How much detali?

[Approach_Medium]

No, you don't need to open all the map and image resources. That's good for small routes only. The basic idea is to locate an appropriate spot where to create a new single-baseboard route which is adjacent to one of the baseboards in the existing route. This should be somewhere near the centre of your route.

As long as you remain in the same UTM zone all baseboards will have the same 720m alignment. Load your route in Surveyor and load a few images/maps in TransDEM. Navigate to a suitable area by comparing the scenes in Surveyor and TransDEM. Switch on the baseboard raster in TransDEM, drag a rectangular mask around that single baseboard you picked and create the new route.

One 'limitation' though, would be if I attempt to export a UTM tile to TRS which does not have a baseboard tile under it. I have removed quite a few bb tiles, and not sure whether my GE map images are wider than 1bbd each side of the rail.
edited 9/29 1950:
Checking Transdem, I find that I am OK in that respect.

FW

 

[scorpio48]

Hi FW,
Good idea about the mile-post, My local station is about 200 miles from London:hehe: , and I should have used the word 'possibly' in that sentence.
About the World Origin: couldn't you open Google Earth, place a pin on one of the central stations along your route, (this will give you the correct Lat/Long) and place a new WO on the same spot in surveyor.
Another option, although drastic, is to start again. I did this with my current route, and because I've become more use to Transdem, and I know exactly what it does, I found the second time a lot easier. I also have a large route, which is in a hilly/mountainous terrain.
If like me, you are using Google Earth as a cartographic map, I have come across a few shortcuts, which I have already mentioned in other post, but I'll repeat them here.

• The 'u' key will reset your heading and tilt to zero, as Transdem requires, without effecting any other setting. IE your eye altitude.
• The 'n' key will reset your heading to North. This isn't needed if you use the above key.
• Both the above are lower case.
• To align the maps to give the correct overlap, I have put eight small marks on the edge of my screen lining up with the horizontal and vertical pin placements. Two on each edge. Using this you simply pan the view so that the last pin-mark lines up with one of the marks (horizontal or vertical). This gives you a constant overlap distance and is easier to track your route.

I hope I explained that OK. Of course the marks are washable, so they can be removed.
Cheers
Pete.

 

[geophil]

Hi FW,
About the World Origin: couldn't you open Google Earth, place a pin on one of the central stations along your route, (this will give you the correct Lat/Long) and place a new WO on the same spot in surveyor.

[OT]
That wouldn't normally work.

For TransDEM, the Trainz WO is its only reference to the absolute coordinates of the route. The Trainz WO object, however, has a limited accuracy of only one arc min, insufficient for TransDEM purposes.

Therefore, TransDEM places the WO exactly onto the centre of one baseboard, estimates the relative coordinate position of this point and compares to the WO coordinates (including projection/un-projection between lat/long and UTM). If the difference is less than a given threshold, the WO is regarded as valid.

A manually placed WO must fulfil all the TransDEM criteria, pretty hard to achieve.
[/OT]

 

[scorpio48]

[OT]
That wouldn't normally work.

For TransDEM, the Trainz WO is its only reference to the absolute coordinates of the route. The Trainz WO object, however, has a limited accuracy of only one arc min, insufficient for TransDEM purposes.

Therefore, TransDEM places the WO exactly onto the centre of one baseboard, estimates the relative coordinate position of this point and compares to the WO coordinates (including projection/un-projection between lat/long and UTM). If the difference is less than a given threshold, the WO is regarded as valid.

A manually placed WO must fulfil all the TransDEM criteria, pretty hard to achieve.
[/OT]

Thanks gp,
fwassner, Sorry to but in on your post, but I'm having a spot of trouble and this is the best place for an answer. Hope you don't mind.
I tried to create some extra tiles for my route, using the original map, but when I tried to export them I got the message 'map may have changed or wasn't created' (Not exact wording) and the tiles didn't appear in my route. At least, not where they were suppose to be.
Is there anyway I can add extra tiles, automatically placed, after the route has been exported into 2006?
I did load the original Dem and Ground textures first, and the original tiling worked perfectly.
Cheers
Pete.

 

[Approach_Medium]

Of course the marks are washable, so they can be removed.

Not on an LCD screen<g>.
I placed only one pin for each block. I wasn't nearly as exact as you were in creating them. It would have been too time consuming to do so, but I do understand how it would have been much easier to line the maps to UTM tiles. Next time<g>.

