Philadelphia (Work In Progresss) (Large pics)
- Thread starter t8dagr8
- Start date
Good evening, just wanted to post that I'm still working at it. I'm trying to only post pictures of at least some progress from last shown. I've done quite a bit, but I've been working lately on improving the zoo interlocking:
Straightening up Powelton Yard:
Other than that, I connected to the Keystone corridor up to Overbrook, and Wynnefield, but that's just tracks so far. It may be a while before more pictures because I want to post better pictures.
Thank you for your time.
Straightening up Powelton Yard:
Other than that, I connected to the Keystone corridor up to Overbrook, and Wynnefield, but that's just tracks so far. It may be a while before more pictures because I want to post better pictures.
Thank you for your time.
Good day everyone. I apologize for missing some responses here. Thank you all for your interest. RRSignal, I do plan to release this as a dls route. About the 30th Street station being off, it was off due to how I had the tracks at the time. ScottBe, I appreciate the tip on the Yarn roads, what I was missing in your response was that there was an updated version that had multi lane one direction roads. I have since changed to all YARN, but I'm only focusing on streets that impact your view, like 30th street, and the views of highways north and south on the NEC. I have moved away from 30th street for now because I need to look at something else. I have decided to work my way back into the tunnel, and it brings me into a problem. Here is the diagram for where I'm at: http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Maps/Itlk/broad.gif
I can recreate this purely with the animated junctions, but I was constructing Suburban station as just an 8 track high platform station. I understand which 4 tracks are stubs, and which are the through tracks, but that diagram is before the extension correct? I've read exactly which platforms were widened and renumbered, but I'm having the hardest time figuring out the track layout. This is the only one I could find of the tunnel. Update of what 30th street looks like now:
The cutting was the first time I tried. I saw how far off the tunnel was and had to move it over. Thank you all for your time and your suggestions are always most welcome.
I can recreate this purely with the animated junctions, but I was constructing Suburban station as just an 8 track high platform station. I understand which 4 tracks are stubs, and which are the through tracks, but that diagram is before the extension correct? I've read exactly which platforms were widened and renumbered, but I'm having the hardest time figuring out the track layout. This is the only one I could find of the tunnel. Update of what 30th street looks like now:
The cutting was the first time I tried. I saw how far off the tunnel was and had to move it over. Thank you all for your time and your suggestions are always most welcome.
Good evening everyone. Just checking in with an update. This is a freeware route I'm working on. My technical trains knowledge is comprised of what I've read around here, and the links given here. I hope the other creators working on NEC finish first, as their quality is ahead of mine. All I hope to offer is something to encourage other route creators to come give Philly a try. There are tons of fantastic New York content, and their transit system is way more complex than here. Until someone does, I'll keep working on this and improving. My tentative plan for the release is 30th street, and the first stop of every line coming into 3oth street. I do plan to build the 30th street building as that's just a block with textures. I would LIKE to build the SLV, but I'm sure someone will beat me to it. I've spent the past two days trying to fit the junctions for Suburban station into the diagram and account for the widened platforms. I had to compromise and removed the 10-XX, but I finally have a workable solution:
I also spent a good bit getting reacquainted with reskinning, still more practice needed, but here is Suburban Station so far:
For the life of me, I thought this was an all-white station, but thank goodness for pictures!
I was getting good at reskinning but I stopped practicing. When there were only the push pull Septa cars on the dls, I started reskinning something to ride:
Thank you DrChoi for the great Septa content, and Gandalf for all of those wonderful skins. Thank you all for your time.
I also spent a good bit getting reacquainted with reskinning, still more practice needed, but here is Suburban Station so far:
For the life of me, I thought this was an all-white station, but thank goodness for pictures!
I was getting good at reskinning but I stopped practicing. When there were only the push pull Septa cars on the dls, I started reskinning something to ride:
Thank you DrChoi for the great Septa content, and Gandalf for all of those wonderful skins. Thank you all for your time.
jacksonbarno
Alco Spoken Here
Man, Phily is a mess of tracks, with 30th St. and Suburban station being only a few blocks from each other. In the 50's, there were even more: Broad st. (PRR), North Broad st. (Reading), 30th st. (PRR), Suburban (PRR), Reading Terminal, and Chestnut st. (B&O) were all relatively close to each other. Even though many of these stations aren't in use, and two have been knocked down, Phily is still a major undertaking, and I applaud your effort in this project.
