How to populate a route with trees

[ccowan2126]

I am looking for any input as to how some of you add trees to your routes. I have a rather large (100+ baseboards) based in the Appalachian mountains and need A LOT of trees. Currently I am using Copy and Paste to do this, but because I am limited to the North-South and East-West nature of this process, I still have to move individual trees to get the proper coverage. I bulk place a "clump" of trees in the area, either in a square or rectangular fashion and then have to move some of the individual trees to move the off of track or roads and to get curves where needed such as along river banks and such.

Is there an easier way? I am all ears.

Thanks.

 

[Vern]

Not really. There is no feature in Trainz similar to the forest object function in MSTS or the bulk asset tool in DTG TS20xx. However in some ways that's a good thing as there is a tendency in the other programmes to end up with bland uniform forests with no variety in size or type.

Don't forget you can rotate your copied selection before the next paste operation which helps avoid repeating the pattern too much. Cleaning surplus trees off rail/road/river is not that onerous and can be useful in spotting any issues you may have missed laying the splines. If anything, the Trainz system is actually far superior to the other sims.

A couple of tips - it is worth thinning the trees out further back from the line to reduce CPU/GPU load. Also depending on how the terrain lies, beyond 2km from the line you may get away with just painting a forest texture on the terrain.

 

[davesnow]

I use copy & Paste, too, and during the pasting, I have one finger close to the rotate button(s) [ & ], so I can rotate each "paste" movement to keep the pattern from repeating. I also slightly overlap the paste square quite often, too. In T:ANE, you can also load up the "Add Random Scenery" box with your favorite trees & bushes, then add to "Selected Area". I use this also with great success.

 

[Vern]

Good point about the Random Scenery Tool, Dave. I must try that on my current project(s) sounds like quite a powerful feature.

 

[ccowan2126]

ALL good tips. Thanks.