A Couple of Questions: scenery distance & driver weather

[pogbellies]

I just started back to TS12 after a break with Trainz and I am looking for a few pointers.

The route I am working on is quite extensive so I was wondering what other people to in terms of modelling away from the immediate area of the track, how far out do you detail?

Also I seem to remember being able to change the weather in driver, I cannot remember where to set it up though?

Thanks

 

[oknotsen]

Depends on your personal preferences, but in general I suggest making a choice between these options (from least to most):
- Model everything you can see from the cab
- Model everything you can see when tracking the train
- Model everything from every point in the landscape you can still see the train on the tracks

 

[JCitron]

For TS12 and below 2 to 3 baseboards works on either side of the tracks, more or less depending upon the height of the scenery. If you are modeling a deep canyon or valley, there is no need to model anything more than what you'll see from the tracks since everything else is out of view - why waste the resources which your computer could use elsewhere. If on the other hand, you are modeling open pastures with rolling hills with your trains running up on graded ridges, you may want to have more landscape on either side since there is more to see.

One of the things I do is use the Alt-Y to get down on the ground and have a look around in Surveyor. I will walk my route and see whether I need to keep or remove baseboards even if the route is generated in TransDem. This brings up another whole bag of worms. The tendency for a DEM-generated route is to include too much topology, at least for me. With these routes, I import them a lot larger and then trim down after looking around at the ground level. I have found there are times where what appears to be a proper cut off of the baseboards ends up chopping through the side of a hill, which makes things look odd. There's nothing worse than reimporting the missing slice, it's like lining up a 3d puzzle to fix that spot.

John

 

[pogbellies]

My route is a DEM, though it's fairly flat fortunately. Are there any hints or tips for fooling the eye into thinking it's seeing more than it really is? I have tried backboards (if that's the correct phrase) but trying to find ones that look realistic is a struggle.