Painting under tracks gravel

[Raymond10a]

Hello,

New trainz player here!

I'm trying to paint under the tracks to create a gravel look. When my track is straight going perfectly N/S or E/W, it looks great! But as soon as I hit a turn or track goes diagonal, the point now looks choppy and horrible.

Ultimately what I'm trying to accomplish is getting a wider look of rocks under the track wider than the trackbed that comes by default underneath the track itself.

I changed the grid to be smaller but although it helped some the paint was still horrible looking on turns, grid-like with corners.

Any help appreciated!

 

[cascaderailroad]

The only way to get a straight roadbed, is to lay a path gravel road or spline if some sort under the track ... as textures always follow the grid and make a sawtooth edge.

Grass and trees help break it up.

Lightly tapping the mouse, and pressing the [ or ] key while applying textures will help blend and smudge the textures.

Do the ballast under the track first ... and then tap in the grass textures.

 

[Raymond10a]

Are you saying there's some sort of 'gravel' road with splines I can lay down first? I was searching for one and could never find one. If so, do you know of one and a name I can search on in the list?

 

[stagecoach]

Search the DLS for rail bed by frank dean.

 

[mezzoprezzo]

Good afternoon everyone.

First of all, welcome to Trainz Raymond10a.

I'm sure you will spend many happy hours immersed in the hobby of Trainz - also known by some as the "Time pit". You have been warned!


Track bed splines have been recommended and are good to use. Another type I occasionally use are the FMA Trackbed series. A search should find a good range.

This one is FMA trackbed w8 - kuid2:52:37390:1

I’ve laid a bit of drstrach’s S49 track over the top of it to show the effect.

The ‘texture only’ method which has caused your problem does have its merits though.

Others in this thread have described the use of assets (objects) to hide the joins where the textures merge together (which causes the spikey intrusions often just where you don’t want them). I often use that method – it gives an infinite variety of possibilities, rather than using a track bed type which may not be suitable.

Here’s an example of how I built up an area of track in a green area where there is plenty of foliage available to use as camouflage! After laying the track on the bare baseboard, the gravel texture went in under the rails using the smallest radius and scale, then the surrounding grass texture was merged as best as possible – complete with jagged joins!

You can then use objects to cover up the messy result. Grass splines can work well, but I now almost always use individual objects for grasses, shrubs and trees. A fence spline built through the foliage can look good though.

There are some excellent textures available which can give an almost invisible track to baseboard texture join, but whichever method you use there is nearly always a join somewhere which will need covering up.

Cheers
Casper

 

[matruck]

Wow sum good info there Casper thanks for all the effort to produce that, Those last couple of pics really look good.
Cheers Mick.

 

[JCitron]

Casper that's really nice looking roadbed.

I'll chime here with a quick hint...

First I raise my trackbed up a little when I can. This sets up a nice little profile so that there is some drainage on either side as in the prototype.

Now with the raised ROW, I then cover the surface, including the sides with a coal-cinder texture first. This may not be prototypical in your area, but where I live, there are still areas that have coal cinders along the sides of the ROW even with steam gone for over 50 years.

Anyway, I then use a narrower brush and put down the track ballast. I try to use one that matches the color of the raised track-attached ballast so they blend in.

Where I get those spiky things, I blend in grass textures since I don't use grass objects (another story for another time), and some more coal and track ballast in its place.

Hope this helps.

John

 

[mezzoprezzo]

@ matruck and JCitron

Good morning Mick & John.

Thanks for your kind comments. I hope a few users might find my ramblings useful.

With Trainz it’s often easier to explain things with pictures rather than words only.

It wasn’t too difficult to put that little piece together. I think it took longer to assemble the six images and upload them than it did to screenshot the example pictures in a corner of one of my routes.

I’d already built the scenery.

I simply took a screenshot of the completed bit for the example track and scenery then quickly dismantled the scene and took the other shots in five more stages as I deleted the assets.

Thankfully I remembered not to overwrite the Route by saving the destruction!

The pix were then posted in the order in which the scene was originally built.

Cheers
Casper

 

[oldfartdan]

Thank you to all, I have been building for about 5yrs now and I am always learning,
Thanks to all

Dan

 

[Satyr]

G'day Casper the Friendly Trainzer,:hehe:

How do you do it? I've seen quite a few of your screens and they all look sooooo realistic. Just marvelous.

E.C.

 

[mezzoprezzo]

Answer:

1. Retire from real work

2. Spend totally unreasonable amounts of time on Trainz

3. Have a very understanding wife (most of the time!)


Thanks for the complement.

There are plenty of great creators (assets and route builders) in the community at all levels and I guess they are probably the greatest motivators.

The sharing of the work, ideas and enthusiasm all seem to blend together to add to the inspiration and motivation to do more.

I've nicked most of my methods from others, and the scenarios come from photographs and just generally looking at what's around me.

Trainz is a great medium for painting a picture that you can climb into and move around.

I've often thought that Auran/N3V should market it for artists.


Cheers
Casper

 

[cascaderailroad]

G'day Casper the Friendly Trainzer,:hehe:

How do you do it? I've seen quite a few of your screens and they all look sooooo realistic. Just marvelous.

E.C.

Because he uses TRS2004 ... and not the newfangled, akin to Vista OS, toy version of Trainz: TS12 :hehe:

 

[BobCass]

Casper: You are truly a delight and a good teacher..I picked up your tip and enjoyed every minute of it..Thank You..:wave:

 

[Satyr]

Answer:

1. Retire from real work

2. Spend totally unreasonable amounts of time on Trainz

3. Have a very understanding wife (most of the time!)


Thanks for the complement.

There are plenty of great creators (assets and route builders) in the community at all levels and I guess they are probably the greatest motivators.

The sharing of the work, ideas and enthusiasm all seem to blend together to add to the inspiration and motivation to do more.

I've nicked most of my methods from others, and the scenarios come from photographs and just generally looking at what's around me.

Trainz is a great medium for painting a picture that you can climb into and move around.

I've often thought that Auran/N3V should market it for artists.


Cheers
Casper

G'day,

1. Was fiorced too. (Health)
2. Every waking moment.
3. Mine wasn't, so got rid of it 15 years ago. Seccond best decission in my life. The Best was buying Trainz:hehe:.

I've always been interested in model railways but due to changes in circumstances and accomodation So fimaly last December I discovered Trainz and ithas taken up all my waking hours ever since.
I don't have a life anyway:hehe:.

I couldn't agree more abiout the artistic side of the program, and you sure create some great tableaus.
Here is a sample of my efforts:

E.C

 

[Satyr]

Because he uses TRS2004 ... and not the newfangled, akin to Vista OS, toy version of Trainz: TS12 :hehe:

G'day,

Like for many good artists, the media itself is only seondary.

A friend of mine produces equally great paintings on canvas, computer or even with a ballpoint on a napkin. I'm sure that casper would be the same, no matter which version of Trainz he uses.

E.C