Building long-distance routes.

[nicky9499]

G'day Nicky9499,

"AMMP", I think, is a typo which should read "MMMP". The original TRS 2004 'Easter Egg' ([Alt] + MMMG) was used to automatically create a 'randomised' route. The "MMMG" stood for "Make Me a Map, George". I suspect that MMMP is a subtle variation on that, although I have no idea what the "P" could be...

Jerker {}

Uh, whatever it means, I'm having trouble comprehending how to use it. If I was meant to hold down SHIFT, CTRL, ALT and type MMMP or MMMG for it to work then maybe TRS2006 has no such fancy feature because nothing happens.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.

 

[Koondawg]

TRS2006 has no such fancy feature because nothing happens.

2006 does not have this feature.

And im pretty sure the "P" would be for please....Make Me a Map Please.

KD

 

[xcandiottix]

Okay, I downloaded everything to be able to generate the terrain and everything looks very promising. Now i'm just trying to relate the elevation and TIGER maps to the locations i'm looking for. I tried importing a practice TIGER / HOG into TS09 and it went great.

Now... my route will involve quite a few DEM's. Is there a way i can "patch together" my DEMs in MICRODEM? Or, should i just make a route with each DEM and then attatch them inside TS09?

Also, whats the difference between 30m DEM's and 10m DEM's?

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Dermmy]

In Microdem, top taskbar 'In <-> Out' button, select 'Merge' on the pop-up, then 'DEM' from the drop-down menu.

Select each DEM in turn, saving will take a while if it is a big merge. I find Microdem hangs if I try to merge more than half a dozen quads, but if I save in steps it quite happily merges the merged saves and quite large maps can be made.

The difference between 10 quads and 30 quads is the latter is somewhat larger....

Andy

 

[xcandiottix]

Dermmy... i thank you very much for that!

 

[nicky9499]

2006 does not have this feature.

And im pretty sure the "P" would be for please....Make Me a Map Please.

KD

If that's the case then I think digital elevation mapping is the way to go.
Wish me luck guys.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.

 

[hogger1961]

My 2 cents worth....

Like the man said, it takes a lot of practice. But there are some things you can do to make it easier. Get a copy of the book "realistic scenery for model railroads". It has a lot of good info on why terrain looks like it does and how it relates to railroading. I've been a model railroader most of my life and found that modeling and this sim are pretty much the same in that we build our terrain from scratch. The books do a good job of showing what is natural and what isn't. There are several good ones in print and they are inexpensive too. Another thing you can do is lay your track with the idea that the land was here before the trains. Railroads do a lot of earth moving but the lay of the land still dictates the general location of the line. In fact, the older rail lines tend to have more curves and grade changes than those that came later because modern machinery made earth moving much cheaper and easier than was possible by pick and shovel labor. So make the rail line "fit" the landscape in a way that matches the kind of route you want. Modern high speed trains tend to run straight and level(tax dollars!), while older and/or less prosperous lines take the longer, cheaper way. Having said all that, the most important thing is to remember that this is supposed to be fun so dont worry too much about how things look. Just enjoy yourself. I've been fooling around with this game for a couple years and have yet to actually finish a route. I probably enjoy the trip as much as I do getting to the destination. Cheers!

 

[nicky9499]

First off, I'm sorry for being away for so long. Was out of the country. :wave:

hogger1961, I'm rather interested in that book. Do you happen to have the ISBN serial number or something similar that may assist me in locating it? I've tried looking on Google books but have not found it.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.

edit-
I am taking a leaf from Dermmy's excellent Clovis Sub route as well. Which is, quite simply put, breathtaking. :mop:

 

[Dermmy]

I am taking a leaf from Dermmy's excellent Clovis Sub route as well. Which is, quite simply put, breathtaking. :mop:

Thankyou

 

[TaxMan23]

Re Microdem

This is from a newby. I tried the Microdem procedure to produce the beginnings of a route. Everything went well, some problems but they were overcome, until I got to the point of transferring the HOG map to Trainz. I'm using Trainz 2009 and the file structure is apparently quite different from 2004 or 2006. Has anyone firgured out how to do that transfer step yet?

By the by, this tax man is one of the "good" guys that tries to get the least tax liability, not the one that likes to audit.

 

[JCitron]

This is from a newby. I tried the Microdem procedure to produce the beginnings of a route. Everything went well, some problems but they were overcome, until I got to the point of transferring the HOG map to Trainz. I'm using Trainz 2009 and the file structure is apparently quite different from 2004 or 2006. Has anyone firgured out how to do that transfer step yet?

By the by, this tax man is one of the "good" guys that tries to get the least tax liability, not the one that likes to audit.

I keep my TRS2006 on my system so I can use it as a way to import the terrain into TS'09.

 

[JCitron]

An alternative to DEM files is a displacment map. You can draw the map in any paint program that will produce a B&W BMP file. The highest levels are white and the lowest is black. Once you've created the displacement map, copy it into the world folder. This will show up under the topology tool in th advanced section.

To apply the displacement map, select the whole baseboard (it may mean dragging the selection area using the CTRL key. Then fill the selected grid with the displacement map. You can adjust the intensity (height) of the map using the dial knob.

There are many different programs that will auto-generate displacement maps out there. These are used for other game programs, but the output file being a BMP, can easily be imported into Trainz for our use.

John

 

[nicky9499]

That gave me an idea.

I created about forty extra boards in a 10 by 4 arrangement, selected all of it and applied with a small threshold. Created a very nice hilly terrain! Then trimmed off the extra baseboards, DEM style.


Now we face the biggest problem: texture.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.