Indecision , indecision !

[dangavel]

I've almost finished my latest route, but I'm , as usual, stuck on finalizing the layouts of two old 1900s Colorado towns . The problem, lack of visual information.
Invariably, in the days when cameras were heavy and hard to lug around, photographers would find a spot that took in most of the town, so they chose a high spot so they obtained a panoramic view. This generally meant that there are numerous photograph of one side of towns and big gaps of any information for the rest of the place.

Now anyone who is acting rationally would just think ' near enough is good enough " and go ahead and fill in the gaps with whatever info they could get and improvise, because there's no one around to point out any mistakes., but I find that really hard to do when it comes to towns or important railroad items.

So here I am again, trawling the net and visiting any place i can find in order to try and find more images, but given I've been doing it for about six months , knowing that I've probably exhausted all avenues other than visiting the local museums and libraries, and I do not intend to travel to Colorado from south Australia , this is a massive exercise in futility.

My question is, how many of you act similarly ? , or are most people more pragmatic and will just bung in anything in order to complete the job ....... or do you sit around agonizing about it ?

 

[pware]

will just bung in anything in order to complete the job

That gets my vote every time in those places far from the track.

or do you sit around agonizing about it ?

Life is too short (and even shorter at my age). Realistically, who is going to complain about the scenery not being accurate for the region and the era? Yes. I know, probably "that person" will but if anyone is that picky then they should spend the time creating the "right stuff" themselves (but they won't). The same with routes. If someone doesn't like what I upload I invite them to create a better version, from scratch.

We have to make do with the assets that are available. Not every house in a town will be an identical copy of the same one and that perfect version will probably not be available in Trainz. If possible you add some variety but always keeping in mind that each new non-identical asset you add will chew up processing resources. I have a select set of scenery assets that I use and reuse. I add variety by rotating them to present different sides to the track. It is also amazing what you can hide with some well placed foliage.

 

[java23]

Well Dan,

I tend to do a little the same as yourself !
I try to use several sources of aerial imagery, especially those offring multiple dates of photography .
The best is to have some source of oblique (also known as "bird-view") imagery ! Especially if you can choose the four orientations for your oblique views, and if the resolution is high, you are able to distinguish all the details of the house, the garden, the fences, flowers and trees, sheds, playground, etc . The counterpart of this is that I can't refrain from detailing too much, such as placing the watercrane and waterhose in the backyard !!!
I've tried to do the same with "street viewers", but with no luck, at least for West-European imagery ...
Then, I google the adress, or the name of the shop/instance/offical building I try to place on my route, in order to learn something on Facebook/historical/personal/patrimonium sites/etc (sometimes, it give me some interesting stories or facts about the place I'm looking for, and it gives me some relaxing/interesting/tragical/comical pause in "strict Trainzing") .
In last sequence, I choose a building (sometimes I combine several ones) in order to give the impression/colour/dimensions of the real thing !

And, I finally think "oh, after all, this building is 500 metres from the track, so ... who cares about the fidelity of my reproduction" (apart from myself, of course ...) .

pware, I totally agree :
I use a the same selection of buildings and trees, to avoid a "computer melting" ...
And, yes, vegetation and nature add a great part of realism and immersion ... and are a very convenient way of "fill-in the blanks" !

Cheers,

Philippe

 

[Sek_Hakuna]

Finding enough data to build up a town historically accurate is very frustrating for me as well. On my Durango to Silverton route I have made many mistakes over time with the various versions published to the DLS. Like the track used for instance. I just placed a NG36 with ballast only to find out later that the RR didn't have the resources to place ballast so they simply laid the ties directly on the ground. So I replaced the track with the correct stuff for the next release. No one said a word about the change or historical accuracy.

I have done what others stated with building up a town. I do find it rewarding to make things historically accurate. The research of the area is the fun part with the SEARCH for assets the frustrating part. That's when I give up on accuracy and just go with what I have available to me.

Randall

 

[Forester1]

My problem tends to lie in trying to find exact matches for everything out there, so every house, barn, shed, etc. I spend a horrible amount of hours looking through assets and never get anything done. Maybe use some of Colorado71's western buildings to fill in the gaps and let anyone who thinks they know better challenge it! Which towns are you referring to, maybe someone local could help out? And thank you once again for all of the long hours and effort you put into your excellent routes!

 

[JCitron]

This is the toughest part of prototypical route building, I think. We can easily lay track down, place foliage, and roads, but when it comes to choosing the correct buildings for the era, and sometimes the area in modern times too, we run into this inevitable brick wall due to unavailable assets. There are similar ones, that may fit the bill, but many aren't even close.

In the past, I have used a bit of artistic license when I've modeled familiar areas. I'll place enough familiar looking buildings so that someone whose familiar with the area will feel comfortable yet fill in the blanks with close but not perfect.

Historic areas present a problem because even if the buildings still exist, they have been altered in some way unless they're historical buildings or museums. With more regular homes and buildings than museums, there's no way to find buildings that are 100 percent copies of what I need unless I can find someone to make buildings for me. For older town buildings, I've made a lot of use of those by Colorado71. They're light on the textures and polies and fill in the blanks.

Some years ago, meaning many years ago, I built part of downtown Haverhill, MA where I live. My dad moved here in 1947 or '48 and knew the city pretty well. I found similar buildings to the ones located along Washington Street and Merrimack Streets. Used a Sketch-up model of the unique post office and fire station and the rest were Dave Drake's old downtown buildings.

Located behind the old retail stores along Washington Street were old shoe factories. I found brick buildings similar to those and found others to fill in the other factories located up as far as Lafayette Square and in around the train station.

When I showed this to my dad, he started pointing out landmarks. He recognized the location and the buildings even though they weren't exactly 100% copies of what was there in real life.

 

[OddRails]

It is frustrating when you can't get enough info or views to build a duplicate.
I guess one could spend some time looking, but if nothing is found, then just guess about the other sides of a structure.
You could even note in its config file that your sources did not include views of certain sides, if that helps.