As suggested these are cnr's, There are about a dozen Canadian grain hoppers in the series. The particular one used in the shots is 95761:15003:2 but the quickest way to find them is search the DLS for name 'GOV'
Andy
Paducah & Louisville RR
- Thread starter Dermmy
- Start date
As suggested these are cnr's, There are about a dozen Canadian grain hoppers in the series. The particular one used in the shots is 95761:15003:2 but the quickest way to find them is search the DLS for name 'GOV'
Andy
georgem2010
Trainz 2012 route builder
This route is looking so brilliant! How many baseboards do you think you are going to be using? Are you using MP-track wood?
Well done so far!
George
Well done so far!
George
Great screenshots Dermmy! It's weird looking at that pratt truss...I keep thinking the bridge is totally going to collapse under the weight but I know it's a legit bridge. Physics amazes me...
I don't know how I missed this thread, but I came across it when looking for any hint of a fix of trundas trees (and glad I did come across it!). Like you, I want to run and build in Native Mode. I've spent days/weeks fixing all my assets for this express purpose and now realize I wasted my time because I am not fond of and literally can't use speedtrees. Even if I actually liked the look of Speedtrees or similar versions, those types of trees absolutely murder my frame rates. I place one and I can see a hit already and that's never a good sign. Like you, I also run an older rig and I can't upgrade it for at least another year probably...
Anyhow, I've come away agreeing 110% with your conclusion (build and run in compatibility for now). One could build in Native and then put in the trees last (I usually do foliage at the end but that means no screenshots until the very end pretty much). I am really fond of trunda's (low poly yet good looking) trees and just wish they worked well in native mode. You mentioned something about colouring in the alphas. Can they be *fixed* and if so, is there a performance hit for fixing them?
Anyhow, your route looks like yet another winner and I am looking forward to more screenshots. Great to see all kinds of power there. Good luck and keep up the great work!
:wave:
Gisa ^^
I don't know how I missed this thread, but I came across it when looking for any hint of a fix of trundas trees (and glad I did come across it!). Like you, I want to run and build in Native Mode. I've spent days/weeks fixing all my assets for this express purpose and now realize I wasted my time because I am not fond of and literally can't use speedtrees. Even if I actually liked the look of Speedtrees or similar versions, those types of trees absolutely murder my frame rates. I place one and I can see a hit already and that's never a good sign. Like you, I also run an older rig and I can't upgrade it for at least another year probably...
Anyhow, I've come away agreeing 110% with your conclusion (build and run in compatibility for now). One could build in Native and then put in the trees last (I usually do foliage at the end but that means no screenshots until the very end pretty much). I am really fond of trunda's (low poly yet good looking) trees and just wish they worked well in native mode. You mentioned something about colouring in the alphas. Can they be *fixed* and if so, is there a performance hit for fixing them?
Anyhow, your route looks like yet another winner and I am looking forward to more screenshots. Great to see all kinds of power there.
Good luck and keep up the great work!:wave:
Gisa ^^
Off topic....
Hi Gisa
I have played around a bit with Trunda's trees trying to get them into native mode. The problem is that the alpha images are black and grey. To work in Native mode they must be black and white. The fix is reasonably easy, if somewhat time consuming. You must load the alpha image for each asset into a graphics program and make it black and white. Most programs have a tool for this, but I found the quickest way was to crank the contrast up to 125%.
There is - of course - a downside. I have no idea what the technical issue is, nor can I even guess whether this is a purely local issue or if it is universal, and it could even be that it is my method of correcting the alphas which is at fault. Anyway Trunda's trees as supplied have a sort of 'softness' to them. My pure black-and-white alphas made them very 'hard-edged'. So now they work in Native, but look significantly less attractive than the as-supplied trees look in Compatibility.
And even if it did work, for a distributed route there is no way in the world I could expect every end-user to do the conversion to over 100 assets. As they say - you pays your money and you takes your choice.
For me the choice is Trunda's trees used as-supplied in Comp Mode...
Andy
Hi Gisa
I have played around a bit with Trunda's trees trying to get them into native mode. The problem is that the alpha images are black and grey. To work in Native mode they must be black and white. The fix is reasonably easy, if somewhat time consuming. You must load the alpha image for each asset into a graphics program and make it black and white. Most programs have a tool for this, but I found the quickest way was to crank the contrast up to 125%.
There is - of course - a downside. I have no idea what the technical issue is, nor can I even guess whether this is a purely local issue or if it is universal, and it could even be that it is my method of correcting the alphas which is at fault. Anyway Trunda's trees as supplied have a sort of 'softness' to them. My pure black-and-white alphas made them very 'hard-edged'. So now they work in Native, but look significantly less attractive than the as-supplied trees look in Compatibility.
And even if it did work, for a distributed route there is no way in the world I could expect every end-user to do the conversion to over 100 assets. As they say - you pays your money and you takes your choice.
For me the choice is Trunda's trees used as-supplied in Comp Mode...
Andy
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There is - of course - a downside. I have no idea what the technical issue is, nor can I even guess whether this is a purely local issue or if it is universal, and it could even be that it is my method of correcting the alphas which is at fault. Anyway Trunda's trees as supplied have a sort of 'softness' to them. My pure black-and-white alphas made them very 'hard-edged'. So now they work in Native, but look significantly less attractive than the as-supplied trees look in Compatibility.
It's not your fault, that's just what is supposed to happen when the alphas are just black or white. That was the reason they were made grey, so that the trees appear "softer".. a transparency thing:hehe:
Hi Gisa
I have played around a bit with Trunda's trees trying to get them into native mode. The problem is that the alpha images are black and grey. To work in Native mode they must be black and white. The fix is reasonably easy, if somewhat time consuming. You must load the alpha image for each asset into a graphics program and make it black and white. Most programs have a tool for this, but I found the quickest way was to crank the contrast up to 125%.
