Motivation

[Ronayne]

Hello all,

As some of you may know, I find it hard to keep my motivation to work on certain routes. Thats why in one screenshot, theres a city with trams, the next is a Tin Hare railmotor in Australia, then a PRR in a city, then Union Pacific in the desert etc.etc.etc.

Is there any way to keep motivation to work on one route at a time, instead of having a dozen half finished routes????

Thankyou, Chris :wave:

 

[mitch456yui]

heh heh:hehe:
I would like to have some help with this too, anyone have any ideas/methods?
Thanks,
Mitch

 

[JRT]

A simple answer is yes and no. It depends on what your personality is.

When I create a route, I will work on it a lot for a few months than stop move to something else.

I all ways tell my self, you will get it finish someday..... It might be 10-20 years, but it will be done someday.....


Does this help?

Cheers,
JRT

 

[greywolfretired]

My thought on this are that if you are trying to duplicate an existing route say a portion of Union Pacific or something like that ,I can see where you would be thinking its getting boring.
Perhaps at that point you need to start a totally fictitious route that you can do whatever with,make it as weird and wonderful as you want, have fun with it and be creative.
All of my routes are fictitious with bits and parts of different parts of real railways incorporated in some way. I also do not copy and paste the scenery.I will do say two boards then go and landscape the entire thing . Run a few trains through it and see how it looks then maybe redo or just touch up some of the landscape. Never gets boring as each little thing you do is adding to the bigger picture.

 

[JRT]

My thought on this are that if you are trying to duplicate an existing route say a portion of Union Pacific or something like that ,I can see where you would be thinking its getting boring.
Perhaps at that point you need to start a totally fictitious route that you can do whatever with,make it as weird and wonderful as you want, have fun with it and be creative.
All of my routes are fictitious with bits and parts of different parts of real railways incorporated in some way. I also do not copy and paste the scenery.I will do say two boards then go and landscape the entire thing . Run a few trains through it and see how it looks then maybe redo or just touch up some of the landscape. Never gets boring as each little thing you do is adding to the bigger picture.

That is what I do, and I stile lose interest.

JRT

 

[Smileyman]

I think everyone suffers this when they first start using Trainz.

What I would suggest is deciding on paper what initial industries you want on your route (not too many. Just 2 or 3 pairs that make sense to the route).

Then build some basic trackwork between the industries.
I generally like to travel between 5 or 10 minutes from one industry to the corresponding one, so I use this as a gauge.

Once you've got the basic layout, choose the main town area and start decorating it.
More importantly, name it; give it an identity.

Once you've done a fair amount of work on a named area, you'll feel like driving around there, and to destinations from there, and it will become more important to you.

After driving from your main area to an industry out of town, you'll find you want to arrive at a more finished location, rather than just track and industry, so do it!

Another thing to remember is Do Not Rush!
Try to enjoy the experience of slowly bringing it to life, and resist the urge to start another project.
If you start to get bored building on your route, leave Trainz alone for a day or two, and come back to your route refreshed and with new ideas.

Remember, it's easy to start a dozen layouts, but it's difficult to finish one, so do yourself a favour and start just one.
That way, you're ahead of the game from the start.

And finally, use craft, not a million assets!
If you pile all the assets you can into your layout, not only will it suffer in performance, but it will also look unrealistic, and you'll notice this when driving it.
Take a train journey and look at how similar it all looks as you travel between towns and cities, but more importantly, there will be subtle little things you notice on your journey (a man walking his dog, a trolley in a stream, a tree blown over by the wind, a fisherman under his brolley, etc)

There's not a simple answer to your question, but I've found that if you enjoy test-driving your route, then you're more likely to finish it.

Smiley.

 

[Ronayne]

My thought on this are that if you are trying to duplicate an existing route say a portion of Union Pacific or something like that ,I can see where you would be thinking its getting boring.
Perhaps at that point you need to start a totally fictitious route that you can do whatever with,make it as weird and wonderful as you want, have fun with it and be creative.
All of my routes are fictitious with bits and parts of different parts of real railways incorporated in some way. I also do not copy and paste the scenery.I will do say two boards then go and landscape the entire thing . Run a few trains through it and see how it looks then maybe redo or just touch up some of the landscape. Never gets boring as each little thing you do is adding to the bigger picture.

1- I always build fictitious routes (except for the Cooma Monaro route I made).
2- I can't et too detailed- I'm using a laptop, which isn't designed for large simulators like Trainz.

 

[Dermmy]

I make a practice of always doing something to the route I am working on every night, no matter how much i don't feel like doing anything.

Even if it is just place a single tree, tweak a spline vertex, move a building slightly, I make myself do something.

Sometimes that's it - start it up, place a tree, shut it down. But it is amazing how often just that something sparks a surveyor session that last for hours....

Andy

 

[baz66]

That's all very well dermmy, provided you haven't got 20 started routes. I tend to find the in erest wanes until I d/l something and say , hey that would go well in my such and such route. Then away we go again.
baz

 

[Ronayne]

I make a practice of always doing something to the route I am working on every night, no matter how much i don't feel like doing anything.

