Problems with Water in TRS22 and how I fixed it.

[MSGSapper]

I have been upgrading one of my routes and noticed several issues when it was loaded into Surveyor in the current PC build for TRS22 (build 132284):

1. The water was flickering everywhere.

2. Some parts of the ground had water where I never placed it before, and it looked different than the water I was using.

3. Changing the evironmental water type in Surveyor made no difference in the appearance of the water on the route.

4. I had seen this a few years back for the same route and thought I had fixed it, but the problems re-appeared again.

I checked the forum on this issue and saw a number of posts dealing with those problems. I decided to do some tests of my own and I found that in addition to the Water type I had chosen in the route environment settings, there were three water effect layers present that I had never added myself nor seen until I went looking for them. Those conflicting effect layers were what was causing all the problems I was seeing.

This route has been around for some time, and I have upgraded it from one version of Trainz to another. Since I did not knowingly add those effect layers myself, I can only surmise that when the route was loaded into a new version of Trainz and then saved, it was Trainz somehow converting and adding those effect layers from the older water versions.

How I fixed this issue. The only way I could eliminate all the problems once and for all was to delete all three water-effect layers and then once again re-apply water to the parts of the route that needed it. Tedious yes, but it did solve all the issues.

BTW I was not happy with the current environmental water choices available, so after doing some research and seeing how those were done, I ended up creating a new build 4.7 one that I am in the process of uploading in parts to the DLS. My new <kuid:439337:120828> SAP_Running_Water environmental water type should be available in a few days. It has a running/moving water look that I think you all will like.

Bob

 

[MSGSapper]

Another piece of the puzzle of where the effects layers came from happened after I posted here this morning. I used "Edit in Suyveyor 2" on another route to copy and paste into the route I am upgrading that I talk about in my original post above. After I did that the water went crazy. I ran some tests and without a doubt that copy and paste added the water effects layers from the route I was copying from to the one I am working on that I mentioned in my original post above. I did not however select any water of any type for copy from the other route but it still was pasted to my route I am working on. To fix this I had to delete the effects layers once again to get things back to where they were before I copy and pasted.

A cautionary message here: Be aware that more then you think is being copied and pasted from one route to another when you using Surveyor 2.

Bob

 

[pware]

The "flickering" is caused by the water effect layer and the terrain height both being at the same height. Raise or lower one of the other to remove the flicker.

When you create a new route in Trainz Plus or TRS22PE (I don't have TRS22 standard so I cannot confirm there) a water effect layer is automatically added.

Deleting an unwanted water layer from the layers palette, as you noted, is the quickest and easiest solution.

On the plus side water effect layers give you options - different colours and surface effects for each layer. With the old water "object" you were stuck with just one water colour and one surface effect throughout the entire route - so oceans and ponds had exactly the same appearance.. I have eliminated all the old water objects from my routes and now use water effect layers exclusively - but that is my preference.

The Surveyor 2.0 scrapbook allows you to set what is copied and pasted so you can eliminate or include effect layers, terrain heights, spines, etc from the copy and paste process.

See the Trainz Wiki at How_to_Use_S20_Tools#Scrapbook_Data