Can the maximum altitude of a layout be changed?

dmmascit

Member
I am working on a section of the D&G.R.W. narrow gauge Between Chama and Alamosa. There is a section that has elevations greater that 3000m that the railroad runs through. The tools in surveyor stop working at 3000m. You cannot smooth a hill, level a road or railroad or mess with anything that will make any changes outside of the original TransDEM height placement on the map without that section of landscape dropping automatically to 3000m. To do anything above the 3000m threshold flattens your map to a plateau, losing the build made with the TransDEM import. This question I have is in two parts. 1. Can I adjust the ability to work on landscape above 3000m? or Is there a way to drop the height for the entire route by 500 meters to the peaks remain in tack along with the railroad?

Thanks for any suggestions
 
In a word, "No". The maximum allowed altitude in Trainz is 3000m.

However, the minimum allowed altitude is -3000m. That is deeper than Death Valley (-86m) and the surface of the Dead Sea (-430m) and far deeper than any surface railroad would ever be built.

So, this provides a solution (or two).

If you call an altitude of -3000m as 0m then, technically at least, you can build as high as 6000m. Just start your first baseboard at -3000m (or better still, just above -3000m to give some room for any water effect layers). You set the starting altitude in the Region Asset and just subtract 3000 from the actual height of the terrain.

Alternatively, you can scale your elevations above a set level. The technique is explained in another post I made 2 months ago. See threads/is-3-000m-the-limit-for-track-spline-heights-in-trainz.178988/#post-2029928
 
In a word, "No". The maximum allowed altitude in Trainz is 3000m.

However, the minimum allowed altitude is -3000m. That is deeper than Death Valley (-86m) and the surface of the Dead Sea (-430m) and far deeper than any surface railroad would ever be built.

So, this provides a solution (or two).

If you call an altitude of -3000m as 0m then, technically at least, you can build as high as 6000m. Just start your first baseboard at -3000m (or better still, just above -3000m to give some room for any water effect layers). You set the starting altitude in the Region Asset and just subtract 3000 from the actual height of the terrain.

Alternatively, you can scale your elevations above a set level. The technique is explained in another post I made 2 months ago. See threads/is-3-000m-the-limit-for-track-spline-heights-in-trainz.178988/#post-2029928
Thanks for the information. But, in this case I'm screwed. As I had been working on this for quite a long while and it wasn't until today I found i was working above the 3000m threshold. This is a TranDEM import, I am assuming the height was already locked in as the details were already in play to building the layout.
 
Trainz has a range of -3000m to +3000 meters and when you create a new route the baseboard is in the middle of that range at 0m. Now my experience with TransDEM and big mountains is entirely using an earlier version of the program to create a DEM based route of the Rio Grande Southern many years ago. I started in TransDEM at Durango which has an elevation of ~7700 feet. When I exported the Trainz route from that version of the program, Durango was as far as Trainz was concerned was on a baseboard at the default height in Trainz measurement of 0m. From there the DEM went both up and down to follow the path through the 14000 foot peaks that surrounded it. I had to work with heights that were relative to Durango so Delores was -1000 feet in Trainz measurements because it is the lowest point on the route at ~6700 feet and the highest point is Lizard Head at 10,200 feet. So I think there is a setting in TransDEM's export settings to allow you to do the same as I did but I am not up to date on the program as it is now.
 
Thanks for the information. But, in this case I'm screwed. As I had been working on this for quite a long while and it wasn't until today I found i was working above the 3000m threshold. This is a TranDEM import, I am assuming the height was already locked in as the details were already in play to building the layout.
Yes, I'm afraid that is true. Any work done in Trainz is likely lost. But perhaps a question for Roland as he is the expert.
 
Trainz has a range of -3000m to +3000 meters and when you create a new route the baseboard is in the middle of that range at 0m. Now my experience with TransDEM and big mountains is entirely using an earlier version of the program to create a DEM based route of the Rio Grande Southern many years ago. I started in TransDEM at Durango which has an elevation of ~7700 feet. When I exported the Trainz route from that version of the program, Durango was as far as Trainz was concerned was on a baseboard at the default height in Trainz measurement of 0m. From there the DEM went both up and down to follow the path through the 14000 foot peaks that surrounded it. I had to work with heights that were relative to Durango so Delores was -1000 feet in Trainz measurements because it is the lowest point on the route at ~6700 feet and the highest point is Lizard Head at 10,200 feet. So I think there is a setting in TransDEM's export settings to allow you to do the same as I did but I am not up to date on the program as it is now.
Interesting, as the map I am working with contains the San Juan route from Alamosa through the Rockies to Durango. Durango comes in at 1982m. If i had it in the low 100s I would never of had this current issue I am working with now. I'm trying to figure how to adjust the TransDEM file so it will load at a lower elevation so i can reach the max height of the railroads placement without issues in making it look correct.
 
If you were working with Tane sp1 or earlier version of Trainz, then Transdem utilites could be used to adjust the elevation.
After Tane sp1 N3V changed to a new file format that Transdem doesn't know.

You can re-export the files from Transdem with an adjusted elevation and start over. In Colorado D&RG territory, I subtracted 1500 meters when I exported to Trainz.
 
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