I'm back TRAINZ-ING after 14 month !!!

[edion2]

Hello everyone !

I'm back from a 14 months recess from Trainz !!!

I'm on Trainz 2009. In October 2009 my Trainz computer suffered a heart attack . . . a fried motherboard. Due to the current economy my income was suffering a 70% drop in cash flow. I hope things are starting to get better. My first available "extra cash" went towards a new motherboard. My Trainz computer has been resurrected from the dead ! YEAHHHH !!

Just after my computer died, I got my Trainz 2010 in the mail . . . Its been sitting on my shelf ever since. I checked the "Auran announcement" for upgrades. Updated my TS2009 to SP4 Build 44653.

I can see that not a whole lot has changed in the last 14 months. Some issues were resolved but others were not. I have to run with compatibility mode ON since 100% of my trees are the old "alpha trees". So I still have to deal with "flashing" vegetations. I'm assuming the selections for "new trees" are still quite limited . . . Right ?

I'm planning to move my routes and sessions to TS2010 soon. Are there any known issues with 2010 for running routes & sessions from 2009 ???

I also noticed that a lot of US Locos that used to be on the DLS isn't there any more. Particularly locos from my favorite creator "sporbust" can't be found. Lot of his locos shows "warnings" and "missing dependencies" so I was hoping to find some of them has been fixed. Does he have a separate web site where his latest versions are available?

Thanks
Ed

 

[EJB]

sporbust is located at west coast trainz. you might want to look at jointedrail for freeware and payware.
i ran sporbust engines in 04 and when i bought 09 i put them directly into the game with no problems. of course i have to run in compatibility mode but it hasn't been a problem
ejb

 

[edion2]

Thanks EJB

I'll try West Coast Trains and Jointed Rails.

Do you think its too early to move on to 2010 ??

Thanks
Ed

 

[EJB]

i haven't had 09 very long and even though i couldn't get sp4 to work i do like the 09 sp3 version very well. i had a lot of problems with the content manager after being on 04 for so long but now i don't beleive i will go back to 04.
i don't know enough about 10 to go the expense of purchasing it.
ejb

 

[lewisner]

"I'm planning to move my routes and sessions to TS2010 soon. Are there any known issues with 2010 for running routes & sessions from 2009 ???"

I moved my Route from 09 to 10 and found that nearly all my trees were replaced by SpeedTreez without any leaves and a sort of grey colour and they look quite awful.

 

[JCitron]

"I'm planning to move my routes and sessions to TS2010 soon. Are there any known issues with 2010 for running routes & sessions from 2009 ???"

I moved my Route from 09 to 10 and found that nearly all my trees were replaced by SpeedTreez without any leaves and a sort of grey colour and they look quite awful.

Check the date in your environment settings. The program, be default will pick the current season for the latitude that your route is created in. Let's say you created aroute for the northern hemispehere, well it's winter now, so your trees won't have any leaves and look really weird. I went in and changed the date to summer - like a date in mid-July, and that took care of that issue for my route when I imported it.

John

 

[edion2]

WHOOOOAAAAA !!!!!

AUTOMATIC TREE REPLACEMENT ???!!!!

I'm glad I have my 2010 still on the shelf !!

Well . . . its been 14 months . . . "Speed Trees" ?? That's a new one on me! What the heck are Speed Trees ?

I am very picky about how my routes LOOK!!! I spent many hours selecting just the right trees and grass to create an ambient "feel". I would be EXTREMELY UPSET if my trees were replaced by the new software!!

There must be a way to turn off that feature. Whats next? . . . The weather? Picture this . . . You go to start TS2010 and all of a sudden you get a dialog box telling you that, "Trainz is unable to run due to the current blizzard you are experiencing. Please wait 48 hours and try again. In the meantime please enjoy repairing faulty assets on your computer." LOL :hehe::'hehe:

There is NO WAY I am going to allow ANY automatic replacement on my routes.

Assuming that the "tree replacement feature" can be disabled, anyone else notice any annoying issues running 2009 routes in 2010 ??

Thanks
Ed

 

[JCitron]

WHOOOOAAAAA !!!!!

AUTOMATIC TREE REPLACEMENT ???!!!!

I'm glad I have my 2010 still on the shelf !!

Well . . . its been 14 months . . . "Speed Trees" ?? That's a new one on me! What the heck are Speed Trees ?

I am very picky about how my routes LOOK!!! I spent many hours selecting just the right trees and grass to create an ambient "feel". I would be EXTREMELY UPSET if my trees were replaced by the new software!!