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Good day everyone. I wanted to check in. The more I work on this, the more fun it gets learning how to get better at building. I'm at the point to where it's necessary to learn one of the modelling programs to make this easier. This time I'll have a better attitude than "Teach me to build a SLV in 3 days knowing nothing at all". I'll start with a block to represent the 30th st station, then progress from there depending on my block building. I'll try to have a more defined focus with my updates. It's still about Philadelphia, but it'll start to relate to the route I'm working on. I like the way New York's transit map is used as progress on a route so:
The Green dashed line is the route I'm focusing on (about one stop in each direction of each line at 30th street). I currently work with the whole giant map, but that was intentional to gauge what it takes to slow my computer (4 year old laptop) down. I have this , and an untouched export backed up. I am willing to offer any part of each to anyone interested to work on. I would have to break it down first, and unless the request is coming from one of the route creators, I would prefer to have more than one similar request before I start breaking it down. As this would be the center of anything in the future I want to have all of the things neccesary working right here first (signals catenaries and whatever I may be forgetting) before detaching it to work on. I have much more, but that's for the future. I don't want to overshoot by any stretch, so I'm going to try to stay focused. This is still far from release, that's why I post this here. Super Long term goal is to connect to the freeware routes available around the border, it does rather nicely already, it was the first thing I wanted to make sure it could do. Short term goal is to learn how to build my own stations, and a couple of buildings. RRSignal already has most of the important buildings already available. When I learn to build a station, I'll start updating the map. As far as current progress, I was erratic this weekend, I started wiring the junctions from Amtrak 30th and the Yard to the Keystone corridor, and gave some more texturing a try.
I haven't finished, that's where I stopped. Jacksonbarno, I couldn't have said it better, this place IS a mess of tracks. I'm going to relax my brain for a little while and then take on the tutorials again of how to build models. The timetable will be dependent on how fast I finally get it. Thank you all for your time, and for your interest.
The Green dashed line is the route I'm focusing on (about one stop in each direction of each line at 30th street). I currently work with the whole giant map, but that was intentional to gauge what it takes to slow my computer (4 year old laptop) down. I have this , and an untouched export backed up. I am willing to offer any part of each to anyone interested to work on. I would have to break it down first, and unless the request is coming from one of the route creators, I would prefer to have more than one similar request before I start breaking it down. As this would be the center of anything in the future I want to have all of the things neccesary working right here first (signals catenaries and whatever I may be forgetting) before detaching it to work on. I have much more, but that's for the future. I don't want to overshoot by any stretch, so I'm going to try to stay focused. This is still far from release, that's why I post this here. Super Long term goal is to connect to the freeware routes available around the border, it does rather nicely already, it was the first thing I wanted to make sure it could do. Short term goal is to learn how to build my own stations, and a couple of buildings. RRSignal already has most of the important buildings already available. When I learn to build a station, I'll start updating the map. As far as current progress, I was erratic this weekend, I started wiring the junctions from Amtrak 30th and the Yard to the Keystone corridor, and gave some more texturing a try.
I haven't finished, that's where I stopped. Jacksonbarno, I couldn't have said it better, this place IS a mess of tracks. I'm going to relax my brain for a little while and then take on the tutorials again of how to build models. The timetable will be dependent on how fast I finally get it. Thank you all for your time, and for your interest.
stevelerro
Owner of K&L Trainz
This is fantastic, I took the R2 into philly everyday for 4 years when I went to school there, the interlocking just south of University City where the all the crossovers are was always a highlight of my trip. I always loved the layout of the 30th street station...all the mainline passenger service underground, local intercity up and over, and the highline freight line on that snaking bridge wrapping around the yard than mixing at Zoo Interlocking!
Can't wait to see how this progesses...can't wait to fill the yard with my p70s and a bunch of idling steamers!
Can't wait to see how this progesses...can't wait to fill the yard with my p70s and a bunch of idling steamers!
Good day everyone. I have both, the tiniest, and the hugest update at the same time. Since my last update, I fixed a ton of computer obstacles with my content creation learning, and now I have completed a box. I understand a pure box is not a huge update, but in my previous three tries learning, this is the farthest I have been. I chose something slightly more than a house : Tiny by itself:
Sure, it's just a box based off of my measurements to keep in line with the tutorials. I'll learn LOD and proper techniques to further this, but I could not get anything into trainz to save my life until this. Thank you for your time, and your interest. I'm excited about the first thing I'll try for real. I hope you will be too.
