Hello

[Jhsullivan]

Just posting to say Hello at the moment. I'm J. H. Sullivan, aka landnrailroader and have done a number of routes, which is my specialty, on
MSTS, but since MSTS has sort of died on the vine, I am trying to decide whether to continue in RailWorks or TRAINZ. Both have good points, and
not so good.

I guess the most serious problem I have with TRAINZ is that when I use TransDem and create my route line, it is so darn fuzzy when I am in Surveyor. I also notice that turnouts have no frogs or guardrails - is anything being done to render these parts when turnouts are created?

J. H. Sullivan,P. E. (retired from CSX)

 

[johnwhelan]

Welcome to Trainz,

I'm not a specialist route builder but I'm under the impression that what the track and turnouts look like depends on which track you are using. Also if you are missing something on a turnout could you just add in a scenery item?

Strong point on Trainz there is a wide range of assets for it, weak point there is a wide range of assets available and finding exactly what you want can be tricky.

It does however have a central community and the DLS so if you keep to assets on the central DLS it makes it easy for people to download them. I think in MSTS every asset on a route is bundled up with the route. On Trainz the route contains references to the scenery objects which then have to be downloaded separately.


Have fun

CheerioJohn

 

[mjolnir]

Can't comment about digital elevation mapping, as I've not yet used it. However, while "out of the box", turnouts in Trainz do not have guardrails, and the best that can be said about points and frogs is that they are primitive, but there is very good third party animated turnouts that look much closer to the real thing. Search these forums using the parameters "animated turnouts" for more information.

ns

 

[martinvk]

Another welcome to Trainz. :wave:

As has been mentioned, the level of detail you have in turnouts is up to how much you want to add. At the default level, you have a functioning turnout but with realistic looks very much left to your imagination. From there you can add: guard rails, frogs, moving points and as much detail as your computer can handle. You will also have to spend the time to do each one to your satisfaction.

The same can be said for most other objects. Some buildings are simple textured boxes while others are super detailed to almost individual bricks. The same for many pieces of rolling stock and engines. It's definitely your call as to how detailed you want your routes. Just remember that your computer has to be able to handle it or you'll be looking at a lot of static scenery.

Don't know about TransDem and fuzziness, never used it. Although, wouldn't that be a function of how detailed the DEM data is for a particular area? Like most things, you get out what you put in.

 

[Vern]

Welcome aboard Jim - I'm BigVern from UKTS (retired) and Northern Warrior from T-S.com. There's quite a few of us with interest in more than one sim. Development wise I haven't touched MSTS for about 4 years now though I still open it for a quick route blast. I've done a couple of routes for RS but found it hard going and time consuming, never got very far with Railworks and of course the latest bug has rendered it useless for route building until/if RS.com sort it out. So I've very much embraced Trainz though I tend to work in TRS2006 as I find that the best and most stable version for what I want to do. The DLS can be a bit 'ornery at times but for the most part it does what it says on the tin - a vast collection of scenery etc. items in there. In particular check out the trees by JVC and DMDrake (also the latter's range of US building sets including prefabricated city blocks, a real time saver).

Transdem and the link to WMS (so far as US routes are concerned anyway) is an extremely powerful tool. Unfortunately the maps can look a bit blurry on the ground itself but if you open the minimap, things tend to look sharper and you should be able to see the key features. In addition, I normally find the appropriate GIS site for the State(s) concerned and download the relevant 1:24000 raster map tiffs so I can have those open in PSP7 while I work in Trainz.

It's certainly far quicker getting up and running than in RS/RW (even before the route nuking bug introduced in the last Steam update). I recently started a protolanced project based on the old NYC from Tupper Lake up to Malone Jn. Within about 45 mins I had the DEM prepped, the course of the route traced, 6 - 7 mins for Transdem to find the WMS overlay maps, export from Transdem, import to TRS and I'm laying track. Contrast that with 2 days in Google Earth just putting in the basis marker pins for Railworks, not even started on the lakes and other features which are easy to see on the maps over the tiles in TRS.