The equivalent of banging my head against a wall

[Conductorphil]

I'm having some serious demotivational problems with Trainz Surveyor right now. I simply can't find any good methods for terrain creation.

The route is a fictional 1950's UK layout that has a brilliant system and an excellent balance of rail length and industries. All of the AI work perfectly to how I like while driving and it takes approximately 45mins for a complete circuit (Assuming you stop at all stations)

The biggest problem I have is that I simply can't find a good method for creating the topology. I've had no luck with displacements and the best method i've successfully used is the Raise/Lower/Adjust Height buttons. Considering how annoyingly small the maximum radius is (Auran/N3V: Future update suggestions, allow up to 250% bigger radius please) and the end result is a load of randomly heightened hills. I can make it more smoother, but that doubles the amount of time it takes.

Does anyone have any good tutorials on this sort of thing? There's zillions on the forum about track design, etc. But there's nothing on working with terrain. (I'm fine on textures, thats no problem).

Or is this a topic which people fear?

 

[sniper297]

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!

Me being an old model railroader I personally find it better than digging wet plaster out of my ears. :hehe: Any old MRs here remember that green goo "Mountains in Minutes"? They didn't say how MANY minutes!

Anyway, your best bet is probably displacements, main trick is to select a very large area with a very small scale;

The distance shows the same threshold setting as the small rectangle in the foreground, what it does is spreads the displacement over whatever size rectangle you select, so bigger will be smoother.

 

[Conductorphil]

Thanks for the help.

Even so, I still find it very difficult to get everything to even slightly close to the standard that I see in other maps. Take the ECML or Mojave Subdivision route where they have the rolling hills or the long slightly less than flat plains.

Is there some sort of third-party app that I could get which can give me the baseboards of my map? I tried zooming out and print screening it but I can't get the camera set to an exact perfect angle.

Nevertheless, your above help certainly did help.

 

[shaneturner12]

Some of the more advanced maps use DEM's (Digital Elevation Map) to create the required topography.

There are tools that can be used with these DEM files, the main two I know of is MicroDEM (freeware,but not very easy to use according to others) or TransDEM (payware). More information on TransDEM (Trainz edition) can be found at http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/transdemTrainz_Engl.htm.

Be aware that you will need to contact it's creator (geophil) in order to purchase it.

Shane

 

[itareus]

With the standard raise/lower height tools try turning the Radius up and the Sensitivity down and then hold down the mouse button and move the circle around in sweeping movements. Might take a bit of practice to get the effect you want.

Regarding displacements it is possible to create your own displacements "in game" by first creating a landscape and then turning into a displacement for use elsewhere in the route (or another route), use different scaling with the displacement to avoid identical copies..

Many route creators use Transdem and swear by it. Details in Shanes's post.

 

[kaasmetpitjes]

On the DLS you can find a 175 ready made DEM maps. look for author fishlipsatwork. You can use a real DEM map for your fictional route.

 

[Euphod]

I'm sure Transdem would be quite useful, but there is a learning curve. You may be happier to use existing DEMS as suggested or mastering the displacement maps.

 

[sparky15]

I enjoy smaller model railroad type layouts. I usually lay all the track work first then start adding the grades on a blank board without using the smooth spline tool.

Then I use the raise and lower terrain tool to sculpt the boards letting it cover the tracks if need be. Once I have everything looking basically how I like, then I use the smooth spline tool. After that it's a matter of "carving" the route into map. While doing that, I ask myself why would a railroad lay track here, they only lay tracks where it is feasable, and add drainage around the tracks. Kind of solving engineering problems as I go.

Sounds funny but it works for me. Doing it this way I usually end up close to what I was after but change quite a bit as I go. Also helps develop a "personality" for the route when I make sessions.

Dave........

 

[cascaderailroad]

http://trains.0catch.com/tutorial.html
http://homepage.mac.com/doug56/MBC Tutorials/page2.html
http://homepage.mac.com/doug56/MBC Tutorials/page23.html

 

[chairman]

Conductorphil,

This is the one subject that brings me out in a cold sweat... I`m with you on this !

chairman

 

[mezzoprezzo]

Building good terrain

It’s hard to describe in words.

I find that a low sensitivity setting is critical. Mine is rarely more than two points from the bottom.

