New Route

Iced8383

Active member
I've been showing a few pictures on the USA Pics thread, but decided to make my own thread. :p

I'm going to make a few fixes on this one, like the bridge, and I still have to add trees and finish a city. Comments, tips, and criticism are welcome.

Hookingup.jpg


Same location, different time of day, and different consist:

GY.jpg


Another Day shot...

offthebridge.jpg


I'm going to replace the bridges with ones that have supports.
 
I have 2 things to say,

#1 Good start
#2 Lighten up on the grass.

If it's an unused yard than plenty of grass is ok. The yard in your pictures looks used alot and therefore the grass wouldn't be there.


Are some pics of some trackside grass that I think looks semi-accurate;

Notice the grass on the track, This is an unused track and grasswise should be treated so;
birmingham30.jpg


Here is a mainline shot with trackside grass;
birmingham8.jpg



Sincereley,

Ryan:wave:
 
Thanks for the tips. I'll probably take out most of the grass.

3 more shots:

One of thallium's fantastic geeps sits at a station:

BTR1.jpg


Finally fixed the bridge! Yay!

BTR2.jpg


And a BNSF Train sitting in the yard:

BTR3.jpg


Iced8383
 
Lighten the turn approaching the bridge up a little bit.
Add more variation in the texturing.
Curve the river unless it is a canal.
Give it some hills boy!
 
Meh... It's an alright start.

You really need to vary up your ground textures a bit, and more trees and shrubbery wouldn't kill. By the way, unless that river is supposed to look like a large straight aqueduct, vary up the levels of the slopes.

I'm with buffalo on the brush in the yard. That yard looks way too used to have that much brush. And you really need to stop taking pictures from the ground. Let's see some track level shots man.

Aside from all that aesthetic nonsense, the biggest problem I see with this "route" is the track layout for your yard. From the pictures that I see, even after getting through all that unnecessary (and annoying) brush and horrible level shot, this is what your track layout looks like for your yard.

icedyard.png


I don't know what yard looks like this in America, or even on planet Earth.

Your yard layout SHOULD look like this...

A_railroad_yard_in_Chicago_Illinois.jpg



Just my two cents.
 
Like I said, you are getting better. Just a few suggestions.
1)The curve to the bridge is a bit on the sharp side. An easy solution is to put in a dog leg before you hit the curve, that way you have more room.
2) You need to vary your textures a bit. Nothing too big. Just take some similar grass textures and splotch it over the grass sections for a few passes. Same with the rocks in the river. When I do texturing, the ground normally has at least 5 different textures on it. I recommend going from darkest, to lightest.
3) Unless that is a canal, the sides are a bit too steep, and it is too strait. My suggestion. Go to the terrain section and find the plateu tool. Use said tool to gently smooth out the sides and unstraiten the line of the river.
4)While there is the rare yard that uses the style of leapfrogging the classification yards like that, I recommend that you make them the normal style. The reason being is that they are hard to maintain, add undo stress on the engine, the switchman has to cross over tracks to throw the points, and tri-axel locomotives would not be allowed in the yard because they would widen the gauge.
5) I like the station's crossing, but I have one suggestion. Get a sidewalk spline and connect it to the station itself. It will finish off that small detail very nicely.
6) Finally, take your time with it and don't release it until it looks ready. Once you believe that it looks ready, make sure that it acts ready. Throw a train on there in cab mode, with realistic wheelslip, and derailment settings, and run the layout a few times, increasing the speed each time. See where the tight corners are, as well as where the restrictions to speed should be placed.

I hope that this helps Iced.
 
People....people helping people....
It's good to see everyone playing nicely together!

I see improvements over the last 200 threads you've posted about starting a new route. :D (Just a little humor folks, not gonna hurt you!).

I concur with the previous comments on this thread, and I implore you to break up that texture on the river banks, add foliage, use more than one texture, whatever, just save me from going completely blind!

Thank you.
 
Iced,

If I might add a comment or two ;

1 - There are so Many screenshots in this forum that are almost real in appearance , spend some time looking at what others have done . Find some that you personally like and compare them to yours .

2 - I personally believe it will help you with , terrain , texture , track work .

I am not suggesting you copy them , but I am certain it will help you with your routes looking more realistic ?

Don't shoot the messenger --- ,DLR
 
I don't know the first thing about layouts, switches, signals, etc. I just like to make the scenery. I am brand new to Trainz and I am working on learning the surveyor in 2009. Here are a few shots of what I call my training route. Training to learn surveyor that is..
(Pictures)
As I said, I am brand new to this and would appreciate any feedback or suggestions that anyone has. I guess that soon, I will have to start working on more urban areas to add to this..

Thanks...

Hello Skidmark22. If you wouldn't mind could you please start a new thread on your route as more people will look at it and help. Also we don't want to hijack Iced's thread, not that he has looked at it:hehe: .

Sincereley,

Ryan
 
Skidmark, aside from the very glaring fact that you have (inadvertently?) hijacked Iced's thread, I find your route a very pretty one for a starter. Or at least on that looks a hundred times better than my first. One thing I might suggest: turn on the random rotation function under Menu>Options>Surveyor Options when placing trees (or any foliage of any nature for that matter). This should greatly reduce uniform patterns in the trees. And never use tree splines for I find them not useful any more than 1 spline length (because it starts repeating you see).

Also, you could try using a darker texture under the trees to give a nice touch of "shadow" and "fallen leaves".
(Iced, you could use these too. ^ They're rather simple steps imo.)

Yes, do start a new thread with formalities like route name and details.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.
 
A do-it-yourself way is to just push the edit button and cut and paste everything into you new thread. Another would be to report your own post to the moderators (button at top right hand) and a polite request to delete the post in question. Please be careful not to report the wrong post.

New thread button is on the top left hand corner in each sub-forum.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.
 
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