Need feedback on how to handle a couple of issues on my route

[Chris750]

Hi all; I am creating a route that has large areas of forest that are very deep. I was wondering which is the best way of handling this to prevent cpu load and stuttering. I have three ideas currently:

1. fill the entire area with low poly trees
2. place high detail trees around the edges that are seen and use low poly to fill the rest of the areas
3. just place trees around the edges to maybe 4 trees deep and then leave the middles unpopulated, sort of like a doughnut.

Are any of these the best way to handle this situation or is there something better?

Also;

I created the route using Transdem so the track is following every little contour of the ground, what is the best way to level the track out so it is even, I tried the level spline but it is pushing the track underground instead.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Dermmy]

You might be worrying too much about the trees - have a look at the screenshots here and see if that eases your mind. Those trees are old style billboard trees, but there is a speedtree version of that route with exactly the same number of trees. Both run sweet as a nut on a fairly lo-spec computer. The in-progress EK4 version of that route has nearly twice as many trees to thicken the canopy and it is still fine performance-wise.

You need to set your track vertexes to 'fixed' - main menu option iirc - and that will stop the track hugging the ground like a dead snake. Get the track levels right, them use the 'smooth terrain' tool in the track/advanced flyout to bring the ground to the track...

 

[cascaderailroad]

There are some great looking long backdrops with trees, place a few bush's in front, and it looks real.

Use @ 6 -10 genus of trees, mixing them up all over.

Cut/Copy/Paste small areas of @ 20 trees, and weed ones out, one by one, that get in the way on tracks and roads.

Place grass, then bush's, progressing to low trees, then higher trees in the background.

I have seen people place giant redwoods, and huge pine trees on the Horseshoe Curve, when in actuality, there are none on the prototype.

Jrfolco's routes have trees nearest the tracks, as you will rarely be 100' distant a train.

I use Forest1, Forest 1, and many other textures to simulate trees on distant hillsides.

 

[Chris750]

@Dermmy: Very nice screen shots and far more trees than I have currently. So those trees are just backdrops eh, they look fantastic.

@cascaderailroad: Forest1 and Forest 1 are backdrops? I did a DS search but found nothing.

I will try the fixed vertex, although I think I had that set already but I think TD ignores it when creating and laying track. How do I know if something I am downloading or installing is high or low poly if it doesn't say so? Some trees do say IE Pine Lo and Pine High but others just say Pine. Any way to tell?

 

[gfisher]

One trick I have used such as on my old "Loops" route is to plant a bunch of trees, take a screenie of them, and then use it to make a ground texture and use that to paint distant hillsides. I've done the same thing with large marshes.

 

[Chris750]

One trick I have used such as on my old "Loops" route is to plant a bunch of trees, take a screenie of them, and then use it to make a ground texture and use that to paint distant hillsides. I've done the same thing with large marshes.

Good idea. Is there any texture size that works best for this? I have never made my own textures before.

I found the forest, it is now forest 2.

 

[Dermmy]

I will try the fixed vertex, although I think I had that set already but I think TD ignores it when creating and laying track. How do I know if something I am downloading or installing is high or low poly if it doesn't say so? Some trees do say IE Pine Lo and Pine High but others just say Pine. Any way to tell?

If your track vertexes are white you need to change to 'fixed'. If they are yellow you already made the change.

There is a column in CM headed 'size'. Now you can't treat that as Gospel, but if you have a load of trees (or whatever) that are broadly similar in appearance and most of them are about however big, and there are other trees that look about the same in-game but are twice, thrice or quadruple that size it's a fair indication that the bigger 'size' indicates either a zillion more polys, or relatively humumgous graphics, or both. I say again that you can't rely on 'size' absolutely, there could be other mitigating factors, but it's a fair starting point to investigate WHY that particular tree (or whatever) needs to be so much bigger than others...

 

[JCitron]

I'll chime in here with some track laying suggestions too.

When laying track on a DEM, you will need to compromise a little bit due to the anomalies in the surface. I have found that the height, for the most part is fairly accurate, perhaps within 5 to 6 meters of what Google Earth indicates what the height should be at a specific point.

Having said this, what I do is set height points using pieces of track at key locations such as on an apex of a curve, the beginning of a curve, or the middle of a straight section using Google Earth measurements for that location. I then smooth the track using the standard smoothing tools found in Trainz between these points. This will smooth out the grade fairly accurately over the distance and produce a realistic grade for the route, and unlike hand laid track, the track will roll along with the natural ups and downs as found on a real railroad. There will be places, however, that will have problems such as those in built up areas with lots of over and underpasses, bridges, and buildings. In this area you will need to compromise and use a bit of artistic license to get the area satisfactory for your needs. You'll notice that where bridges should cross, the ground may be filled in and you'll need to cut the gap and even raise the ground a bit there for the bridges to cross over. I use Google Earth here extensively to not only figure the placement of the bridges, but also to determine the depth of any cuttings along the line. One of the more interesting things I found doing this is how accurate the curves will be when following the route on a topographic map. Place a spline point a the beginning of the curve and the end the track will follow the curve indicated on the map nearly spot on in most places.

John

 

[Chris750]

I have never had that SIZE column enabled, didn't know it existed. Thanks for that tip.

I will try your suggestion to John, thanks.