You said that TransDem takes the boring work out of creating a route. Well, yes, and no.
I really enjoy creating a route, playing with the terrain tools, creating mountains and canyons. BUT; and it is a big but; this applies only to non-prototypical routes. I would not have attempted to create a prototype route if I had to do the terrain myself, or maybe I would have picked a very flat landscape to model.

FW

 

[geophil]

Is there anyway I can add extra tiles, automatically placed, after the route has been exported into 2006?
I did load the original Dem and Ground textures first, and the original tiling worked perfectly.

Generally, adding additional UTM tiles to an re-exported TRS2006 route will work (re-export = Open for Editing in CMP). There are a few catches. One is KUID assignment. If you delete the previous UTM tiles after importing them with CMP, TransDEM may erroneously re-assign a KUID to a new tile. This could make tiles appear at the wrong place. I have no tried, but re-exporting relevant existing UTM tiles with CMP may be a way to prevent this.

Re-exporting with CMP will create a new route folder in the editing folder. The folder name will be cryptic, the files inside should carry the right route name. This may lead to two routes in the editing folder with the same name. This is another catch. Move the original route as created by TransDEM somewhere else for unambiguousness.

 

[scorpio48]

Not on an LCD screen<g>.
Sniped

FW

Hi FW,
Slightly misleading quote from myself there, the marks are on the surrounding frame, not on the screen itself. Thanks for pointing that out.
Cheers
Pete

 

[scorpio48]

Generally, adding additional UTM tiles to an re-exported TRS2006 route will work (re-export = Open for Editing in CMP). There are a few catches. One is KUID assignment. If you delete the previous UTM tiles after importing them with CMP, TransDEM may erroneously re-assign a KUID to a new tile. This could make tiles appear at the wrong place. I have no tried, but re-exporting relevant existing UTM tiles with CMP may be a way to prevent this.

Re-exporting with CMP will create a new route folder in the editing folder. The folder name will be cryptic, the files inside should carry the right route name. This may lead to two routes in the editing folder with the same name. This is another catch. Move the original route as created by TransDEM somewhere else for unambiguousness.

Thanks GP
I have a theory that may work, but before I put it into practice I would appreciate a confirmation.
The amount of actual track, roads Etc I have placed into my route isn't a lot, and could easily be done again. So! what if I delete (after making a back-up) the route from 2006, add the extra tiles to TransDem after exporting the DEM and Ground Texture to a Temp; folder, export all of the tiles to the same folder, and use the Import Content in CMP again.
I think this would be the easiest option. Feedback appreciated.
FW, once again I apologize for using your post.
Cheers
Pete.

 

[geophil]

Thanks GP
I have a theory that may work, but before I put it into practice I would appreciate a confirmation.
The amount of actual track, roads Etc I have placed into my route isn't a lot, and could easily be done again. So! what if I delete (after making a back-up) the route from 2006, add the extra tiles to TransDem after exporting the DEM and Ground Texture to a Temp; folder, export all of the tiles to the same folder, and use the Import Content in CMP again.

Yes, this approach should always work.

 

[Bista]

Size doesn't matter. Content is crucial. A huge carefully detailed route will run on anything. I single very highly detailed board will bring the latest whiz bang machine to its knees.

Running numerous trains on a large route has some hit on performance because the AI is keeping track of everything, not just what you can see. But that is just background number-crunching. The big performance hit in Traiz is video performance, and that comes back to content and detailing no matter how big the route or how many trainz are running out-of-screen.

Andy

Just an input from one of the "non computer" numpties on site (me) to reiterate this.

Yup! Sorted myself out and stopped being ambitious.

Now have route 30 odd tiles long, town and country, heavily landscaped with mixed double and quad track. Semiphore and MAS signalling, 7 junctions, 2 yards, 6 stations, 2 mines, 1 power station, two industrial sites, 18 portals. All runninng ok on an old Pentium 4 at whatever hertz, 303 meters medium wave and shipping forcast.

The re-use of trackside assets, particulary buildings, has made this possible rather than using differnet ones all the time. I would also add two things about the trains themselves.

I have found things much smoother if AI trains start from portals into the game session rather than being already "on the board" as it were at the start.

Also, if the train on which the game starts is starting in AI before you take over to perform any tasks, make it's first instruction to wait 30 seconds before driving to/via anywhere. This gives the PC time to assemble all the assets and scenary in view before it has to struggle with movement as well.

