Making it REAL: Tips for adding realistic flair to your layouts...

C

cressjl

Member
Okay, I have seen quite a few layouts: most adequate, innovative, and well-done, and then a few mind-blowing and exceptional. The difference is easy to see, but knowing exactly what makes the difference is at times elusive.

Looking closer, you notice that fields look like fields rather than tiled square grids; roads look like roads rather than simple ribbons of continuous splines laid out in cookie-cutter fashion; intersections smoothly transition from road to road rather than looking like spline connectors...and the list goes on and on...

I was hoping that the artists and geniuses would provide an idea or two: What do you do to add realistic touches to your masterpieces?

I will add a few links to forum posts that I have seen, as I have time.

Thanks!
 
I try to do a lot of mimicking of the real world and try my best to hide edges and fixing floating scenery items, splines and tracks. These things annoy me more now that we can see shadows under them in T:ANE. One of the more difficult things is finding assets that not only look good all around, but also don't impact performance too badly. There are so many assets out there, which does present a problem, however, and I tend to narrow my search to a few known creators. One of the biggest issues with splines is fading in and out of the meshes. This can be seen with some of the older grass, which also sometimes has dreadful performance issues as well.

I have found that many of us have placed grass splines which look as though the grass has been clipped cleanly up to their edges. This is fine with lawns abutting fallow fields, but not for the ROW running along the pastures. I also try to blend things in too so there's no cut edges, though that can be difficult so when placing grass splines, we need to blend them in with the surrounding landscape and textures. This can be difficult again with the older spline assets, however, when done well it's surprising how well things can look.

When placing splines, such as grass and plants, don't overdo it! These can cause terrible performance due to how they are constructed so use them only where they count and reduce their background usage to a minimum and replace them if you can with suitable similar textures. On a few routes I have cloned, I have done quite a bit of grass trimming. I noticed that many route builders put in too much grass. We have to remember that unless the rail line is an old weedy Grainger branch, or badly maintained line then the grass is not as thick along the tracks. In fact it's somewhat short and trimmed looking due to the weed killers applied to the ROW. Look at many of the YouTube cab ride videos and you can see this.

John
 
With road splines casting shadows there are two solutions I use.

Firstly, there is often no option but to tediously lower the spline heights until the shadows disappear but only on those sections of road that are close to the track. It does not matter elsewhere.

Secondly, eliminate road splines entirely where they are not essential. Dirt roads, even close to the track, can be replaced by the careful use of dirt textures (but diagonals are a problem) and this often creates a far more realistic look than a pair of "cookie-cutter" (as you so eloquently described it) wheel ruts running across the landscape.
 
SailorDan said:
There seems little point in spreading this material across multiple locations. Just add/edit what's already available:
Click to expand...

While I agree, the very poor (useless??) search function of the vBulletin software that runs these forums makes finding those "gems" of wisdom in the 40+ pages of posts in that thread very difficult. The forum needs some means of indexing or subdividing threads.
 
I appreciate everyone's input, but I'm concerned that some are missing my point.

Yes, there is an outstanding "Tips and Tricks" thread already; searching through it is profitable. And yes, there is a good Wiki available for building all things Trainz.

So, what is a tip and a trick? How to unleash the power of a little-known feature of Surveyor to some advantage? How to work around some annoying encumbrance of Trainz to achieve the result you desire? How to capture Google Earth elevations, maps and images, merge them and bring them into Trainz? Yes, all that and more.

But that is not the purpose of this thread. I was hoping to focus on the aesthetic tricks of reaching the next level of realism, not route-building proficiency.

These "Tips and Tricks of Realism" are either well hidden or rarely discussed in most threads. However, I am seeing some very realistic screenshots by very capable route creators, and am hoping that they will brag a little, while sharing some of their expertise with the rest of us (more artistically-challenged, perhaps).
 
pware said:
Sorry, but the post was ...
Click to expand...

That's not the post you quoted. This is the post:
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quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by SailorDan
There seems little point in spreading this material across multiple locations. Just add/edit what's already available:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz/refs/Tips_And_Tricks-route_building

While I agree, the very poor (useless??) search function of the vBulletin software that runs these forums makes finding those "gems" of wisdom in the 40+ pages of posts in that thread very difficult. The forum needs some means of indexing or subdividing threads.​
 
I placed the following screenshot as a wallpaper on my desktop. I have asked several to give me their opinion on this picture. Not one of them could tell that this "photograph" is entirely simulated!

