissan Leaf, Seat Leon, Mazda 2, K13 Nissan Micra, R53 Mini Cooper, Alfa Romeo MiTo, VW Polo, Peugeot RCZ, Chevrolet Spark, and Renault Twingo II: From FM4

All models have been extensively reworked and enhanced to ensure suitability for the mod, including trim level adjustments, alternate parts, and wheel variations.

Yakuza Traffic Pack: Originally featured on a Yakuza map port thread, the Yakuza Traffic Pack is now integrated here for better accessibility and consistency. These vehicles have been reworked with improved jbeams, various fixes, and the implementation of the new fading light system.

Alt text: Yakuza themed vehicles from the BeamNG traffic mod pack, showcasing Japanese car models.

Alt text: Selection of cars from the Yakuza Traffic Pack, optimized for BeamNG traffic simulation.

All cars are sourced from Yakuza Like A Dragon by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, extracted using the Yakuza GMD Tools by theturboturnip.

Showcase Videos

[Showcase videos section would be embedded here if links were provided, but no specific video links were in the original text. This section can be expanded later with video embeds.]

Important Notes

Keybind Issues: If the [ key does not activate the Traffic Tool, check your control settings under “Agent Traffic Tool” in “General Debug” to ensure the keybind is correctly set and not conflicting with other mods.
Game Version Compatibility: This mod requires recent versions of BeamNG.drive to function correctly. Ensure your game is up to date.
Troubleshooting Common Issues:
- Conflicting Mods: Persistent errors often indicate conflicts with other mods. Police/lightbar mods and general overhaul mods like BeamMP and DFA pack are common culprits. Try disabling these to resolve issues.
- Lua Errors and Intel CPU Issues: Nonsensical or varied Lua errors, especially on systems with 12th to 14th gen Intel CPUs, may indicate a known Intel CPU degradation issue. Research this problem and check your CPU warranty for potential replacements. Refer to resources like this Reddit thread for more information. BeamNG’s CPU-intensive nature, especially with traffic, can expose this hardware issue more readily.

Technical Details: Optimization for Performance

Every aspect of this mod is rigorously optimized to ensure peak performance even on less powerful PCs. This project served as a technology demonstrator, influencing the development of the official simplified vehicles in BeamNG.drive. Consequently, performance is on par with or surpasses the official simplified vehicles.

Optimizations implemented include:

Basic traffic jbeams derived from official simplified vehicle structures.
Extensive use of data-value generic materials, minimizing texture usage. Only badge textures and paint color palettes utilize actual textures, with minor exceptions.
Implementation of proper texture cooker PBR formats for optimal GPU performance where textures are necessary.
Smart glowmaps utilizing vertex colors, eliminating the need for baked textures and UV maps.

Despite these optimizations, visual quality is maintained. Significant effort has been invested to balance performance and aesthetics, incorporating PBR materials, the fading glowmap system, and sufficient polygon counts to ensure vehicles look good while remaining performance-friendly.

Alt text: Close-up of a BeamNG traffic vehicle showcasing PBR materials and optimized visual fidelity.

Upcoming Content and Future Plans

The EU pack is continuously expanding with new vehicle additions planned for the future. Expect ongoing updates and more vehicles being added over time. Parts for existing cars, such as the Chrysler version of the Ypsilon and the Japanese market Corolla, are also in development.

Future expansions under consideration include:

Simplified trailers for enhanced traffic diversity.
Specialized work vehicles like buses, coaches, and street cleaners.
Gimmicky vehicles such as land trains, pending AI capability assessments.

The Traffic Tool will also receive updates with more refined options for controlling license plates and vehicle age ranges, providing even greater control over traffic customization.

Progress updates are frequently posted on the official BeamNG Discord server in this mod’s thread. This thread will also be kept updated for those not active on Discord.

Other projects in development or planned:

Japanese Pack (New Project): A new Japanese vehicle pack is under development, featuring vehicles scratch-modeled to ensure quality and compatibility. This pack is a primary focus and is expected to be released in the coming months.

Alt text: Preview of vehicles from the upcoming Japanese Traffic Pack for BeamNG.drive.

Unreleased US Pack (Legacy Project): An older US vehicle pack project exists, but its quality needs significant improvement to meet current mod standards. Revamping this pack is a long-term project, likely requiring 6+ months before a potential release.
Ezo’s Expansion Pack (Collaboration): @Ezo is developing an expansion pack featuring a collection of unique vehicles modeled over time. This pack is intended to add rarer and more unique vehicles to traffic, with a focus on drivability and realistic performance. This pack is currently in heavy development with no set release date, and content is subject to change.

Alt text: Example vehicles from the WIP expansion pack by Ezo, showing diverse and unique models.

Future Pack Concepts: Potential future packs under consideration include:
- “Chod traffic” featuring 70s/80s/90s British/European vehicles.
- Brazilian and Australian/New Zealand traffic packs, leveraging existing model overlap.

Common Questions

Sound Issues: Ensure your “Audio Max Voices” setting is set to “ultra” (512) to avoid sound-related problems. The Traffic Tool now includes an in-game warning about this setting.
Installation: Install the mod like any standard BeamNG.drive forum mod by placing the downloaded ZIP file into your mod folder.
Feature Requests: Feature requests for interiors, detailed jbeams, technical specs, drivable versions, specific car models, or “every car ever sold” will not be implemented. The mod is focused on optimized traffic, as stated in the title.

Credits

Vehicle Credits: Listed within the EU Traffic Pack section above.

Additional Credits:

@Car_Killer: Lua scripting assistance and contributions to the Traffic Tool code.
@Ezo, @Ai’Torror: Jbeam contributions, assistance, and advice.
@LuisAntonRebollo: BeamNG graphics developer, whose insights (via @Car_Killer) have been crucial for optimization techniques in this mod.
@! nick: [No specific contribution listed, humorous entry].
3D modeling and scanning contributions from @Ezo, @Spiicy, and @Car_Killer.
@Agent_Y, @synsol and contributors to the original official simplified traffic vehicle jbeams.
Legacy models from FM4, FH1, GT6, and TC2.

Downloads

Main Traffic Mod + Traffic Tool:

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ssj9vQzlS-UBPUrdwdsng52tenc019bP/view
Mediafire: https://www.mediafire.com/file/urcvmt4u71s9984/agent_traffic_mod.zip/file (Last updated December 19th, 2024)

Yakuza Traffic Pack:

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HXqjDTGEnOOAUZHRcRgIWLkbeg4iidLX/view

This mod is provided completely free of charge. These are the only official download sources. Any other distribution is unauthorized and potentially compromised.

Redistribution and Usage Policy: Please do not redistribute, re-upload, or use content from this mod without explicit permission. This includes using models from this mod for derivative works or commercial purposes. Contact me directly for any inquiries regarding permissions.

No Requests: Due to the extensive development already invested in this project, car requests will not be considered. The mod already has a vast library of reference materials and a long-term development roadmap.