All the assets I have used are in TRS2006 (with exception of some locos and stock) and I have limited myself to using:
4 factory assets
8 House assets inc Terrace 6 and terrace 6 far
2 Church assets
5 shop/business assets
5 tree types
1 tree spline
2 signal boxes
5 staion buildings
2 canopy assets
2 Interactive stations, Hawes and Garsdale with MS platforms splines and ramps to add extras
1 Tunnel spline
1 viaduct spline
1 rail bridge spline
1 road bridge spline
2 fixed track bridge assets
2 road splines
2 Ineractive mine assets
1 Interactive power station
5 wall/fence splines
2 conveyor/bridge splines
about a dozen trackside signs etc.

By using these same assets multiple times in different arrangements I've found that you can still form pretty effective ( and some times quite impressive) scenes without resorting to tens of different assets and the problem of judder/stop frame veiwing has disappeared; even with 18 portals chucking additional trains into the game at anything from 2 to 10 minute intervals, no matter how many times I've extended the actual route length!

HAPPY HAPPY!

Thanks for the advice on here guys

Hope this is of use to those of you, like me in the "steam" PC era

Bista

Trying to make a virtual railway run better than the real one he works on!

 

[Approach_Medium]

Scorpio48; No problem with using "my thread". It's a public board, after all. We're all here to exchange info and to help each other

As for what you are doing with adding tiles; I have found that after I export UTM tiles to my route, I must not delete them from the Editing\Scenery folder. Doing so causes exactly the problem GP talked about.
I am still having some trouble with UTM tiles, but it's tolerable, since I already have all my track where it belongs, and only need the UTM for placing roads, bridges, etc.

FW

 

[scorpio48]

Hi FW
The problem started with a bit of bad research on my part, I thought a large siding complex was no longer used and partly ripped up, so I didn't include it in my original tile export. The complex is now used by Arriva Trains, and is quite busy. As I explained earlier, my easiest option is to start with a new export keeping the original maps, just adding to them. AND, double checking my research .

Hi Bista,
Interesting thread and quite a few good tips included in it, but I think that would be OK in an imaginary route, whereas an actual route would need quite a few custom buildings (stations/industry alone), just to make it look authentic.
Cheers
Pete.

 

[AndreaLuigi]

On the route I'm bulding, the Feather River, I save allways with a new name.
My problem are the trees. I think I placed several thousend of them. Anytime I paste a section (even a small one) I need to wait several minutes.
On the other part, I don't have a real big impact of the frame rate that remain, at least before placing bulding, at about 20-25 frame even on the dense parts, where bridges and roads are.

 

[scorpio48]

Hi Andrea,
At a guess I would say you have several different tree types making up your forest.
Try producing woodlands using a repeat of one or two basic trees and use the copy/paste method.
TO ALL,
Sorted out my problem adding new tiles into my existing route on 2006. Stupid mistake on my part, I forgot to 'open for edit', so according to TransDem, my route didn't exist. I posted this in-case there is anyone out there who is as thick as myself.
Cheers
Pete.

 

[Approach_Medium]

Keeping World Origin while modifying the route in TRS

This is a question for GeoPhil;

Well, I've successfully re-created my WO. What will happen if I remove any more tiles from my route, leaving the one with the WO in-tact? What if I add tiles? Will the WO get lost again?

EDIT: 2008/10/03: 0915EDT
Well, here we go again. After having placed some UTM tiles onto my route a couple days ago, I now open the route, and find that my World Origin is nowhere near where it is supposed to be, yet the coordinates are exactly the same.
I am unable to place any more UTM tiles onto the route, because TransDem cannot find the WO, or says it's in the wrong place.
I don't understand what is happening here. There is probably some horrific flaw in Trainz, and I am just hoping that when TS2009 is released, it doesn't contain such errors.
Of course this could be TransDem's fault; I'll let GeoPhil answer that one.

I have given up trying to use UTM tiles any longer. I have gone too far with this route to rebuild it now, and can get along using Google Earth and MS Live maps on my 2nd monitor as I work in TRS.


FW

 

[geophil]

Frank,

I would have assumed that you do not loose the WO as long as you do not delete the baseboard carrying it. There may be an exception. If Surveyor completely reorders the internal baseboard numbering, TransDEM may be in trouble. I have not seen this happen but that doesn't mean much.

geophil

 

[Approach_Medium]

Frank,

I would have assumed that you do not loose the WO as long as you do not delete the baseboard carrying it. There may be an exception. If Surveyor completely reorders the internal baseboard numbering, TransDEM may be in trouble. I have not seen this happen but that doesn't mean much.

geophil

It does appear that TRS has re-ordered the baseboards, since now my origin (with the same coordinates as before) is a very long way (about 50 miles) from where Transdem placed it.
Here's hoping that TS2009 will have fixed this issue, and many others.

FW