Thoughts on Surveyor 2.0 From an "Oldhead"

[OHCR_4023]

I've been around the game for a long time now and never felt any need to come here until now. I've been thinking on this for a few days since I updated to the newest build. Here are some thoughts/suggestion from someone who's been around for long enough to hopefully be useful...

HD Terrain is awesome, but it's not stable enough yet. I'm sure the devs are working on it. Please keep at it. This is a huge step forward.

The interface of 2.0 is not awesome. Maybe it's because I'm used to classic, but I cannot adjust to some of these changes. I need my spline points back to be able to lay track. Roads and other splines I can get by with the new spheres, but for the love of god, please find a way to bring the circular spline points back into 2.0 at least for the track.

I don't know what you guys did to how water works now, but all I can say is please backtrack on this.

Scrapbook is AWESOME. A great idea, and it WORKS. Thank you.

Marquee selection that groups ALL scenery/track/splines/etc into one group is NOT awesome. When I want to work on track, I want to work on track alone.

Where did the bulk asset replace tool go?

Mass add/delete baseboards is another great step forward.

In summary, there's good and bad as I'm sure many others will attest to. Devs, please don't ignore the users on the issues.

 

[pware]

HD Terrain is awesome, but it's not stable enough yet. I'm sure the devs are working on it. Please keep at it. This is a huge step forward.

It is awesome and is still a work-in-progress. I have found that it works best on smaller routes. I have successfully converted some of my larger routes to HD as tests but the file sizes were enormous.

The interface of 2.0 is not awesome. Maybe it's because I'm used to classic, but I cannot adjust to some of these changes

I have to disagree there, Surveyor 2.0 is awesome and has proven to be a huge saver of both time and effort in route development. There is a learning curve and, after 20+ years of using Classic, I found it to be a steep curve but well worth the climb. In any case you will still have Classic as an alternative.

I don't know what you guys did to how water works now, but all I can say is please backtrack on this.

Water is now an effect layer, like TurfFX and Clutter. Instead of just the one water object, as in Classic, you can now have many Water Effect layers each with their own colours. Each water layer covers the entire route and can be raised to appear when you want it to be visible and lowered when you don't want it seen. You can also have water with a slope (ideal for those water skiing scenes ). Much much better, but again, a learning curve.

Scrapbook is AWESOME. A great idea, and it WORKS. Thank you.

Totally agree there.

Marquee selection that groups ALL scenery/track/splines/etc into one group is NOT awesome. When I want to work on track, I want to work on track alone

You can use the Asset Filters in the Asset Palette to restrict the Marquee Tool to select only certain objects or types of objects.

Where did the bulk asset replace tool go?

Not yet implemented in Surveyor 2.0. It is one of the few things that I still use Classic for.

Mass add/delete baseboards is another great step forward.

We can end on another agreement there.

Some Trainz Wiki Pages that you might find useful.

How to Use the S20 Tools

How to Use the S20 Palettes

 

[pware]

#2 above looks like SPAM generated by AI Bots. Reported

Thank you for your eagle eyes. I should have noticed. The offending post was the first ever made by that user and it contains a link to an external web site. Well spotted.

 

[boleyd]

Agree.... Junk. Sounds like the usual professional garbage that companies have used for years to stall customers with complaints.

The 5% or 10% of the socially unfit are finally happy. A tool to torture a society that does not appreciate them.

 

[JCitron]

@OHCR_4023

To bring this topic back online again...

Yes, Surveyor 2.0 is still a W I P and it will be for a while, I think. There are some interface issues that need addressing such as the side panels remaining while the palettes are minimized or closed.

The Bulk update and replace still has to be done in Classic Surveyor due to the developers still working out how to implement this in Surveyor 2.0.

I agree with you on the track laying. The answer is to use guides from what we were told. There are two kinds. Both are scenery objects with one having track spline points to attach the track to and other that the track is placed over them and adjusted so the track lines up evenly. I prefer the clip-on type. Once the track has been placed, they can be removed or left in place.