I think that realism has been achieved here. This is a good screenshot from which to learn much about making it REAL...

knifeswitch1 said:
Here's one for Memorial Day weekend - Train 4012 to Montauk barrels around the curve at Beth Interlocking and onto the Central Branch. Engines 269 & 253 do the honors, showing the crew's Memorial Day spirit on this gorgeous 1985 Sunday. Major thanks to Ryan for this beautiful locomotive and banner detail.

scr_574b6323639c6.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Hi Joel, thanks for the kind words and an interesting thread idea; I'm flattered that you posted something of mine in here. I'd like to humbly say that none of my shots would be possible without the top quality effort that creators put into the assets of theirs that I use. This shot above was taken in a way to make our new GP38-2 the primary focal point to highlight its own detail, moreso than my route as a whole, and contrary to some of my other shots, this one was not staged with content in any way.

I would instead bring the comparison that you see here below; I happened to do this a few days prior to this thread's creation, and thought it was a fun way to show how myself and some in the Trainz community have come as a whole with regard to overall quality of routes. After all, what looked great in 2009 now looks far too out of date for me now that techniques have been enhanced and content has improved. This comparison shows the 'before' shot in my Port Jefferson, NY model which was done in early June 2009 (although the screenshot was taken by William/Rugrat in 2011, the scene did not change in those two years), and the after shot which I have been working on just in the last week. I would say the two greatest attributes I consider when routebuilding are content and aliveness - content obviously has to do with the quality of content. While some assets I do use in the Port Jefferson scene are 10+ years old, they were built to a decent-enough standard then that they are still acceptable now. By and large however, I try to use new content that just looks real. Aliveness is the attribute that really makes the screenshots come to life, the detail that you get to make it feel like a route (or scene, or both) are truly alive; alive with people and things that are actually going on. In order to make this process more easy (sometimes when you remember a scene, your memory forgets specific details), myself and other JR guys will look at inspiration photos on Railpictures, Flickr, or others. Doing so allows you to really see reality and pack in as much detail as possible. Deane's (dinorius_redundicus) assets in particular really can help here, in the case of ties laying on the side of the tracks, vehicles, or junk lying around. Putting in the effort to create specific sign reskins, rather than generic or fake names that are often created, is also a big help.

I continuously revisit old scenes, particularly on a route as large as my LIRR project, to update them with new techniques or when I have started to use newer content that fits better. I hope this has been a bit of a help. :)

scr_574bcf2a54cc1.png
 
Hey Joel, In my opinion, the thing that makes a route look the best is both the lighting and post processing, for lighting it's best to refer to photos with similar weather conditions to the route and try and match them. As for post procsesing, if you're using TANE I recommend that the sharpen filter be used. Both of these things are used in the below screenshot, hope this helps :)

bb1b62717454dacf1b11a1af35f1563d.jpg


Regards
 
The honor was mine, knifeswitch1! I certainly agree that the T:ANE tool is significantly improved in producing excellent improvements in rendering, but as you pointed out, evolving content to meet the new high standard is going to be key for realism. For instance, the building in the screenshot I featured could not appear more real in a photograph, but the key is the far left side, with the control box, pole, and lines. The automobiles are also much more realistic than the standard assets I see being used. The use of bump maps on the control tower lights renders shadows perfectly. The transition between dirt road and gravel texture is blended well. The trees and underbrush on the right are perfectly placed to look real, not contrived. These are just some of the things that are perfect about this screenshot.

In fact, the only "giveaway" that one observer noticed was the front of the engine. He noticed that the front panels are "too clean and smooth to be real." See, we really picked this one apart! :hehe:
 
Hewi12, your screenshot is also excellent! The grasses transitioning to the meandering dirt road shout volumes about quality in composition.

As you can tell, my approach is that all the wonderful post-processing in the world won't take poorly constructed environments and render them convincingly. In this sense, I am looking for the artists to step forward and teach us a thing or two about composition!

Where is Bob Ross when we need him?
4aae4f5c-f866-4139-94d5-6cd624125ab8_zpsxdswgza6.jpg
 
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Generous use of HD textures helps as well. Composing your shots from a humans point of view is also a great starting point, not helicopter shots.
cheers
Graeme
 
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Bob Cooper provides an example of applying texture in an awesome way to a field. Rotating texture application to a field can help prevent an artificial tiled look when zooming out from the route.

Robert3a0 said:
Hayle Cornwall featuring the Hayle Viaduct and Carnsew Pool, all at low tide
...{pics removed}...
...{pics removed}...
Click to expand...
 
While textures and vegetation really can look real, when properly applied, too often the assets that set on them could be improved. As an example the comment above about the "to clean nose on an engine". This is an example where subtle artistry comes into play. If I tried to put some bugs and dirt on that nose it would look worse. An artist could do it in minutes and it would be good enough to fool almost anyone into thinking it was real. That issue extends to many assets that washout and glow in the sun or have monolithic paint sprays of polygons on structures making them look like cartoon items. TANE now offers the base. It is up to the talent here to apply their skills to bring more reality to the railroad.
 
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