Asking for opinions on road systems for US route?

[Euphod]

I'm sure someone else has gone through the trouble of testing the various road assets for their own routes so I thought I'd save myself some time and ask:

Using 2012, what US road assets provide the best combination of pieces while working well and looking nice? I am interested in roads that can be used to make T Intersections and 4 way cross intersections, and can be used to have sidewalks or not. A 2 lane road is fine at this point, although I'll take any recommendations for 4 lane roads as well. I am hoping to find a system with the most versatility, but also the best appearance.

I appreciate any help in advance.

 

[Ricke82]

Take a look at the YARNish assets by streadway. I reskinned a couple of the intersections to have a dashed white for the main road and none for the side, but if I can do it you certainly can.

 

[Euphod]

Thanks Rick, does it have a lot of combinations as well?

 

[slabay]

I started using YARN and leaned away from YARNish at first, but the YARNish assets REALLY got better with age.... sadly, he lost all of his work due to a crash. He really took the ball from Maddy and ran with it. He did say that anything that he released was fair game to improve upon. I've thought about trying my hand at reskinning some of it too. Retro0064 was starting on YARN2 stuff that looked really good, but it seems to be languishing in vaporland right now. (I can say that because my route is a only a few miles away in vaporville)

My vote goes to YARNish!

What's the best track? What are the best roads? Do I detect a route-building project in the works, Ed????

 

[Euphod]

What's the best track? What are the best roads? Do I detect a route-building project in the works, Ed????

Gotta get up pretty early to get something by you, eh Scott? A work in progress long overdue. Thanks for your input!

 

[JCitron]

Ed,

I agree with the other guys here too. The YARN and Yarnish stuff is awesome. With these the intersections have street lights and stop sign options which look really nice even if they're not functional.

For track, look for track beginning with SAM. His tracks are awesome and nicely detailed, but not overly built. Joint Rail wood track is good too, but not available on the DLS. It's freeware from the JR website. I use a combination of the SAM track, various ones depending upon how rusty, dirty, or grassy I want it, next to the nice JR track.

John

 

[Euphod]

Joint Rail wood track is good too, but not available on the DLS. It's freeware from the JR website. I use a combination of the SAM track, various ones depending upon how rusty, dirty, or grassy I want it, next to the nice JR track.

John

Thanks for that John, I'll investigate those, and the Yarn series. The JR track is built into 2012, at least, some of it is...right?

 

[JCitron]

Yes some of the JR track is built-in. The thinner ballast stuff is not. The stuff built-in is the brightly-colored ballasted stuff that looks great for beautifully maintained mainlines which we don't have back where I live.

John

 

[Retro00064]

<snip> Retro0064 was starting on YARN2 stuff that looked really good, but it seems to be languishing in vaporland right now. (I can say that because my route is a only a few miles away in vaporville)

<snip>

And my interest in Trainz pretty much went down to Vaporland with it soon after. The project's only on hiatus, though; I'll get back to it eventually.

I don't use YARN because it is not prototypical enough for my liking. I use GFisher's GF Road and AASHTO roads. I actually use personal clones of roads (not all of them, but most of the primary ones) from the former system, lowering the floating height of the road from 0.4 meters down to a good closeness to the ground and modifiying the textures to shorten the dashes so that the length of the gap between dashes is 3 times the length of the dash (prototypical). I've also made concrete reskins of the clones.

Regarding track, I currently use the USLW 132-pound track by simulatortrain. It is equal at the least to the JR track (which I've only seen in screenshots) in quality.

Regards,

Zachary.

 

[Euphod]

Thanks Zachary, I value your opinion, but will not use non DLS assets in my route for release.

 

[Retro00064]

Thanks Zachary, I value your opinion, but will not use non DLS assets in my route for release.

I understand. There are, of course, those "slightly-used" and "rusty" reskins by DRicketts of the USLW track, which are on the DLS. The two road series by GFisher that I mentioned above are both on the DLS (with a couple additional components for the AASHTO set available at USLW), by the way, in case you don't already know.

Good luck on your route!

Regards,

Zachary.

