Editing a route by more than one person.

[HSSRAIL]

Having worked at large routes for a while I am very interested in the following proposition. I believe this is the direction train simulations need to move in.

Is it possible to load a route on a server and thus be able to have other people edit and save changes to a route? Obviously, only one person at a time should do this. In order to complete large projects such as what I have been working on and what is now being kicked around in the Nickel Plate forum multiple people need to be able to work on a route. Getting this capability would put train-sims on parity with the advantages enjoyed by model railroad clubs, insofar as they have the advantage that multiple people build and work on a layout.

It came up time and time again that a team of people is really needed to model a large chunk of real estate and backdate it to a particular time period.

Examples:

Erie Railroad's New York Division
Lehigh & New England Railroad Maybrook, NY to Allentown, PA
Nickel Plate Road Mainline from Buffalo, NY to Cleveland, OH

Howard

 

[rroby]

Wouldn't the merge feature work for this? Each could work on their section of the route and then merge them together when finished.

However, the ability to have the routes and other items to be stored on server would be nice. I would consider getting a second copy of the program for my sons computer so we could send trains back and forth. I'm not interested in maintaining 2 different sets of assets so being to access them from one location would be great.

 

[StorkNest]

There are two ways a group can work on a route.

1 - Break up the area between builders, each works on their own section, then either reassemble or upload with IPortals resulting in something similar to Tidewater North and South.

2 - Each works on the same file but every time someone changes it, he would have to save it, pack it and send it to the others. You can't have 2 people making changes at the same time to the same file and if they make changes seperately, someone has to go back and redo his work.

 

[HSSRAIL]

There are two ways a group can work on a route.

2 - Each works on the same file but every time someone changes it, he would have to save it, pack it and send it to the others. You can't have 2 people making changes at the same time to the same file and if they make changes seperately, someone has to go back and redo his work.

Large routes take a long time to upload and download I don't consider this practical for the kind of projects I have in mind. Optimally a multi-play train-simulator residing on a servor could theoretically be editied by more than one person at the same time although it would be interesting if two people were working in the same area. You make a change and watch it get undone an active instant messaging system would be needed so people could coordinate their activities.

Practically speaking the saving of a route on a servor which allows only one person at a time to load it for editing at a time would be a big jump. The question is how to get Trainz to load and save a route that would be stored on a Z drive basically a subscription off site hard drive numerous services offer this, you pay a monthly fee and you have access to what is basically a hard drive that is not on your computer and it is backed up by the service. These services allow for more than one computer to access the same account. I believe this might be feasible. Anyone on the Trainz team here have ideas on how to implement this?

The save and load time on a route within the trainz program is considerably faster than uploading and downloading a route. I would like to fast track this idea if I can.

 

[HiBaller]

Managing large to very large routes can be daunting, but we worked on the DHR (Darjeeling Himalayan Railway) by initially taking the entire DEM-built route and whacking it into about 20 pieces - which we called SCABs. The SCAB could be anything from one to four or five boards in size.

Each SCAB was put on our working (private) FTP site and each of us grabbed several to work on. As work progressed, I took these bits and pieces and 'glued' them together into a "master route" which I continually backed up every time anything was added (or taken away).

When you break a route that initially starts as a whole route into pieces, they will go back together smoothly with very little "border work" needed. Of course some covering over of the joins is needed, as well as coupling tracks, fences, and other splines which continue from SCAB to SCAB.

This method DID work (as evidenced by the completed DHR) and all of us can say that it was definitely a JOINT effort. I shudder to think of how long it would have taken had each of us tried to upload/download the entire route each time we wanted to work on it. As it was, the route took over three years.

PM or email me if you are interested in more details.

Bill

 

[gisa]

I think this is an option that would definitly come in handy.

Too bad there wasn't a way to syncronize a file between two people working. One person works on it, finishes, sends that version (no packing or anything time consuming like that) to the other who can view the changes or import it into what they are working on and vice versa.

As it was mentioned, if the file could be stored somewhere and accessed in real time by two or more people you could have several people working on it at the same time (man that would be neat to see!). It'd also be the ultimate tutorial for some of us to learn from the masters (pictures help but seeing the whole thing in action is another story).

:wave:

Gisa ^^

 

[backyard]

I wonder...

Isn't this called Virtual Live or somthing or other?

Virtual world...

Virtual server...

Virtual computer network...

Something or other...

 

[danny5]

What about the MRL route ? Could something like that be downloaded by so many people have each one take a part rework it and up load there part and all be connected together when it is down loaded ? this is a 258 mile map and take 5 hour to go from one end to the other with on industries on stopping. has a couple of big yards all kinds of places for Industries. whit the new things we have now new building, ind,textures,.I bet there is a lot people have this downloaded on tranz already. It's 106 mb already. ??? Could this be done?Are it wouldn't be worth while.Screen shots would let everyone would know how it looks and mabe give tips on improving it.Also if not mabe a base for a new route.
thanks for reading and your feedback if any!
danny5

 

[HSSRAIL]

I had a chance to talk to some people about remote hard drives and FTP servors. I would not pickup any speed on a remote hard drive as they go thru the internet.

Wacking a route into segments is the only way to go. Couple of questions?

How do you break apart a route into different sections. Surveyor only allows deletion of 1 baseboard at a time? Is their a utility I don't know about?

Were you able to have trainz load and save a route to an FTP servor if so how was that done? Such a route would have to be relatively small or the load and save times would be prohibitive.

I am becoming more proficient with Transdem I believe that transdem would allow me to make sections of a route (5 miles kind of sticks in my head). The only hang up I am having with transdem is figuring out what kind of vector outlines I can load in. Once I can put map overlays into transdem than I can use this to make and publish routes. Route Segments made in transdem will line up. These seperate routes would merge seamlessly.

The reason 5 miles sticks in my head is that US railroads use Milepost Locations and for ease of editing it would be neat to have on an FTP servor the route busted up in 5 mile segments those familar with the route would thus be able to edit the exact section they want.

For example:

Erie Railroad's Northern Division
In theory I would have the following on the servor:

ErieNorthern_MP 0toMP5 (comments Jersey City to Bergen Jct)
ErieNorthern_MP5toMP10 (Bergen Jct to Ridgefield, NJ)
ErieNorthern_MP10toMP15 (Ridgefield to Englewood, NJ)
ErieNorthern_MP15toMP20 (Englewood to Demarest, NJ)
ErieNorthern_MP20toMP25 (Demarest, NJ to Sparkill, NY)
ErieNorthern_MP25toMP29 (Sparkill to Nyack, NY)

This would be 6 segments for a small little branchline. Being able to reuse MP 0 to MP 5 would be handy as 7 routes diverge off Bergen Jct.

Best Wishes

Howard

 

[HiBaller]

You have email from me Howard.

Bill