There is - of course - a downside. I have no idea what the technical issue is, nor can I even guess whether this is a purely local issue or if it is universal, and it could even be that it is my method of correcting the alphas which is at fault. Anyway Trunda's trees as supplied have a sort of 'softness' to them. My pure black-and-white alphas made them very 'hard-edged'. So now they work in Native, but look significantly less attractive than the as-supplied trees look in Compatibility.
And even if it did work, for a distributed route there is no way in the world I could expect every end-user to do the conversion to over 100 assets. As they say - you pays your money and you takes your choice.
For me the choice is Trunda's trees used as-supplied in Comp Mode...
Andy
Hi Dermmy,
Thank you so much for your awesome explanation. I don't consider this off topic because your routes are great and my query is totally related to route building. Ask the pros right? Anyhow, that's just my opinion...
It looks like we have no choice then. It's too bad there wasn't a quick-fix that preserved the look, but I guess that can't be helped.
FWIW, I originally opted to build and run in Native mode and use assets that had been fixed. For those who did not want to fix broken assets, they could use compatibility mode and for those who did fix the assets I used (broken or not) they could use native mode. I saw it as the user's choice. What I'm trying to say is that it's really considerate of you to consider the end impact for other users of your route (and that maybe you shouldn't feel bad if you made it in such a way that others would have to do a bit of work to get it to run well). Especially so, considering your how routes are freeware (I hope they stay that way).
Tough choices for route builders it seems.
However, now that I think about, I think your approach is best. The broken assets thing is really Auran's problem to begin with anyhow...but that's a whole other topic and my reply is already too long.
I suppose if there is any silver lining...fixing all your assets and running trainz in compatibility mode means trainz must be faster than running compatibility mode with faulty assets. It'd be interesting to see quantitative data on the performance distances between the two, but I do know that speedtrees or any trees of that type simply wreck any advantage I had in native mode. I suppose it's hard for any company to make a product that can cover a variety of users who use different systems, computers and operating systems.
Anyhow, thank you again for your kind explanation. I won't derail this thread any further.
Keep the screenies coming!
:wave:
Gisa ^^
I honestly don't think we are derailed - or for that matter very far at all off topic.
In fact if this thread turned into a thread on getting billboard (particularly Trunda's) trees to look good in Native it would be a thread well spent!
What totally mystifies me is the number of people who appear to have EK3 running as supplied (with Trunda's trees as-supplied) in Native Mode without graphical issues. There simply must be some fundamental graphics difference which IMHO needs investigated. I contacted Help Desk on the issue and got a couple of suggestions in response regarding tweaking settings and Drivers, but all to no avail.
Any suggestions gratefully received, and if necessary i will ask a mod to move this thread out of s/shots. Another dedicated PAL screenies thread is easily started....
Andy
I honestly don't think we are derailed - or for that matter very far at all off topic.
In fact if this thread turned into a thread on getting billboard (particularly Trunda's) trees to look good in Native it would be a thread well spent!
What totally mystifies me is the number of people who appear to have EK3 running as supplied (with Trunda's trees as-supplied) in Native Mode without graphical issues. There simply must be some fundamental graphics difference which IMHO needs investigated. I contacted Help Desk on the issue and got a couple of suggestions in response regarding tweaking settings and Drivers, but all to no avail.
Any suggestions gratefully received, and if necessary i will ask a mod to move this thread out of s/shots. Another dedicated PAL screenies thread is easily started....
Andy
Ah, that's good. I noticed you titled your thread off-topic, so I thought apologizing for going off a bit to respect your thread would be a good idea. I am glad that you agree with me in that this discussion is useful.
I suppose Trunda doesn't create any more? Has anyone considered emailing him to see if he'd be willing to tweak his trees to work well (if this is at all possible) while preserving their look in native mode? THAT would make a lot of folks happy (well at least two folks I can think of).
I'm surprised too to see some folks taking shots, but I guess they are all running EK3 in compatibility mode. If there is a simple fix for these trees that we don't know about, I hope someone would mention it.
The thought also occurred to me that one could just build in Native mode and switch to compatibility mode for screenshots but that wouldn't be a long-term solution. I have noticed some folks swapping out trees anyhow but to each their own...
No need to start another thread (but of course feel free if you'd like). If no one chimes in here, I guess compatibility mode it shall be then...
:wave:
Gisa ^^
motorbreath
Earth Rocker
If you pull off a good river or harbor scene it will be awesome for sure. looks like you've gotta good start. Very nice.
Hello Andi,
Greetings from nighttime Amsterdam,
Jan
Hmm, my understanding of the difference between native mode, what means alpha mapping, and previous, what is alpha blending, is that in native mode only two teints are allowed. So if that's black and white or any other two shades of gray isn't important. The difference is that with alpha blending you could have many shades of grays to get the softness you describe, while with alpha mapping you should create this softness in the texture itself. In fact you can only have an on / off switch with mapping, visible mesh, or not. With this in mind, I think only the creator him or herself can make the nescessairy changes...I have played around a bit with Trunda's trees trying to get them into native mode. The problem is that the alpha images are black and grey. To work in Native mode they must be black and white.
[ snip ]
Andy
Greetings from nighttime Amsterdam,
Jan
simulatortrain
jointed freaking rails
The power I keep thinking would be awesome for this would be a couple ex-ICG GP10s or GP11s.
Something like this...
..you just never know what might turn up!
Anyway I don't need 'em this side of the Ohio River...
Andy