Even if it is just place a single tree, tweak a spline vertex, move a building slightly, I make myself do something.

Sometimes that's it - start it up, place a tree, shut it down. But it is amazing how often just that something sparks a surveyor session that last for hours....

Andy

I wish I could do that. Being in high school and the highest (smart) class, I get literally tonnes of homework and assignments.

 

[paulzmay]

Don't bite off more than you can chew. Best to start a small route, and finish it than aim to do a 200 mile route and get no-where. You can always expand...

Paul

 

[big_b]

I find the smaller the better for concentration thats why I make small like to make modules.You can have 2 or 3 going at he same time & at least get them finished.i have about 15 or so at he moment & am now deciding how to combine them into a workable route.

Dave

 

[wholbr]

Hi everybody.
Interesting thread as I think everybody suffers from this problem at various times. I have found that one solution is to work on a different parts of the route on different days.

As I have said in other postings I am building a UK route based on the North Devon Branch Lines. It has seven lines centered on Barnstable that being the regional capital. I therefore find it keeps my interest to work on the various lines as each one has its own personality as you might say.

Over the last week or so I have been working on a high-speed section of track running out towards South Moulton. It is not completely finished but I have become somewhat bored working continuously on that section. So over the last couple of nights I have gone back to working on the the lines around Bideford which is a medium-size coastal l town where three branch lines join. Having different scenery and different problems to work on I find always revitalizes my interest, keeps me going and enjoying it.

Hope this helps
bill

 

[cascaderailroad]

Huge routes, are not necessarily better !

You would be suprised just how much layout you can lay on just one or two baseboards...try to create smaller, or condenced routes...not ones 200 miles long with actual prototype DEM's. Draw a sketch out on paper first, and try to duplicate your ideas into Trainz. Try to make them all mergable.

 

[HiBaller]

Considering the effort put into the DHR, I know (for my part) and am sure that the others (for their part), got a little burned out. One of us went on walkabout, one of us took a vacation, and I went on a cruise.

I was nice to get away from what at times I considered 'the grind'. I tend to do as Dermmy says: work on something every night - even if it's just readjusting some texture or plonking down some monkeys on top of a car.

Everyone gets burned out at times. Homework comes first. Remember, this is just a hobby. Keep telling yourself that nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ...

Bill

 

[Ronayne]

Unfortunately, sometimes I lose interest in routes because they depress me.Its not really possible for me to try and make a small route. I want one to run UP passenger and freight trains on.

 

[rjhowie]

Like an earlier answer I decided to build a whole city basically as I was keen to bring back it's very, very extensive tram system which closed back in 1962. I had only intended doing one area but it grew and due to size of the oringal sytem this eventually covered 240 odd boards of tramway. At times i got put right off every time i looked at the route plans and streets maps. I would hammer away then get tired and leave it for a week or so then the feeling would be back and so I had a cycle of leaving and going back. What motivated me was because I loved the trams as a boy and it was the largest in the UK apart from London. On it's last night with a line of trams touring the city a quarter of the then population some 250,000 people truned out as it was a unique love affair between Glaswegians and their trams. I felt that it needed to be appreciated by tram fans.

So you need to have a strong basic motivation and in turn that will help you get over the fed up times. Without such you just get sick of the build and it dies.

 

[Stationbeem]

What i generally do for motivation when stuck for what to put on a route is to photograph various stretches of the route near my home. This gives me many ideas as to what to put in the route. I have come across the odd manikin dumped at the rail side along with a bunt out bus. (Wish some one would create a manikin in Trainz). Using a digital camera you can photograph many different things which you never knew could be left at the side of the rails.

 

[slugsmasher]

I hope you guys can figure out this problem. Heck I have been working on the same projects for the last 8 years and have finished hardly anything. I think if trainz versions never changed from UTC then I would have had some fantastic routes and content done. Too bad we had to ask for progress, now look where we are at. ugg.

 

[wholbr]

I think if trainz versions never changed from UTC then I would have had some fantastic routes and content done. Too bad we had to ask for progress, now look where we are at. ugg.

Hi Everyone.
I've only had one experience of moving a route from one version of Trainz to another and that is with my current development route.

I started it in TC3 and then I was given 2010 as a Christmas present. Not wishing to lose all the work I had put in I decided to try and import the route into the updated version of Trainz. After reading all the problems forum members have had moving routes between versions I did not expect to have much success.

However, I was in for a pleasant surprise the route ran almost perfectly from the start with the exception of one or two spines not showing up. After posting on the forum about the problem, various members quickly advised me how to resolve the issue and the route is now in the final stages of development. It runs perfectly even in native mode leaving me well satisfied.

So from my experience don't be put off upgrading just because you you have put a lot of work into a treasured creation, it could be far simpler to move it forward than you think.

My advice:-have a go, you've got nothing to lose as you would still have all your hard work in the earlier version of Trainz which you could still use. Remember, we will all be here supporting you, or in the case of a catastrophe we would all be here to commiserate with you.


Bill