Looking to create a realistic tunnel, so....

[Smileyman]

As the title suggests, I need at least one realistic tunnel for my route.
By realistic, I mean one that's actually dark inside, with both entrance and exit gradually getting darker, and the main part of the tunnel completely dark (or with some lights, etc).

I made one about 10 years ago, using the entrance and exit method above, but I never released it.
So I thought I'd check out the wiki, get the information on creating a tunnel (it's not difficult), and knock one up for testing purposes in a few minutes.
Here's what I found on the Wiki:
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/HowTo/Build_a_tunnel

In some places, that Wiki really needs a kick. :hehe:
Very poor.

So, is there a tute on creating tunnels, just so I know the basics, because it's too late at night to be using trial and error.
Or maybe there's some UK-looking tunnels with a decent amount of darkness already available on the DLS.
There also used to be some example Max files for tunnels back in the day, but I cant find them now.

Any help appreciated,
Brian.

 

[tume]

Hello,

yes ist late and I will not going to create some new tunnels today

But in my Point of view you need to create just three assets to create such a tunnel. At first one end, second the middle part and third the end part, where the light is coming from the other side. Unfortunately you need quite large textures to simulate the tunnel walls for the end parts getting darker and darker.

For my Milwaukee Road Project I did not use tunnels at all. My tunnels are track splines including the tag istunnel=1 in the config. Therefore I am independently from the terraforming tunnel Ends and from the grid angle. I used dig-hole-objects to create the needed hollows in the land. My tunnel Portals are made as trackside objects which I added to the tunnel track spline afterwards.

Your's TUME

 

[Smileyman]

Finally found what I need, I think.
I don't have time to do it right now, but the example files load up in Max fine, so I'll get on it tomorrow.
Although the goalposts have probably moved a little bit since these files were released, should be enough to get my tunnel up and running.

Shame I had to download 10 year old files to get the info!

https://www.auran.com/trainz/contentcreation.htm

Brian.

 

[Smileyman]

Hi Tume.

Looks like you posted while I was typing.

Thanks for the info.
I don't intend to fade the light down too long an entrance or exit, but just the normal length.
It doesn't look perfect, but if I remember correctly, it did look pretty good.
Wish I'd released them now.

Using the fake tunnel technique is something I've considered.
I'll see how the normal tunnels work out first.

Thanks again for the help.

Brian.

 

[VinnyBarb]

Not a tutorial as such but a reference page with some of the new tags now needed for bridge and tunnel construction here. There are also some example tunnel and bridge 3DS Max meshes to view how the mesh is made with the new naming needed for some parts of a tunnel or bridge near the bottom of the page. That is, if you use or have access to 3DS Max.

N3V Games Rob, the one who created these meshes uploaded an example of a bridge and a tunnel spline of each to the DLS and I believe a creator named LENDORF made also some of these new tunnels (on the DLS) to see his config.txt to learn from and to see how to configure these. As again, it took me some 10 minutes to find this page as most tunnel and bridge references in the DevWiki point to the old, superseded TS09 models and should be deleted as they are now old hat.

You might also PM Lendorf as he might be able to help you.

Have fun creating.

VinnyBarb

 

[Smileyman]

Hi Vinny.

Yeah, when I came across the old references, I just assumed they weren't updated.
Had no idea Rob had released some recently.

Just downloaded them, and I'll get something working tomorrow.
Thanks for the link.

Brian.

 

[jrfolco]

I have several single and double "dig hole" type portals and tunnels on the DLS. You can check them out on my website under "My Content". There is also a tutorial on putting these tunnels together. They're brick lined and are fairly dark. Click on my sig below.

Joe

 

[tume]

Hello again,

just BTW:
You may have a look into my Milwaukee Road Avery-Drexel route at your TS2010. From Avery (eastern end of the route) you go up to the first tunnel - ist tunnel no. 36.
There you will see no shadow and light effects at all - because ist TS2010.

The Screen below indicates a Screen of the same tunnel but in T:ANE - you see the effect you want to create is already in the simulator T:ANE. May it would be a reason to Switch in the foreseeable future

Your's TUME

 

[jordon412]

Felix_g made a special spline to make it look like the tunnel was dark inside when looking at it from the outside. It's on the DLS. I can't look it up as the screen on my laptop is broken. The screen's coming on either Friday or next Monday.

 

[jkl123]

Wow!


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[clam1952]

Search Tunnel_gloom by richardjh on the DLS will find various sizes of spline to darken tunnels, had to make my own though for 2ft Narrow Gauge, however as said not needed for TANE which does the job itself.

 

[Smileyman]

Thanks guys.

The assets that darken the outside appearance of tunnels are not really what I'm after.
That technique was used in the original portals, back in the day (maybe still is).
I find that tunnels in general are not dark enough inside, and have been that way since the beginning of Trainz.