Sweeping the mouse cursor around the baseboard whilst holding the LMB works well. Practice using this technique and at the same time use the arrow keys with your other hand to rotate the baseboard. That can give some nice random effects.

I find that setting Camera behaviour to “Panning” in Surveyor Options settings makes this job much easier.

Try this video and other similar offerings in You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5m73M9y2uE&feature=related

Cheers
Casper

 

[schweitzerdude]

I agree that terrain tools just aren't sophisticated enough

I plan on getting into Transdem soon. In the meantime, I've looked at terrain-only routes by fishlipsatwork and smooz on the DLS as others have suggested.

I will never again build a route from "do it your self terrain" (unless your route is in the midwest USA, it's too difficult and time-consuming to do realistic mountains). Using terrain only routes doesn't mean you have to make your route prototypical - it's just a fast way to get realistic hills and mountains etc., and of course you can modify as needed. What I did for the new route I began several months ago is to download fishlipsatwork's Anchorage North and Anchorage South, delete the overlapping baseboards, merge the two routes, and now I have at least several hundred kilometers of mountains, rolling plains, and coastline to fool with, that cost me about an hour or two of time to get started. My first area completed (for those familiar with Alaska, is the mountainous coastal strip south from Anchorage to Girdwood) - many km of fantastic scenery potential. I have both rail and road in place which is just like the Alaska Railroad and the Seward Highway.

One of the things I hope to do with Transdem is to create smaller mountainous terrain-only routes that I could put on the DLS for use as a background for someone's larger route. For example, anyone familiar with Seattle USA knows Mt Si - I think a route with that in the background would be awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Si

 

[sniper297]

I was gonna suggest using one of fishlipsatwork's templates as a module, deleting baseboards til it's down to the size you want, then merge into your route off to one side. Then select a good sized rectangle pasting only height, no splines or objects, textures on or off depending on preference. Then paste the mountains over track and scenery, rotate 90 paste next square over, rotate 90 again, repeat. When finished delete the baseboards at the edge you merged in to copy from.

That works well in TS2010 44088, but trying to merge a route in TS12 48249 crashes the program on my system for some reason, gotta see if I can sort that out before doing a demo of the procedure for TS12. It should be the same for TS12, but I can't guarantee it works until I can get it to merge without crashing.

 

[JCitron]

That works well in TS2010 44088, but trying to merge a route in TS12 48249 crashes the program on my system for some reason, gotta see if I can sort that out before doing a demo of the procedure for TS12. It should be the same for TS12, but I can't guarantee it works until I can get it to merge without crashing.

There's a bug with merging. N3V developers are aware of the issue, but there's no ETA for the fix at this time.


Now back to topic...

Phil,

I absolutely understand what you're going through. I get a headache when I think about this!

Over the years, I've developed a method that uses both hand sculpting and DEM maps extensively with combinations of both on the same route.

I've even gone as far as using the copy tool, copying the terrain from a DEM, used on another part of my map, rotated the paste area, and then pasted down the topology. After adding in trees and textures, you'd never know that this is a mirror image or even just a rotation of another area, or DEM used somewhere else on the route.

If you want to extend a displacement map over a long distance, you simply click on one corner, and ctrl+lmb drag all at the same time while using the area fill tool. On my route, I've crawled over 6 baseboards linearly using this method. (It's like setting the clock radio in your car. Once you get the hang of it, it works!)

Once I've got the terrain in place, I then plan my track laying as though I'm out there surveying the landscape. By doing this, the route becomes more realistic, less flat, and a lot more interesting. The "surveyors" have to negotiate around cuts, and hills, rock outcroppings, and over waterways.

When finally texturing the surface, I use rock and cliff textures for straight-ish walls, and more green and rubble for the lower part of the cliffs as well as lots of pines for the upper altitudes and more greener deciduous trees for the lower elevations with pines mixed in.

The worst thing that can happen is you'll have to start over. Remember unlike the old Mountains in Minutes, there's no waiting time, and no mess.

John

 

[Conductorphil]

Whoa. This is awesome.

Thank you everyone for helping me. I think I now have a few new methods for working with terrain and I think I need to look into getting TransDem because it sounds pretty cool.