You can use selection filters by clicking on the content list and selecting the category or typing in asset types. When you do this, only that type of asset is selected. This is a lot easier than fighting the splines and track being selected in the marquee. Speaking of the marquee tool, it would be nice if there was a lasso type tool to select assets using a sweeping motion instead of squarely selecting them with the square block. I did notice that there is supposed to be a natural shaped selection tool. I wonder if this is in fact the lasso that hasn't been implemented yet.

When I use Surveyor, I jump between Classic and Surveyor 2.0 with more and more time spent in Surveyor 2.0. As I've gotten used to it, I've found that it does most of the same things we've always done except a bit differently with a few more features. Keeping that in mind, and it's a lot easier to use. With that said, Surveyor 2.0 is going to be Surveyor going forward at some point and Classic will eventually go away. It'll disappear at some point but not soon.

 

[acelejalde]

@OHCR_4023

To bring this topic back online again...

Yes, Surveyor 2.0 is still a W I P and it will be for a while, I think. There are some interface issues that need addressing such as the side panels remaining while the palettes are minimized or closed.

The Bulk update and replace still has to be done in Classic Surveyor due to the developers still working out how to implement this in Surveyor 2.0.

I agree with you on the track laying. The answer is to use guides from what we were told. There are two kinds. Both are scenery objects with one having track spline points to attach the track to and other that the track is placed over them and adjusted so the track lines up evenly. I prefer the clip-on type. Once the track has been placed, they can be removed or left in place.

You can use selection filters by clicking on the content list and selecting the category or typing in asset types. When you do this, only that type of asset is selected. This is a lot easier than fighting the splines and track being selected in the marquee. Speaking of the marquee tool, it would be nice if there was a lasso type tool to select assets using a sweeping motion instead of squarely selecting them with the square block. I did notice that there is supposed to be a natural shaped selection tool. I wonder if this is in fact the lasso that hasn't been implemented yet.

When I use Surveyor, I jump between Classic and Surveyor 2.0 with more and more time spent in Surveyor 2.0. As I've gotten used to it, I've found that it does most of the same things we've always done except a bit differently with a few more features. Keeping that in mind, and it's a lot easier to use. With that said, Surveyor 2.0 is going to be Surveyor going forward at some point and Classic will eventually go away. It'll disappear at some point but not soon.

User “Approach_Medium” did a live stream on his YT channel about how to use Surveyor 2.0 and I took notes and found it very helpful. It is a long stream but you can select “show transcript” and skip ahead to the relevant parts of the video where he does the explanations. A must watch for users like myself who have upgraded to ‘22 in the last month and a half.

-A

 

[JCitron]

User “Approach_Medium” did a live stream on his YT channel about how to use Surveyor 2.0 and I took notes and found it very helpful. It is a long stream but you can select “show transcript” and skip ahead to the relevant parts of the video where he does the explanations. A must watch for users like myself who have upgraded to ‘22 in the last month and a half.

-A

Yes, I saw that great livestream. I used Surveyor 2.0 since the early beta days so I'm familiar with it, but I did learn a lot from watching his videos.

I will say that I still find some things easier still to do in Classic Surveyor than in Surveyor 2.0 and I will jump into that to do them.

 

[SirGreg]

Yes, I saw that great livestream. I used Surveyor 2.0 since the early beta days so I'm familiar with it, but I did learn a lot from watching his videos.

I will say that I still find some things easier still to do in Classic Surveyor than in Surveyor 2.0 and I will jump into that to do them.

About Surveyor 2.0 which i have started using almost 3 weeks, it looks ok so far except one thing that i personally find more difficult than it used to be in the classic surveyor. Why it comes so hard when you have to pick a loco and move it especially in electrified routes, i select the tab for example to move a loco but it marks in some occasions almost everything from all the terrain that surrounds the loco except the loco itself, no matter what angle of view i use or how much zoom i make to select the loco it marks from splines and other objects and you need more time, sometimes i use the classic surveyor to select and move or delete a loco especially when bot trainz are messing with the traffic after some time in a route. Is there a pattern to make this more easy in electrified routes i think in open routes with no electrification splines this does not appear so difficult task.

