New route under development

H

handlaidtrack

New member
Hi everyone.

I've been informed that the original location of this thread was incorrect, so I've opened up a new one here.
The old thread http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=72960 will probably get closed down at some point.

Here is a little route I’ve been working on for about three weeks now. Stage one is taking shape quite nicely. The premise is a junction town where the two routes were built by different railroad companies. The double-track route simply runs a few miles east-west between staging yards, while all the action takes place on the single-track north-south railroad. Ultimately, my goal is to extend the single track many miles to the south, but for now, only the one town and an additional outlying industry a mile to the south will be included.

Although primarily for my own enjoyment, I’ll make it available on the DLS when it's done as the other thread suggested that there was at least some interest from other Trainz users.

Here are some progress photos: http://s920.photobucket.com/albums/a...on%20Progress/

Here is a link to the first brief preview video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3zOI_6UK5Q

Here is a link to the second video, showing another 48-hours progress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msgpluYTzoY
Please be patent as nothing happens for the first 17 seconds. Yes, I know my camera control needs some practice, but at least I had a good station stop this time.

Enjoy, and please feel free to comment.

Peter


Update 02 June 2011:

It would appear that the route is now successfully uploaded to the DLS as someone else posted a picture of it yesterday in another thread.
Kuid 487377:100127
There are some pictures of this route on page 2 of this thread.



progress.gif
 
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It's been over a week since I posted any new progress pictures. Sorry, but I got very busy for a while.

Anyway, as of a few minutes ago, there are 4 new pictures showing the latest progress.
The landscaping along the top of the 'T' is almost done, but I have become dissatisfied with the rock textures and started a search for some better ones. In the meantime, I've been working on the town of South Wyefield and the huge widget factory there.

Enjoy.
 
Did you do all that terrain by hand ? Very realistic, and I see great use of texturing !

The only thig I can see is to switch out that default Auran track with something like: MP Wood v2, MP Rusty, NorfolkSouthern37's ... etc ... there are hundereds of really great looking tracks that are low poly.
 
cascaderailroad said:
Did you do all that terrain by hand ? Very realistic, and I see great use of texturing !
Click to expand...

I agree, this is very well done.

In your preview, you have little or no vegetation, which proves that good texturing and terrain stand on their own. Obviously, you'll add some in the future, but the fact is that you don't need to overwhelm the landscape with trees to create a thing of beauty.
 
Thank-you for the compliments, both of you.

The track is something that I am still researching. I do intend to change it, but I haven't found one that I'm totally happy with yet. I am thinking that this may be a good first exercise in Blender. I want to create several different tracks that work well together and match the ballast colors that I like, and with deep ballast shoulders that fill in the gap that Trainz leaves beneath the track.

I have deliberately stayed away from adding trees to the wild canyons, for two reasons.
Firstly, I don't want to kill the processing speed. When I run Axbury-Drexel (which has a gazillion trees), I get very low refresh rates (3-5 fps), and this destroys the enjoyability of the route for me. When I get to running trains properly, I'd rather have a smooth refresh rate, and let my imagination tell me that the dark green patches on the landscape are clumps of trees.
Secondly, When I look out across a real landscape, individual trees are not visible in the distance. Thus, if there are no man-made structures visible either, the scale is left up to the viewers imagination. As soon as I add trees to these areas, the scale is more defined, bringing the distant mountains visibly closer. Without them, the mind cannot tell whether they are one mile away, or 20 miles away.

Eventually, I will probably add trees, but I will do so sparingly, and will only use very small trees in areas away from the tracks.

To answer your question, Yes, I did landscape everything by hand. Shaping the hills, I find quite enjoyable, although painting it goes on forever. Is there a faster way of doing it?
I start by painting an all-over earth color, then paint all the rocks with a base texture, then add about 4-6 other rock textures randomly, then add rough grass and bushes over the other areas (and more bushes in the crevasses of some rock faces), and finally, use a light covering of a more uniform mid-range grass color to blend it together. This is pretty much the same way that I've painted real 3D model railroad scenery.
 
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AWSOME

NiCe mAn I love it!!!:cool::clap::clap::clap::Y:Add a iportal in this puppy and we can send trainz in stuff ID is fer
 
Ohhhh ... that terrain, and rock ... you have to describe to us how you are laying terrain so rugged and realistic ... This has got to be a DEM ?

Your staging yards are a cool idea that I have adapted on both ends of my route, thanks to you. :cool:
 
cascaderailroad said:
Ohhhh ... that terrain, and rock ... you have to describe to us how you are laying terrain so rugged and realistic ... This has got to be a DEM ?
Click to expand...

No DEM's. It's all done by hand. If there are others out there who would be interested, I'll give a more detailed description, maybe even write a full tutorial.
 
mmm, i like. will defintely download, gives me something to busy myself with when i get bored (read: waste time on when i should be working i the routes i'm going to be releasing).
 
I've now sent a preliminary version of this route to the DLS. There is still a lot more work to be done on it, but I figure it's already complete enough to have some fun with.
Look for "Wyefield Junction Preliminary Release", Kuid: 487377:100127
 
Regardless of where you host your image, you need to get the direct URL to the image file itself (which is what is usually under the Direct Link box on image hosting websites), and copy it. Then, in your post, type
. Note that if the WYSIWYG post form here turns the URL of your image to that greyish-blue color with an underline (i. e. turns it into a link), then you will need to select the URL text and then click the Remove Link button (chain icon with a red X over it). ;)

I am weary of ImageShack these days, as in the recent past they have had malware attacks where you get automatically redirected off of the ImageShack site to an other Web site to automatically download the malware/virus. Thanks to the Dell laptop's emergency shutoff feature (hold in the power button for several seconds), I managed to just slip away from getting infected with malware. Probably better to not take any chances. These days, I use http://hostthenpost.org/, a good simple image hosting site that I have not had such malware problems with so far.

Hope this helps. :)

EDIT: Just posted this and noticed that you are already figuring it out.

Regards.
 
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