Afternoon Trainers.
I have a map of a line i wish to do....i was wondering how you people scale it down to re-create it on trainz.....
cheers
D.
There are multiple ways of doing this, and each one has it's pluses and minuses.
--- Use the terrain tools and make up your landscape as you go along.
This is probably the most common. I've used this along with everyone else here at one point. The disadvantage of this is that it's difficult to keep the landscape consistent between baseboards.
As time has passed, I've pretty much eliminated this method in place of DEMs and Greyscale maps, and combinations of the two. The manual terrain manipulation is good for between places and smoothing of rough places so they can match up nicely particularly between baseboards.
--- Use a manual method of creating the landscape and the tracks based on sight and observation.
This would produce a freeklance landscape based loosely on the terrain you wish to model. You can get quite an accurate representation doing this, but it wouldn't be exact.
--- Use Goggle Earth and use basemaps to mark out the track and buildings.
This method uses a combination of accurate maps and a manual terrain method. Using a scenery object called a basemap. (See tutorials on these), Google Earth images are saved and made into 1k x 1k scaled areas. Each one is added to a basemap in CM/CMP. You then go into Trainz Surveyor and place the map just below the surface, and use the regular tools to place the track and basically trace over the baseboard.
--- Obtain DEMs for your area and use various tools to create a landscape that can be brought directly into Trainz.
There are a few different ways of doing this, but the essence is to import the map through a utility to create 256-color Tiff image. This is then converted into a Trainz ground format and opened in Surveyor for working. The addition of TIGER information, which is a color map of local roads, railroads, and other markings such as waterways, allows you to then place the track and other features fairly accurately.
---- Use Transdem. Geophil's neat utility, which I know little about, allows the importing of Dems, and the placement of Google Earth Images all at once along with even placing default track. (I think this is true, I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong here).
--- Use greyscale maps.
Using various paint utilities, you can create greyscale height maps. Once imported into Trainz, using CMP, these maps will then appear in the Topology Advanced tool in Surveyor. Set your height, select your area, and click on fill area. This will then create your landscape. Once this is done, it's up to you to place track, roads, etc., but it gives you a base landscape to work from.
I use this latter method all the time. Once the landscape is created, I then go in and survey the landscape to find the route that would have the least amount of grading. I then place my track and let everything else remain natural. The landscape is then textured in the normal methods, with the addition of paying attention to the terrain features such as exposed rock cliffs, and deep valleys. The deep valleys become rivers and the cliffs become exposed rocks.
