Over the many years I've been with the forums, I've seen many posts regarding how do I start building, and how do I make routes that look as good as those of the 'experts'.
Well, when I started way back in late 2003, early 2004 with TRS2004 I felt the same way. I tried to make a route, but it never came out the way I wanted no matter how hard I tried. What I did to help was to take a route from one of the experts, and modify it to suit my needs. You're probably wondering what I mean by an "expert". I mean those seasoned route builders that already have routes published up on the DLS. There are many awesome route builders out there. Among them are AlBarten, GFisher, and many, many others. I happen to choose these two because they live in my area of the world and have modeling New England and northeastern US type routes, which is what I am familiar with.
In the process of modifying the route I chose, I tried my best to keep the original design. The process gave me a chance to learn the art of texturing, topology, signalling, and track layout. This process is not unusual, and is even used with music and art lessons. You may learn some way of doing something, but then attend a master's class, and get a whole new insight on a technique or techniques that make things easier and are a lot more fun to implement.
So in summary use the experts to learn from to build your routes rather than being frustrated. Learn a little bit at a time instead of trying a bunch of things all at once, and above all practice on your own creation. Take what you've learned from the experts and try one on your own base board and see what you come up with. Remember this is a virtual environment where there is no mess, only time and electrons are lost in the process.
John
Well, when I started way back in late 2003, early 2004 with TRS2004 I felt the same way. I tried to make a route, but it never came out the way I wanted no matter how hard I tried. What I did to help was to take a route from one of the experts, and modify it to suit my needs. You're probably wondering what I mean by an "expert". I mean those seasoned route builders that already have routes published up on the DLS. There are many awesome route builders out there. Among them are AlBarten, GFisher, and many, many others. I happen to choose these two because they live in my area of the world and have modeling New England and northeastern US type routes, which is what I am familiar with.
In the process of modifying the route I chose, I tried my best to keep the original design. The process gave me a chance to learn the art of texturing, topology, signalling, and track layout. This process is not unusual, and is even used with music and art lessons. You may learn some way of doing something, but then attend a master's class, and get a whole new insight on a technique or techniques that make things easier and are a lot more fun to implement.
So in summary use the experts to learn from to build your routes rather than being frustrated. Learn a little bit at a time instead of trying a bunch of things all at once, and above all practice on your own creation. Take what you've learned from the experts and try one on your own base board and see what you come up with. Remember this is a virtual environment where there is no mess, only time and electrons are lost in the process.
John