Sure, it's just a box based off of my measurements to keep in line with the tutorials. I'll learn LOD and proper techniques to further this, but I could not get anything into trainz to save my life until this. Thank you for your time, and your interest. I'm excited about the first thing I'll try for real. I hope you will be too.
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jacksonbarno
Alco Spoken Here
If you need to get a specific model into Trainz, may I suggest using the RubyTMX exporter/importer to get models from Google Skechup into Trainz. I think they might have a model of 30th St. and Suburban stations on the model library.
Thank you Jacksonbarno for the suggestion. The Cira Centre I have in the picture way back was imported through that same method. It's the quickest way to get Philly models currently into Trainz. This route is planned to be able to run on any computer since it was built on my laptop. I know if I learn to create my own buildings, then they will be less of a factor on performance. I do plan to get as close to building representation as I can. The latest building I posted was only a square/box version of the actual measurements I took for the building needed in it's spot, which allowed me to follow the tutorial and to see how my first night mode looked. The textures you see are actually from the south side, not the front. I am building the real building I'm going to use currently. As I practice buildings, I hope to get good enough to try stations.
Don't use Sketchup/RubyTMix. It's good for getting 3Dwh models in, but there is no purpose other than that - the models will be far less efficient than those created in other programs.
Good work on your box. Baby steps. If you can texture and export a box, you probably can do anything. Obviously, you've figured out nightmoding.
Keep in mind that you can use any of my textures if you want. That's the hardest part of content creation. Making meshes is easy (and fun) lol. Even mapping isn't so bad.
Good work on your box. Baby steps. If you can texture and export a box, you probably can do anything. Obviously, you've figured out nightmoding.
Keep in mind that you can use any of my textures if you want. That's the hardest part of content creation. Making meshes is easy (and fun) lol. Even mapping isn't so bad.
Thank you very much RRSignal. I agree about GWH. It only serves to provide textures to resize for our buildings. With regard to your Skyscrapers, I truly thank you for the time to get them into the game. I will most likely go with the textures on those buildings if I do redo those. Drchoi21 I do plan to use catenary, but until your last post, I had no idea which were ideal.
Good day everyone. Since I have started this thread, my expectations have grown thousand fold. I've finally cleared the "It's too hard to build anything" hurdle and have moved to the "Why not build everything!" hurdle. This update is to say I have to rebuild a simpler building 
. I wanted to see how the mapping was going, which led to unwrapping the UVW. What I thought was foresight turned into inexperience and making too many unneeded segments, then too many unions to undo the segments. I was saving a mesh every time I made a change, but once I saw I could build a column I went nuts. Not really a setback as this took two days with life going on. I wasn't going too much further besides finishing the shell, and making the windowed roof. Getting this far was easier than I thought it would be, so I wanted to see if I could do even more with this. Is it reasonable that this whole model could be built with both levels of stations without being a performance monster? I didn't want to ask in the CC forum, because I already have this thread going.
Thank you for your time, and your interest.
. I wanted to see how the mapping was going, which led to unwrapping the UVW. What I thought was foresight turned into inexperience and making too many unneeded segments, then too many unions to undo the segments. I was saving a mesh every time I made a change, but once I saw I could build a column I went nuts. Not really a setback as this took two days with life going on. I wasn't going too much further besides finishing the shell, and making the windowed roof. Getting this far was easier than I thought it would be, so I wanted to see if I could do even more with this. Is it reasonable that this whole model could be built with both levels of stations without being a performance monster? I didn't want to ask in the CC forum, because I already have this thread going.Thank you for your time, and your interest.
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Good day everyone. Construction still continues...
This is one hard building! That's why I wanted to start learning with this one. So far, the texturing has required the most time and I still don't have it right. I still have to add the pillars and the rest of the platform building. I assembled this in small parts so I can cover LOD. Until I finish reading that, I left this completely unconnected. I can see finally moving on from here within a week. This isn't the only building here I wanted to build. It has been fun learning. Thank you for your time.
This is one hard building! That's why I wanted to start learning with this one. So far, the texturing has required the most time and I still don't have it right. I still have to add the pillars and the rest of the platform building. I assembled this in small parts so I can cover LOD. Until I finish reading that, I left this completely unconnected. I can see finally moving on from here within a week. This isn't the only building here I wanted to build. It has been fun learning. Thank you for your time.