Using real landscapes in fantasy routes?

Hi All,

I've been wondering about this for a little while and would like to get a little input from the group about the idea. Basically, I wanted to create a sort of scaled down version of the western US by using TransDEM and USGS data to create terrain, but then scaling the work within TransDEM to cover only a few hundred baseboards rather than thousands and then build a fictional route over it which incorporates the various regions (mountain, coast, plains, desert, etc.).

The problem, as you might imagine, is that you lose the terrain quality in this way... mountains become bumps, canyons become riverbeds, etc. So basically I'm trying to figure out a way to capture the terrain in this way (this is partly because I have trouble sometime making plausible terrain features), without losing the best features. The question is then twofold:

1: Is there way to scale / manipulate the terrain in question so as to retain these features while still reducing the scale down to something manageable?

2: Are there better ways to go about what I'm proposing without messing with scale manipulations and losing terrain features in this way?

Thoughts?
Thanks,
Greg

the heights wouldn't match up using many, many DEM's...Create many, many separate diorama's of all the famous palces

thats just it, I don't really want to try to model the famous places, at least not in this route. What I want is to create a representative sampling of the terrain of the western US. The idea being to create a route where you can see coastal lowlands, mountain passes, high mountain valleys, deserts, and woodlands all within a few hundred miles of track. I know the terrain doesn't really change that quickly, but I would like to see how it would look, and I think it would present some fun scenarios like working your way through the mountains with a mile long intermodal consist, or feeding a great planes oil refinery with oil from the coast...

I guess it depends what level of compression you're looking for, probably finding a suitable State or pair of States that has relatively low terrain in the east and mountains dropping to sea level in the west, as a microcosm of the whole country.

If using individual dioramas, then the key is using locations that don't have too great a distance in elevation so can be realistically linked with 10 - 15km "bridge" sections.

I've often pondered how to do a similar thing for Europe kind of along the same scheme as "18 Wheels of Steel" set up their landscapes. Note there's a parallel thread running about "East to West" so there's a definite interest in this type of route.

One other option which comes to mind is an approach used by map creators in Transport Tycoon for "network" style routes. This consists of wrapping the geography round itself in the square area but in such a way that scenery disguises the obvious loops and shortcuts. For example, London Euston and Glasgow Central - 400 miles apart in reality - might be adjacent on the map but separated by a scenic break, tall buildings or a ridge.

Hope the above gives some thoughts as to how the project could be undertaken.

treblesum81 said:

thats just it, I don't really want to try to model the famous places, at least not in this route. What I want is to create a representative sampling of the terrain of the western US. The idea being to create a route where you can see coastal lowlands, mountain passes, high mountain valleys, deserts, and woodlands all within a few hundred miles of track. I know the terrain doesn't really change that quickly, but I would like to see how it would look, and I think it would present some fun scenarios like working your way through the mountains with a mile long intermodal consist, or feeding a great planes oil refinery with oil from the coast...

Click to expand...

Well, it wouldn't quite get to the point of feeding a Great Plains oil refinery, but either the WP or SP routes from San Francisco, CA to the Nevada line all go through most of the scenery types you mention, in a distance of about 200 miles. Allowing for cases where the route would need to be two or three boards wide, and the fact that a board in TRS is about .4 of a mile, you dould represent this with a route of about 1000 boards. Of course, the coastal lowlands of the San Francisco Bay area are a bit difficult to see these days, what with the Urban development, and you'd have to extend a bit into Nevada for the high desert. You can get some of the same effect in a smaller distance in the Pacific Northwest, going Eastward from Seattle, and Portland, OR.

ns



ns

I've actually been thinking about doing the columbia river valley for some time now. That being said, I want to try and avoid any real reference to a real location with this route, as this is where I always get caught up in route design. I end up spending so much time trying to get it to look like the real thing, that I get bored and stop working on it before its finished...

This time around, while I want the route to have representative reagions, I want them to be whatever I make them to be rather than what a map shows, partly because that way I feel more creative, and partly because it allows for a great variety. It also should keep me from flopping back and forth betwen TrainzDEM, Google Earth, and Surveyor a million times...

treblesum81 said:

I've actually been thinking about doing the columbia river valley for some time now.

Click to expand...

This time around, while I want the route to have representative reagions,

Click to expand...

Make each of your representative regions a separate "routelette" when you have them about how you want them, you can determine the order they should be in, and connect them with intermediate boards. This has the advantage that if you change your mind about one or more routelettes, you can replace them with others without losing all of your work.

ns

You could do what I did. Build a route in several sections that can then be connected together. My sections are Coast, River, Mountian, Hills, North(another mountian pass), and Canyon. By making it in sections if you become bored with one section you can switch to another. The total mileage for mine comes to a little over 100 miles.

or what mjolnir said....LOL

Here is a question about building up terrain quickly then... How can you do it without using DEMs and TransDEM? When I try to build terrain without something other than flat land already there to work with, I end up either overworking every little detail and getting no where, or getting such a rough and nasty surface that I end up just starting over again...

The problem that I'm facing with this one, and the reason behind the original question is that I have the skills to fine tune land well, but not really the grand scale rough work. Any ideas?

I use track, Quad track, or 105' wide road spline, as a tool to make terrain, hills and mountains, by laying the spline points at varied heights, and then hit the smooth spline tool button. I later on adjust the terrain up and down, so it is not jagged, rough, or pitted.

