I've discovered that over nearly the six years I've used Trainz, many better ways of doing things, and feel it's time to update the oldest sections to the new look. All of the new SpeedTreez, better roads and tracks still don't improve the poor landscape and texturing of the old baseboards. It's like recondition an old grand piano without replacing the pinblock. It'll still sound like an old piano eventhough it has a nicely varnished case.
So as I've said, it's time to go back and rip these sections out. The towns may even disappear off the map and the landscape will be changed. I feel this will be for the better in the end with smoother running, and fewer boring sections. As the route stands now, there are a couple of sections that annoy me. I can't really pin-point what I don't like, and I dread when I have to go through them. So it's time to rip out the baseboards and redo the section again.
Now you're all wondering how I'm going to do this. First of all this isn't going to happen overnight. At the moment, I'm traveling and logging into the forum from the hotel. This will give me a chance to think out what I want from the route. Second I want to plan out the look of the new sections so they blend into my good sections already. I also need to think about what sections I want to keep. Not all of the old ones are really that bad, and have an interesting layout to them as well as good landscaping. These were transition-points where my landscaping and texturing skills changed.
Once I've got this planned out, I need to delete the baseboards and patch. This is the part that gets tricky, I think. I may actually build my replacement sections seperately and merge them into the spots. This I'm thinking will give me a chance to tweak each area for smooth AI operation and a realistic landscape. I'm also contemplating using some more DEM-based baseboards from Mr. Fishlipsatwork. He's provided a nice library of them to choose from. Now choosing the right one along with choosing the right one with similar heights will be bigger task here, I'm thinking. The thing is I want this to work right out of the box rather than have to tweak things forever afterwards.
The other thing I may do is lop off what I don't want, and leave it at that. This could entail using temporary copies, deleting and merging in the parts together at the end. The route would have two names - xxxx and yyyy. I'd then delete what I don't need from either then merge the two sections back together.
I've done this with great success in the past, but it's a pain with the way Auran has implemented the baseboard removal processes. It's downright tedious with having to click on each individual board at a time, and with the the route spinning around with a baseboard is removed, the process prone to errors because of the disorientation that sets in.
In writing this, I wasn't so much asking for help or anything, just kind of thinking out loud on what I want to do. Has anyone else done this before, I wonder, or have any other ideas on how to go about this?
John
So as I've said, it's time to go back and rip these sections out. The towns may even disappear off the map and the landscape will be changed. I feel this will be for the better in the end with smoother running, and fewer boring sections. As the route stands now, there are a couple of sections that annoy me. I can't really pin-point what I don't like, and I dread when I have to go through them. So it's time to rip out the baseboards and redo the section again.
Now you're all wondering how I'm going to do this. First of all this isn't going to happen overnight. At the moment, I'm traveling and logging into the forum from the hotel. This will give me a chance to think out what I want from the route. Second I want to plan out the look of the new sections so they blend into my good sections already. I also need to think about what sections I want to keep. Not all of the old ones are really that bad, and have an interesting layout to them as well as good landscaping. These were transition-points where my landscaping and texturing skills changed.
Once I've got this planned out, I need to delete the baseboards and patch. This is the part that gets tricky, I think. I may actually build my replacement sections seperately and merge them into the spots. This I'm thinking will give me a chance to tweak each area for smooth AI operation and a realistic landscape. I'm also contemplating using some more DEM-based baseboards from Mr. Fishlipsatwork. He's provided a nice library of them to choose from. Now choosing the right one along with choosing the right one with similar heights will be bigger task here, I'm thinking. The thing is I want this to work right out of the box rather than have to tweak things forever afterwards.
The other thing I may do is lop off what I don't want, and leave it at that. This could entail using temporary copies, deleting and merging in the parts together at the end. The route would have two names - xxxx and yyyy. I'd then delete what I don't need from either then merge the two sections back together.
I've done this with great success in the past, but it's a pain with the way Auran has implemented the baseboard removal processes. It's downright tedious with having to click on each individual board at a time, and with the the route spinning around with a baseboard is removed, the process prone to errors because of the disorientation that sets in.
In writing this, I wasn't so much asking for help or anything, just kind of thinking out loud on what I want to do. Has anyone else done this before, I wonder, or have any other ideas on how to go about this?
John