 

[pware]

i select the tab for example to move a loco but it marks in some occasions almost everything from all the terrain that surrounds the loco

Which tool are you using to select the loco? From your description it sounds like the Marquee Tool which is designed to select multiple objects in an area that you mark out.

Use the Free Move Tool or Fine Adjustment Tool to select individual objects, such as a loco or any rolling stock and then drag it out to wherever you want it to go. By holding the shift key down when clicking with these tools you can select several objects and they do not have to be of the same type (e.g. buildings and grass objects and fence splines).

See the Trainz Wiki at How_to_Use_S20_Tools#The_Free_Move_Tool and How_to_Use_S20_Tools#The_Fine_Adjustment_Tool

 

[SirGreg]

Hello pware i am not referring to the marquis tool, mostly it is hard to just select a loco with the move or fine tool when over the loco are electricity wires. It gives priority to other objects and it is hard to select the loco. The classic surveyor was more specific

Which tool are you using to select the loco? From your description it sounds like the Marquee Tool which is designed to select multiple objects in an area that you mark out.

Use the Free Move Tool or Fine Adjustment Tool to select individual objects, such as a loco or any rolling stock and then drag it out to wherever you want it to go. By holding the shift key down when clicking with these tools you can select several objects and they do not have to be of the same type (e.g. buildings and grass objects and fence splines).

See the Trainz Wiki at How_to_Use_S20_Tools#The_Free_Move_Tool and How_to_Use_S20_Tools#The_Fine_Adjustment_Tool

I am not use using the Marquis tool, with the move tool i am trying to do the obvious thing to move the consist. The classic surveyor was more clear to this ,all you had to do was to select the consist or train tool and after the move button and nothing except your mouse cursor and the consist was interfering with. Here however when you have electric wires over the consist you select the consist and it selects the splines over the consist. Something is missing so to specify only the loco and nothing else.

 

[JCitron]

Hello pware i am not referring to the marquis tool, mostly it is hard to just select a loco with the move or fine tool when over the loco are electricity wires. It gives priority to other objects and it is hard to select the loco. The classic surveyor was more specific

I am not use using the Marquis tool, with the move tool i am trying to do the obvious thing to move the consist. The classic surveyor was more clear to this ,all you had to do was to select the consist or train tool and after the move button and nothing except your mouse cursor and the consist was interfering with. Here however when you have electric wires over the consist you select the consist and it selects the splines over the consist. Something is missing so to specify only the loco and nothing else.

Change the asset selection filter. The one where you want to see only the specific kind of assets. There's a scroll box in addition to the categories there to determine whether you only can select trains and exclude other things, for example. By doing this, nothing else is selected except for what you want. This helps when there's a swamp of splines and other assets. If you need to, you can also select a specific asset by naming that in the selection filter too.

 

[SirGreg]

Change the asset selection filter. The one where you want to see only the specific kind of assets. There's a scroll box in addition to the categories there to determinate whether you only can select trains and exclude other things, for example. By doing this, nothing else is selected except for what you want. This helps when there's a swamp of splines and other assets. If you need to, you can also select a specific asset by naming that in the selection filter too.

I always have the selection filter on trains icon when i want to move a train, this is why i find it so weird when electricity splines or columns take priority and the cursor looks like it ignores the consist. This happens only in electrified routes when normally above the train are always wires, at some parts of the route you can choose the consist and at others it becomes an impossible task. Thank you however both for your suggestion i think is something that i will find very soon but at the current time is a bit frustrating.

 

[pware]

I always have the selection filter on trains icon when i want to move a train

Selecting the Train icon is the first step. The second step is to open the Filter List drop down box and select the option Filter Selection. This will restrict your mouse to only working on Train Objects.

 

[SirGreg]

Ok now this answer makes sense to what exactly is going on and is confusing me, so the Filter selection works actually as the previous move consist or train option in classic surveyor as long as you have already chosen the trains icon. I think this is going to work and it seems reasonable enough. Thank you very much for the explanation pware !

Selecting the Train icon is the first step. The second step is to open the Filter List drop down box and select the option Filter Selection. This will restrict your mouse to only working on Train Objects.