Landscaping Tips for a Amuter

[SuperSpeedMaglev]

I must admit, I'm not a good landscaper in Trainz at all, the tracks and the landscaping drive me looney and that's what puts me off Trainz.


So, it's time to give Amateur Landscaper some tips

Sorry if the above sounds a little, forced.

 

[oknotsen]

Try google and search first next time as of course this topic has been covered many, many times. Not sorry if that sounds a little forced, harsh or like captain obvious.

Let's start with the easy but not free solution: Get Transdem.

Alternatively, use a wide spline (like a 3-lane highway), model the spline in the way you like to have your landscape (by using many, many splines next to eachother and setting the height of the individual spline points) and use the fill function to raise the land below them.

Or... Use common sense and patience and use the default "raise and lower ground" method. That's how I did most of my Standard12 route.

 

[cascaderailroad]

Painting the ground with textures are one thing ... tugging up and down on the terrain grid squares corners is another thing ... Placing twees, gwass, and schwubbury is another thing.

Creating a DEM using Transdem is a whole different ball game, and can be quite entailed, aquiring topo maps and georeferencing coordinates on them, as it is not for Dummies (as I should know, as I is a functional dummie) ... Using a DEM, the DEM will control YOU ... as opposed to flat baseboards, YOU are in control the route ... If someone creates a DEM for you, you will find that the gradients are a nightmare of a +5.78% gradient, followed up by a -9.87% downhill gradient, a real roller coaster of terrain.

I find that painting textures such as Forest1 and Forest_1, quite effectively replicates dense forests, on distant hillsides, especially when you rotate the textue to show right side up (as opposed to upside down, or canted sideways).

Using the KB keys: [, or ], you can smooth and smear textures into a blur. You can use the scale set a maximum, or minimum, or anywhere in between ... and set the radius at small or large ... You can dab on a subtle splotch of rock, on grass, by gently tapping the mouse, instead of wildly slathering on a heavy coat of texture paint.

I can give you all the tips that I know of

This is all textures, gently tapped on, overlapping each other at minimum radius, and minimum scale:

The year is 2017...Work has commenced at tearing up the Horseshoe Curve original trackage, in lieu of the new quad tracked 5.5 mile bore through the mountain. The Tunnel Boring Machine has just broken through the mountain at Kittanning Point. An overhead electrical cantenary system will be installed, making high speed PRR-TGV passenger service from Philadelphia to Chicago a reality ! Tracks 2 & 3 have already been removed, and the ties will torn up next, and the roadbed will be re-graded as the Horseshoe Curve will eventually be replaced by a Rails to Trails bicycle path, suffering the same fate as the Muleshoe Curve.

The Electrification of the Horseshoe Curve has made high speed TGV traffic from Phila to Chicago a reality !

 

[MeowRailroad]

Nooooooo! Do not depict the destruction of Horseshoe Curve!

 

[Railwoodman]

Well they did have plan to run cantenary to do this, but was to costly . I for one would of loved to see GG1's running the curve.

 

[JCitron]

Think small and subtle. Even in our big world, Mother Nature doesn't do things in a gigantic way all the time. She'll give us big mountains then tweak the surface in tiny increments, dig valleys and squish hills, all in tiny bits with subtle movements. Doing the same in Surveyor takes patience, and experimenting using various techniques we've outlined in the Surveyor forum. There's even a sticky post in there on tips and techniques if you are interested in reviewing it.

Using a DEM, created from TransDEM, is one way to get the landscape in one place fast. You can use a DEM-based route as is, or like any Trainz route modify the DEM to suit your needs including merging and blending into an existing hand-crafted route. The latter approach is something I've been doing for years where I find a DEM perfect to depict a rocky coastline, yet getting there requires a lot of 'tween boards in the process, or in other cases where the original route has been in many places hand-crafted, but I like the look of a section of a DEM. In the latter case, I've cut up, chopped up, and included bits and pieces of a DEM in that area.

