How to make a good looking farm?
- Thread starter boyerm25
- Start date
steamboateng
New member
Look again, there are several fine crop textures with crop growing up from the ground.
mezzoprezzo
Content appreciator
I use textures for distant views. The crops and fields can look fairly convincing, particularly if separated with fence or hedge splines.
Occasionally I’ll use crop splines for close up stuff, but use then very sparingly because they have a big hit on performance when used across a complete landscape.
I've never noticed a shadow problem, either with the upright splines or textured crops.
Jankvis has plenty of good ones on the DLS. This is one of his ripe crops JVC(M)Barley spline#2 harvest Hi-poly 10m wide <kuid:328583:3231> which I've partially laid over a texture to match (to suggest that part of the field has been cut).
Occasionally I’ll use crop splines for close up stuff, but use then very sparingly because they have a big hit on performance when used across a complete landscape.
I've never noticed a shadow problem, either with the upright splines or textured crops.
Jankvis has plenty of good ones on the DLS. This is one of his ripe crops JVC(M)Barley spline#2 harvest Hi-poly 10m wide <kuid:328583:3231> which I've partially laid over a texture to match (to suggest that part of the field has been cut).
ray_whiley
Active member
This is really a master-class on making realistic scenery! 'Fairly convincing?' - it would be difficult to tell whether these shots are from Trainz or real life.
Ray
Ray
mezzoprezzo
Content appreciator
@ Ray & John.
Thank you gentlemen.
I’m never totally happy with any of my route building. There’s always something which can be seen later which could have been improved upon.
Having said that, farms are some of the easier things to model. Firstly they don’t have to be too precise. More importantly there is a vast range of crops, buildings, livestock and farm machinery that the asset creators have skilfully created and shared for use by others.
Putting it all together is the fun part and, for some of us, so much easier that the technical side. Thankfully there is so much expertise on the Forum, and available willing members to help us techno-numpties when necessary!
Cheers
Casper
Thank you gentlemen.
I’m never totally happy with any of my route building. There’s always something which can be seen later which could have been improved upon.
Having said that, farms are some of the easier things to model. Firstly they don’t have to be too precise. More importantly there is a vast range of crops, buildings, livestock and farm machinery that the asset creators have skilfully created and shared for use by others.
Putting it all together is the fun part and, for some of us, so much easier that the technical side. Thankfully there is so much expertise on the Forum, and available willing members to help us techno-numpties when necessary!
Cheers
Casper
ray_whiley
Active member
And I'm never totally happy with any of my creations. But that's the spur to greater efforts in the future.
Ray
conrailfan1999
Long Live Big Blue
mezzoprezzo, thats a great! I think I should start a thread under screenshots "help, questions, and, advice for people route build. You could simply post a screenshot of your w.i.p. and a certain questions or be simple and say "What can I do to make this look better". Just my little idea.
The other thing that helps make a scene look realistic is using the machines and animals in appropriate places. As an example you sometimes see people placing combine harvesters in the middle of ploughed fields, or cows in the middle of corn fields. Well life ain't like that! A bit of research helps!
mezzoprezzo
Content appreciator
That’s a great idea.
It has been done before from at least one brave member. I can recall a thread from a couple of years back. It generated quite a few ideas.
It needs willing participants though, like you have suggested.
I think you should start the thread. It has the potential to pool a shed load of good ideas and techniques.
Cheers
Casper
P.S. Thanks again John. Undeserved, but thank you.
P.P.S. I wonder how boyerm25’s is progressing with his crop problem?
While it's not an appropriate place for the cows to be, as one who has grown up around cows for significant parts of my formative years, I can tell you that cattle sometimes get where they're not suppose to be, and sometimes that is, in fact, a corn field. Other times, it is in the middle of a roadway.
ns
I agree. When I've been out storm chasing in the Midwest, I've seen cows in really odd places as well as tying up traffic.
They're also a curious lot and will navigate over to a fence to watch things. One day we were in the Texas Panhandle, heading through the Cap Rock area and we saw a herd of cows watching a freight train pass by their pasture. It was like cool, here comes the train and everyone went to the fence to watch. Another time we were watching a storm in north Texas, just outside of the Gainsville area, and we had a bit of hail. This wasn't even pea-size, it was really tiny ice chips. A heard of cows across the road went and tucked themselves between a barn and an outbuilding to get out of the way.
John
Yeah, i found something I think looks good.
On another note, I really like the look of this forest, but I'm afraid it might cause low fps later on (I'm not going to use it on the whole route, but more like 5-6 baseboards). The speedtrees are by mcguirel. I don't know if these are better with fps than the built-ins or not.
Does anyone know if this forest will cause lots of low fps (on a laptop).
On another note, I really like the look of this forest, but I'm afraid it might cause low fps later on (I'm not going to use it on the whole route, but more like 5-6 baseboards). The speedtrees are by mcguirel. I don't know if these are better with fps than the built-ins or not.
Does anyone know if this forest will cause lots of low fps (on a laptop).
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