Before: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/Screen_001-3.jpg
After: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/Screen_002-2.jpg
Finished: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/Screen_025.jpg
Cutting hills and valleys: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/Screen_001.jpg
Before: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/Screen_024.jpg
After: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/Screen_026.jpg
lol: http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/EaglesChokingSymbol-1.jpg

I see... so you use the trick like contour lines rather than like raising ridges. I would in this case make a circular plateau and then try to smooth the area around, which then ends up looking fairly weak. That being said, it still doesn't produce the rolling hills and valleys of a DEM.

Circular motion.

To make rolling hills I set the area to large, the sensitivity to low, and use a circular motion of the mouse. This allows you to build up your hills at a controlled pace.

treblesum81 said:

Here is a question about building up terrain quickly then... How can you do it without using DEMs and TransDEM? When I try to build terrain without something other than flat land already there to work with, I end up either overworking every little detail and getting no where, or getting such a rough and nasty surface that I end up just starting over again...

The problem that I'm facing with this one, and the reason behind the original question is that I have the skills to fine tune land well, but not really the grand scale rough work. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

It's a bit difficult to determine exactly what the problem is; it could lie in a number of places, based upon these comments. Is this a case of not having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish before you start, but realizing after starting that, however unclear the vision, what you have achieved is not it? Or, on the other hand do you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve, but haven't practiced with the available tools enough to be able to reproduce it? Or yet again, is it a matter where you have the clear vision, and the skills, but don't have the workflow arranged so as to be able to realize the vision with the skill set you have? Or is it that you have the skills, but don't know all the tricks to use them to get what you want?

The first time I tried to use the Terrain tools, I gave up when I was dissatisfied with my efforts. The next time I tried to use the terrain tools, I spent some time trying to decide why I was dissatisfied. Once I knew why I was dissatisfied, it was much easier to get closer to what I wanted. One also needs to know the limitations of the available tools. There are terrain effects I would like to see in my routes, but I'm not going to be able to accomplish them with the terrain tools, as they lie outside what the program can do. For example, one cannot have a railroad right of way cut 5 units deep, with vertical sides using the terrain tools because the minimum distance between one horizontal point and another is 10 units.

If you have some of the efforts with which you are dissatisfied, figure out why, and if you cannot determine how to get the effect you want, post screenshots, and ask for help. If the effect you want is possible, odds are someone will be able to tell you how to achieve it; and even if the effects are not possible, someone may have an idea about a work-around.

ns


When you get the "rough and nasty surface", do you ever spend time analyzing it to see

Well, I guess I got too used to the quick generation that DEMs provide. I'll have to work at it to see what I want, but then it wouldn't be a hobby right? I think what I end up with is a situation where I know what I want, but the more messing I do with the terrain, the more it looks wrong, so I end up just going back and starting over. Either way, I do wish I could draw out terrain elevations and import them into TS2009, mostly because I work much better with a top-down view and contour lines than I do with a 3D view and moving terrain.

Either way, I'll post up some screenies when it comes time and see what I can do.

Greg

PS: Doesn't TS2009 have the option to use a 5m grid?

Well, here's a technique you can use: sketch out the contours you envision on a sheet of graph paper, then transfer the contours to a board, using either a road or a track spline to do the tracing. Now, set the height for one of two of vertices on the spline, and use the "smooth spline" option to raise the ground under the spline to the desired height. Then lay splines approximately perpendicular to the splines you use for the contours, to map the line up grade of the hill, and smooth those splines. Then, after deleting the tracks, minor adjustments with the terrain tool set to the smallest radius, and smallest sensitivity, will eliminate the remnants of the terraces that show where the splines were.

ns

I've actually done just what you are asking about for my personal route. There are sections that are created from scratch as in laying the tracks, raising and lowering the land, etc, and there are other sections that are made up from imported DEM files. I cheated and used those made by Fishlipsatwork, but essentially the purpose is the same.

In order to connect the sections, I added some "tweener" boards to match up the landscape height if necessary, and to blend the real terrain into my own. On one of my sections, I changed the track layout a little bit so it would connect to my route, but when viewed, no one knows the difference.

John

I just reread your original post and had this idea. CSX's The New England Main or the B&M's Fitchburg Route in Massachusetts have many of the features you are looking for in a compact area (about 120 mi). The only real feature that would be missing is high desert.

treblesum81 said:

Here is a question about building up terrain quickly then... How can you do it without using DEMs and TransDEM?

Click to expand...

1) Find, or draw, a topographical map.

2) Overlay the map with a grid, with grid lines spaced at 720 meters (if you prefer working with metric) or at 720 yards (if you prefer working in imperial measuring system)

3) Lauch Trainz, open Surveyor, and select the option to create a new route.

4) Pick a spline, any spline. Just make sure it is easy to see; I use "Powerlinem B", and place the spline completely around the perimeter of each baseboard.

4) Pick another spline (or, I suppose if you wish, you can use the same one.) place two instances going North-South, and two going East-West, from one edge of the baseboard to the other, space 24 grid squares apart.

5) Pick another spline. I use a fence (actually, I use three styles of fence, one style for any water line on the route, a different style for below waterline, and a third style for above water line).

6) Using your overlaid map from step 2, and an appropriate measuring device to determine co-ordinates of the data on the topographical map, reproduce the contour lines on the baseboards by use of the fence splines.

7) Determine the height levels associated with the various contour lines, and use the "apply vertex height" to the vertices of the contours.

8) When heights have been applied to all of the vertices of a contour, use the "smooth line" subtool to raise the height of the terrain to the height of the splines marking the contours.

9) Smooth the areas between the contours.

10) Remove all of the splines.


How quickly one can make terrain using this method will be will depend upon a number of factors, including the density of the terrain you're looking to represent, the quality of your map, and the quality of your measuring tools, and your level of competence in their use.

ns