Sculpting the land too requires lots of tiny movements. Make a big hill, smooth it down a tiny bit so it doesn't look like a lump in the middle of nowhere. If there are peaks all over the place from pushing land down, smooth them off. In some places leave them kind of pointy, but texture them with rocky texture. Rocks tend to be sharper than the land around them. Take walks, look at photos, and observe everything around you. Using wide splines, the landscape can be flattened and sculpted by using the raise terrain tool in the advanced tab on the splines pull out. The very process of raising the terrain under a spline can be used to create a hill if the splines are curved as such. Give this a try and again experiment.

This, however, is only a tiny, tiny baby, part of the total route creating process. Placing textures can be an art in its self. The best thing to do is to go out and look around you as has been said. Get ideas from what has been done naturally as well as manmade landscaping. Using the multitude of textures, you can achieve what can be quite a realistic texturing. Using the [ ] keys, you can rotate the textures. This is great for some textures while it makes others look weird. Using light quick strokes instead of a slow moving mouse movements, will blend textures quite nicely. This is one of the unique features we have in Trainz and unlike the other programs of the same genre. Change cursor sizes, and change textures. Keep in mind that not everything is green, brown, or whatever. You might want to try a base texture first, like mud for example, but then put the greener grassy textures and other textures on top.

Placing foliage can be an art in its self. Trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, grass, have to be blended and used carefully. Too many grass clumps and splines can cause a route to become a slide show. Lots of trees too can cause this. Use high-detailed trees closest to the tracks, and use textures and lesser detailed objects for the background. Keep in mind what you don't see beyond your camera isn't always necessary. At the present time, I am no longer building landscapes that are more than 4 baseboards wide unless I have to. I have found that we don't look out that far anyway unless there are mountains anyway. Besides, the extra details out there only add to the load on the system when loading up a route. Why model a forest if no one can see it. Even with TANE having a 15km view distance, we won't see everything that far out anyway because there will be objects up close. the 15km is great for coastlines, open plains, and mountain vistas, but if you're modeling a city, it isn't necessary.

I could go on. There's so much here, that all I can say it takes time, The best you can do is experiment, and redo over and over until you get it right. Yes, redoing! I've been going back to an old route I started back in very early 2004. What I thought was great back then looks pretty sucky to me now. It's not just that the content needs updating, which I had done, it's that my texturing and other route building techniques have gotten better.

John

 

[Falcus]

Oknotsen and JCtiron have the right of it. If you're looking for prototype anyway. Moving one grid point up or down by as little as .03 sometimes makes an unbeliviable difference when you're re-working hills, grades, valleys, or any other altitude related feature of the landscape. Also remember that the assets you ultimately place over a given area of terrain will affect the final out come alot. Yarn Intersections and Block Sized buildings, are about the best examples of this I can think of. Though an arguement for Track can be made as well. Ultimately Landscape can be achieved without ever touch the Terrrain tools with creative and intuitive use of them (Though this absolutely requires familiarizing yourself with available assets). Ultimately, accomplishing anything landscape wise boils down to getting an idea of what you want and trying to find assets to accomplish it.

Falcus

 

[Roy3b3]

Wise words Oknotsen, Falcus, JCitron, Cascaderailroad, ... The more we use whatever skills we have in our landscaping, our minds become fine-tuned as we seek even greater perfection. On a travel jaunt to Europe some years ago, our tour guide noticed everyone taking photographs of everything we saw. She commented, "It's good to take photographs with our cameras but it is even better to take photographs through your eyes and mind." This has stayed with me and so each time I see a landscape, I try to analyse what I'm actually seeing, such as how many different shades of green actually make up the picture; where are the focal points and the points of interest; what is it that makes me appreciate what I'm looking at, then I store it away in my mind and cross reference it with a 'camera' photograph, so I can go back to it later. I'm only an amateur when it comes to this stuff, but I am learning thanks to the great work from you guys. Keep it up cobbers!
Roy3b3