Filling dry lakes with water in TRS2009

[whyfly2]

Some of the lakes in my version of TRS2009 (build 40040) seem to be experiencing a severe drought. Take, for example, the nearly dry lake just north of Mile 108 in the Marias Pass Approach route.

I actually read the TRS2006 manual to learn how to add water, and eventually figured out how to do it on screen. I think I almost understand the relationship between land "Height Value" and "Water Height Value" in the Topology Tab (please don't laugh -- I majored in aeronautical engineering, not civil engineering).

The final result of my excavating the dry lake area using the "Height Down" button (the middle one in the top row of Topology), then adding water is that I can still see the grid through the water. I can live with that.

My real question is, is there a better way to lower the lake bed than the way I'm doing it?

Also, the gray area around the edge of the lake never goes away. Is there a way to dump that or to make it look like water?

Thanks for your help.

Art

 

[whyfly2]

I blundered into the answer about how to cover the grid at the bottom of the lake. There's a bunch of "water colors" in the Paint Tab.

My question about lowering the lake bed is still open.

Art

 

[whyfly2]

Some more trial-and-error with pumping water into dry lakes revealed that what I referred to in my first post as "the gray area around the edge of the lake" is actually a splined object that can be raised and lowered with the spline raising and lowering tool in the Splined section of the Objects Tab.

But I'm still not getting results that would make the water/shore boundary look as good as it did in TRS2006. Anyone have any suggestions?

I'm also getting the feeling that the landscaping task wasn't completed before this version of Trainz was approved for production. In addition to the "dry lakes" issue, there are land areas where you can see the grid where there should be grass or other scenery. Not an impressive job. Anyone else seeing this, too?

Art