As most of you know, I have very little in the way of bad things to say about Auran and Trainz, but right now I am a bit frazzled and frustrated.
On my venerable Enfield and Eastern personal route, I've created a two-level station using a cut and cover method and splines as a top. On the whole this doesn't sound too difficult, but in reality it was a royal pain of all pains to do! For something that would have probably taken me about 15 minutes, took more than 3 hours. This wasn't due to a slow computer, but due to the way Trainz handles objects in Surveyor. I spent more time moving objects I didn't want to move than I did placing the new ones.
As I built my station, I would place an object or spline, and when I moved this one into place, I would in advertently grab the wrong one as I made adjustments and move that instead. The undo is great, but it gets pretty tiring and frustrating grabbing the wrong object all the time. The mouse acts like it's fat crayon because of the large selectio radius, and you like a fat crayon can't color within the lines with it.
Why is it, in all of the subsequent releases, of Trainz, whether it's TRS2006, TC1&2, TC3, and TS2009, haven't the developers allowed for object locking and hiding? I'm not a programmer, and don't pretend to be one, but what would make this so difficult to implement? You'd think that since there's anew version coming out, they could add this "feature" into the program. After all, they've add other nifty things such as the search and replace, and the other search functions. These options could easily be added to the object properties, I would think, as a check box. The hidden objects could be ghosted, but not totally hidden, or they could be accessed if they are totally hidden by a menu function to show hidden objects.
Anyway, to me this is one of the more important "features" that should have been included the latest go around of TS2009 WBE. This is one of those really needed options that has been ignored whenever anyone has asked about it, and is a big part of many other 3D modelling programs including lousy Bryce with it's queer interface.
Hiding objects is great for placing small objects on the ground under taller objects like small bushes next to houses located under taller trees. Yes this can be done the opposite way with the smaller objects first, but sometimes the smaller objects are found later on the DLS, and the creator would like to add them to an existing scene without redoing the whole section all over again.
Locked objects are good too for the situation I ran into. Instead of moving the wrong spline or building, that was already put in a perfect place, the object or spline would stay where it is while the creator worked and moved items around it.
John
On my venerable Enfield and Eastern personal route, I've created a two-level station using a cut and cover method and splines as a top. On the whole this doesn't sound too difficult, but in reality it was a royal pain of all pains to do! For something that would have probably taken me about 15 minutes, took more than 3 hours. This wasn't due to a slow computer, but due to the way Trainz handles objects in Surveyor. I spent more time moving objects I didn't want to move than I did placing the new ones.
As I built my station, I would place an object or spline, and when I moved this one into place, I would in advertently grab the wrong one as I made adjustments and move that instead. The undo is great, but it gets pretty tiring and frustrating grabbing the wrong object all the time. The mouse acts like it's fat crayon because of the large selectio radius, and you like a fat crayon can't color within the lines with it.
Why is it, in all of the subsequent releases, of Trainz, whether it's TRS2006, TC1&2, TC3, and TS2009, haven't the developers allowed for object locking and hiding? I'm not a programmer, and don't pretend to be one, but what would make this so difficult to implement? You'd think that since there's anew version coming out, they could add this "feature" into the program. After all, they've add other nifty things such as the search and replace, and the other search functions. These options could easily be added to the object properties, I would think, as a check box. The hidden objects could be ghosted, but not totally hidden, or they could be accessed if they are totally hidden by a menu function to show hidden objects.
Anyway, to me this is one of the more important "features" that should have been included the latest go around of TS2009 WBE. This is one of those really needed options that has been ignored whenever anyone has asked about it, and is a big part of many other 3D modelling programs including lousy Bryce with it's queer interface.
Hiding objects is great for placing small objects on the ground under taller objects like small bushes next to houses located under taller trees. Yes this can be done the opposite way with the smaller objects first, but sometimes the smaller objects are found later on the DLS, and the creator would like to add them to an existing scene without redoing the whole section all over again.
Locked objects are good too for the situation I ran into. Instead of moving the wrong spline or building, that was already put in a perfect place, the object or spline would stay where it is while the creator worked and moved items around it.
John
I went for a test drive last night and it works pretty well. I used subway stations for the platforms underneath, which work pretty well as heavy rail passenger platforms. With the platforms above, there's no way of knowing there are tracks underneath except for a bridge on one side where the lower level tracks enter into the tunnel.