Anything other than very short tunnels should be completely dark inside, including when you're driving a train through there.
The shadows in T:ANE give a nice effect at the entrance/exit of the tunnel, but the rest of the tunnel is too light inside.
That's because realistic indirect illumination isn't possible by any graphics engine, and possibly won't ever be.
In real life, the photons would bounce around as they travel down the tunnel, until they run out of energy, so the indirect light would not reach very far into the tunnel.
No computer or graphics engine can compute that in real-time, and even in Max, set the bounces too high on a render and you'll have a very long wait!
(Btw, I use 3ds Max for CGI stills and animations, and it's a pre-requisite to know this stuff when setting up the lighting of a scene when you're going for realism).

I've got a working version of a tunnel that shows what I mean, that I worked on yesterday, but seeing as I can't seem to resist doing anything by half, I've decided to make it properly, with bump map/specular map etc.
I'll show some screens and possibly a small video in the next couple of days, all going well.

While on the subject, I'm going to have to re-skin a track to go with the tunnel, to make it as dark as I want it, and I may as well use one that looks good on UK routes with the original.
So, can anyone suggest a good track either built-in or on the DS that is typical of UK routes.
I don't want anything super poly-heavy, as I think it's a waste, but something that looks good, performs well, and has permission for re-skinning.

Thanks for any help,
Brian.

 

[jjslll54]

Hi Guys,

I made a tunnel some years ago that I basically painted the inside of it black. You can even see the headlight reflect a bit off the walls. It works in Tane and I discovered that someone made some good tunnel entrance covers that will work on this because of the way I made the entrance walls slope back. The kuid is 46819:38194. See if that is what you had in mind for a dark tunnel inside.

Jack

 

[Smileyman]

@Jack: Yeah, I'm looking to have a tunnel that's really dark while you're driving through it, but when you switch the headlights on, I want some sort of detail on the walls.

Anyway, I've modelled the tunnel.
Here's a sneak peek at the low-poly lod of the entrance:

Still plenty of tweaking to do.

But what I want to know is how they should be positioned in 3DS Max, in relation to the origin point, and their individual pivot points.
My guess is that it's all about the pivot points, and the origin is irrelevant.

Still looking into it, but any insight would be much appreciated.

Cheers all,
Brian.

 

[jjslll54]

Hello,

It looks like your tunnel entrance is for two tracks, Be sure to allow clearance for double stack trains unless you are modeling this for an earlier era. The portal should be oriented along the Y axis. I've forgotten whether the portal should be right on the edge or 20 meters south of the edge. I'm not at home so I can't try it myself to see. Be sure also to check your scale. From the looks of your grid you may have it way too large. Good luck and I hope this helped a bit.

Jack

 

[Smileyman]

Hi Jack.
Thanks for the feedback.

Yes, it is indeed a double track tunnel.
And it has the required clearance for double-stacks (6.15m), and the scale is correct, as I've had it semi-working in Trainz.
The reason it looks like it's over-scale is because I rarely model to the grid, using exact dimensions instead, and don't usually bother to change the Grid Extents value from it's default 7 meters.

As for positioning the parts of the tunnel in Max, I've been playing about with that, testing in Trainz as I go, so it's more trial and error right now until I work out exactly what it is.

This highlights a problem with documentation for content creation once again.
Unless I've missed it (which is possible), the various creation guides supplied by N3V make a lot of assumptions on what the student already knows, which is not good practice.

As someone who's taught many people about computer programming (and music if you go back far enough), the last thing you should do is assume that anything is known, and make sure that no step, no matter how small, is skipped.

If someone comes back to Trainz after years away, like myself, and a lot of the goalposts have been moved, or if someone is brand new to Trainz, but is an experienced 3D modeller, what we have is content creation guides that have a lot of holes in, and lead to wasted time with trial and error.
When you're modelling time is limited due to everyday life commitments, it's frustrating to waste it like this.
But that's a debate for another day.

Thanks for any further input anyone can give.
Always appreciated.

Brian.

 

[clam1952]

Of course there is always an alternative, I make my NG tunnels as a tunnel lining and create the portal + surrounding Terrain as a trackside asset and just plonk it on the end of the lining having made a dighole for the tunnel first, easy way of avoiding a complete spline incorporating the portals as end caps, less polys involved as well as they are separate items.
For example:

 

[Smileyman]

Looks good Malc!

I'm sure that some parts of my route will require this sort of approach, when the constraints of the normal tunnel splines won't allow me to do what I need to do.
But I'd really like to solve the issues I'm having, not just so I can complete the tunnels, but also so that I can finally get my head around every detail concerning their creation.

In other words, I can't let it beat me. lol

I've posted on the British Trainz forum, hoping that Nexus will see it, as I've found several posts of him talking about tunnel creation.

Brian.