There must be a way to turn off that feature. Whats next? . . . The weather? Picture this . . . You go to start TS2010 and all of a sudden you get a dialog box telling you that, "Trainz is unable to run due to the current blizzard you are experiencing. Please wait 48 hours and try again. In the meantime please enjoy repairing faulty assets on your computer." LOL :hehe::'hehe:

There is NO WAY I am going to allow ANY automatic replacement on my routes.

Assuming that the "tree replacement feature" can be disabled, anyone else notice any annoying issues running 2009 routes in 2010 ??

Thanks
Ed

Ed,

You can't turn off the Speed Trees - they're built into Trainz. Well I should say, you can disable them by deleting or moving a Dll file, but the problem is if you upgrade or patch, either the patch will crash, or it will put it back in again.

Actually not all the Speed Trees are that bad. I in particular like the oak, broadleaf, maples, some of the pines, and cedars. These fit well with what I am modeling right now. The other thing too is because of the way the trees are made, you don't need as many of them to cover up the area like you did with the older alpha-blended type.

These trees are also rendered by your GPU instead of horsed through the CPU like the older trees, so in most cases the performance is actually better than before.

The other advantage is they do change with the time of year, so you can have seasonal changes, like bare trees in the winter and snow on them at particular elevations, etc. The deciduous trees even change color and lose their leaves in the autumn and have light-colored leaves in the spring. This of course is dependent upon the developer of the trees. McGuirel has made some awesome Speed Trees for Trainz that you can easily replace the built-in ones with using the nice search and replace function built into TS2010.

John

 

[edion2]

John,

That is disappointing that you can't turn off Speed Trees . . . :'(

On my routes I have thousands of them.

So how does TS2010 replace the existing trees? Does it replace ALL the Alpha Trees?

Most of the trees I use are usually buried 50% to 75% into the ground. Much of the trees in my area are giant bushes. I am modeling my favorite season . . . the height of Spring. In Southern California on the coastal areas, there is not much of seasonal changes.

I would imagine that most hardcore route builders must be staying with 2009 . . . at least you get to pick your own trees.

I am really turned off with 2010 now!! I guess it must be good for the non-builders . . .

Thanks
Ed

 

[CaptEngland]

Hi edion2.

As far as I'm aware, The only trees that `speedtrees` replace are the old standard Aruan built in trees. If you have used non-built in trees then you should be okay.

Can anyone please confirm if I am right on this as I'm not 100% sure?

Regards
CaptEngland

 

[edion2]

Hello CaptEngland,

OoooHH ! So there might be hope yet.

When I started building my routes back in 2007 I had no idea if something was built-in or not.

I'm pretty sure most or all of them are not the built-in trees . . . but I'm sure that I must have some here and there.

If you're right, just some of the trees might fall victim to unwanted replacement.

Thanks
Ed

 

[baz66]

You have the option of replacing them (or anything) in 10. If you don't like one type, Just replace it with another. It works for most items. Even track.
baz

 

[lewisner]

Hi edion2.

As far as I'm aware, The only trees that `speedtrees` replace are the old standard Aruan built in trees. If you have used non-built in trees then you should be okay.

Can anyone please confirm if I am right on this as I'm not 100% sure?

Regards
CaptEngland

All I know is that my Route where my good looking trees have been replaced by Bendy Trees is self built and I think it is unlikely that I used Auran trees originally. Apart from the fact that I think Speedtrees are a pointless idea anyway I don't see why somebody at Auran should decide to put me through the work of replacing something which I didn't want in the first place.

 

[clam1952]

Don't use the built in speed trees there are Mcguirels excellent freeware ones on the DLS, plus she has some payware ones and Jankvis is producing some nice freeware stuff for 2010 as well.
Actually there are a few of the built in trees that are OK and in the right proportion, if you look at the IDV website, what we have in Trainz appears to be their stock library from last year. The Palm tree in the Well kind of gives it away!
There is on this forum somewhere a post about batch file that will turn the wind movement on and off. The non built in speed trees don't leap about nearly as much either.
Some of the older trees are okish in native mode, some need a bit of help by changing the alphas, I think though once one has sampled the latest batch of speed tree stuff billboards won't look so appealing.
There are plenty of people building routes in 2010 as well despite what the doom mongers on here keep saying.........

 

[lewisner]

I haven't tried building a route in TRS2010 yet but I don't see why it should be difficult.The FPS seem marginally better. But the Speedtrees thing seems like buying a red Ferrari and finding they have snuck up during the night and sprayed it black. Then when you complain they say "Oh , it'll be easy enough for you to respray it red!".