 

[RoysTrainz]

for what its worth opinion from the ts12 illusionist

first Zachary Ning and I send you a 50kg energy back Roy has spare for occasions like these.Yes its virtual but tonight I will connect for 5 minutes (of course in my mind ) and you will see it works for trainz at least.
Yarnish yes just watch the mean invisble spline bug ts12 holds and older vesions disconnecting or screwing up networks at random times e.g. QDR EDR and sorts off when taddeamon crashes and happily repairs.

John update me what is SAM track nver seen or altzheimer kicks in not knowing.
I use 1435mm track oleghkim which has a great detail on tracks and switchpoints which I preferred for my routes even though the JR wooden which is more proto for my routes not make it because I love the points moving and nice very nice in detail.
Again the spline bug and sorts of from time to time visits you like a mother in law pickabooh you always unexpected....:hehe:.
If I survived all the ordeals comin with all the fine stuff than it must not be that bad.
What route are you secretely working on ??????
hope my input gets at its destination.

regards,

Roy

 

[amrail2000]

Euphod I use both the YARN and YARNISH road systems for my routes. I have found some give the kind of surface cracks that I look for and I have made some interesting interchanges. I have also combined them with the ATLS system. So on my at least, I am very happy with them.

 

[Ricke82]

... does it have a lot of combinations as well?

There are quite a few. I guess whether or not they're the right combinations would depend on the kinds of roads you need.

 

[davesnow]

I use YARN and not the YARNish, because the traffic on the YARNish roads goes way too fast for my liking. To see a car speeding around a sharp curve doing 55 mph doesn't look good to me, so I stick with YARN on my routes. If the traffic creeps along so be it. I guess everyone who lives on my route is an old fart who just goes 22 mph no matter what the posted speed limit is.

Hey, wait a minute--- I'M an old fart....:hehe:

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Euphod]

As someone who has realized that he is driving slower and slower with each additional year, I can relate to that. Mostly I just don't want to deal with the police, lest they find out that I
Anyway, thanks Dave for the warning, I'll take that into consideration. Using a different road I did notice much weaving and passing and cars going through each other, which I did not care for, and in part, prompted my post for help. I also don't like the cars hovering over the road. I can take Micheal J Fox on a hover board, but not cars.

 

[maruffijd]

Euphod I use both the YARN and YARNISH road systems for my routes. I have found some give the kind of surface cracks that I look for and I have made some interesting interchanges. I have also combined them with the ATLS system. So on my at least, I am very happy with them.

I will whole heartedly agree with this. By combining these two sets, I have many prototipical and directionally correct roads and intersections. (Complete with correct turns and everything.) It still blows my mind how awesome it looks at this 4way, 6lane intersection I recreated. It also incorparates a 2 track crossing. And it all looks just like the same crossing as the one from my home town.

However, choosing the right roads for your route is the hard part because it come down to one's own moods and desired asthestics. It usually takes me a few hours to pick what looks and feels right for the particular area I am adding traffic to. I even have one or two areas that combine something that looks like the road crew picked up the last road cone yesturday attached to something that looks like it hasn't been touched since the late '70s. The only look that is missing is a road section that is milled and waiting for the new surface to be put down.

 

[mjolnir]

Speaking about roads....

Friends,

One omission I've noticed in every TS 12 highway I've examined, whether built in, on the DLS, or on a third party site, is drainage. Nearly every real roadway I remember experiencing, almost down to the "two tire tracks through the pasture" types, have included either a ditch on each side, and in the case of a divided four lane roadway in non-urban areas, in the median, or curbs and gutters. Neither form of drainage seems to be present on the roadways I've examined.

ns

 

[hert]

I know this has been said multiple times. But anyways I would recommended Maddy's Yarn roads with combination of streadway's treadway roads. I think the best thing about his system is all the editable freeway signs he did.

My second pick would be gfisher's ?AASHTO? system. Not as flexible as treadways but still really nice looking.

hert:wave:

 

[dricketts]

My vote goes to YARN or Yarnish too. Keep in mind you need to choose one or the other. They do not play well together. Both work well because they are thick. This avoids the floating syndrome. Just like track you can use the smooth ground tool then drop each vertex to the desired height. This makes for a prototypical look. The thickness of the YARN assets also comes in handy when making realistic looking crossings.