Tips and Tricks-Surveyor

Creating realistic landscape in 2009

I have spent the past couple of years creating a fictional route within a real piece of UK countryside. I have been using a variety of maps and photographs, GMAX and TRS2006. Now I have received a gift of 2009 WBE, I decided to import my efforts and continue work with the new, super-duper software.

The only real problem I have - and it seems an enormous one - is creating the hills and valleys etc as near as possible to real life. I found this quite easy in 2006. I started with "Use height" to "draw" contours at 10 metre intervals and then used a wide highway spline to create smooth slopes between them. The final stage is to use the "adjust height" button to smooth out unwanted irregularities or to introduce some of the odd shapes which are peculiar to the landscape I am re-creating.

In 2009 everything works the same except for the last stage. I have been playing with it for a few weeks now and I have found no way of making fine adjustments in height. I hope there is a simple answer which I just haven't stumbled upon. If there isn't, it will have to be back to 2006.

It would be a pity to have to return to 2006 (which I have thoroughly enjoyed) when 2009 offers such an improvement in frame rates and rendering.

Does anyone have the answer I have missed? I sincerely hope so.

I am using XP 64-bit on AMD Phenom quad-core with 8GB RAM and 2X1GB NVidia 8500GT.

Peter
 
@jadebullet
Thanks for the tip - but I still cannot adjust the height of any point by less than about 5 metres. With 2006 I can make very fine adjustments and achieve the shapes of slope that particular locations require.

Peter
 
Is there a hint in which you can zoom in and out while in driver or surveyor w/ using'page up,page down,and the mouse scroller?
 
No offence, but this is getting like a Questions thread again, which there already is. This is just to post tips and tricks.

Thanks, Dave
 
cascaderailroad said:
Here I use track to carve, or in this case...raise topography to build hills and mountains. Using the holding down on the shift key method of laying track, so as to prevent them from clicking together like magnets. I laid five concentric circles of track, three grids apart from each other. I also laid five curved segments in the background. Next I applied a track height of 5 to the bottom, 10 to the next layer, 15 to the next, 20 to the next, and finally 25 to the upper layer.



Start hitting each track progressively with the "Smooth Spline" tool, starting at the bottom and working my way upwards towards the top of the hillside.

[img]

Then finish it off by deleting the track segments...and then apply the proper textures.

Note the cliff backdrop in the extreme background was laid at a height of 400. Forget the decimal points, just use the whole numbers you wish track to be elevated to.

Wide road splines also work great, and much better. The wider the spline, the more area it will displace when hitting the "Smooth Spline" tool.[/quote]

Won't this give you steps instead of slopes? I put the splines in a similar fashion to yours, but at 90 degrees to the slope. Then lay many more along the length of the hill and smooth all of them out.

To each his own. :)

Cheerio,
Nicholas.
Click to expand...
 
Track/Road Splines

Yes...horizontally, vertically, diagonaly, it works well in all ways, as long as you place the track splines or road splines somewhat close together, and the heights not so drasticly different, it eliminates the steps or terrace effects. You can create very irregular shaped realistic mountains and hills by making the track or road spline real curvey with alot of spline point circles added.:cool:
 
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Even though I'm still relatively new to the game, I have been working on a new route and have learned quite a bit, thanks to this topic.
One trick I've found works well for me is when you're doing a mountain pass. When you add the track and the grades, you raise your overall land height. What I like to do is get the maximum height of the track at the end of the current baseboard, then raise the height of the new one to match. This allows me to build my mountains a lot easier and eliminate overly jagged looking mountains.
Also, don't be afraid to add a tunnel or 2 when you do a long mountain pass. On my route, I tried putting track through a huge mountain I built and when I smoothed the track out, it looked more like the Grand Canyon and that's not what I wanted.
 
Tunnels

The secret is NOT using the "Smooth Spline" tool...but to apply a dighole, and apply your spline points before the tunnel...and to drag the tunnel exit spline points ouside of the exit tunnel....and apply them there...possibly the "Hold Shft Key" is the way I did it...It's been awhile...but if I can do it, anyone can...I'm a Trainz and PC dummie...but I end up getting it to work.

Sometimes a false front tunnel, using just regular dark tunnel track, is better than using a "tunnel track spline"
 
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Isn't that what all of Andi06's (and practically every other third party tunnel) does? :hehe: In fact, TRS06 already has some of such tunnels already.
 
No

On the contrary...I found that alot of tunnel splines are extremely limiting, as they self align (snap to the grid). Making your own tunnels makes for a more pleasing, and accurate effect.:cool:

The secret is NOT using the "Smooth Spline" tool...but to apply your own dighole, and apply your spline points before the tunnel...and to drag the tunnel exit spline points ouside of the exit tunnel....and apply them there...possibly the "Hold Shft Key" is the way I did it...It's been awhile...but if I can do it, anyone can...I'm a Trainz and PC dummie...but I end up getting it to work.

Sometimes a false front tunnel, using just regular dark tunnel track, is better than using a "tunnel track spline" that snaps to the grid.
 
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I seem to remember being able to something to straighten track by using alt or shift ? . You click on a spline point and pressed the alt or shift key and clicked on the spline to be straightened or smoothed.

A section of curved track with many spline points ended up being smooth.
I have searched but am unable to find a reference.
 
nicky9499 said:
This would work well for freeform routes too; (in chronological order)
> Terrain
> Track and/or spline heights
> Increase all elevated spline points by 0.2
> Smooth splines
> Decrease the same spline points by 0.2
> Objects, roads, rivers etc
> Texture
> Natural vegetation

The reason behind the raising and lowering of 0.2 is because "smooth spline height" actually lowers the ground 0.2m more than the trackbed. You should get the idea.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.
Click to expand...

It's less easy to calculate reducing the height of all the spline points by 0.2m unless you add 0.2m to each spline point beforehand e.g. Easy - 10.2m reduce to 10m. Harder - 10m reduce to 9.8m
 
For those of you who have an unworkable map, check and see if the .gnd is still intact in the folder. Before I upgraded my computer I lost a large map, which refused to save after working on it. I think there was an issue with memory, it had got too large, but I can't be sure that was the problem.

I kept the map folder, however and have copied and pasted a .gnd file from another map folder I've been working on. The result is the the 'lost' map is saved, although there are issues with previously contoured areas, it's not too much of a problem and mostly OK. It just needs some work on it.

All of the content is there and the trackwork and splines. So, better to have a map back that has lost some of the work on it, than no map at all.
 
I discovered this by accident. I have a test track with a straight rated at 100mph. Fine for express workings but local and slow goods workings tend to try to bust the boiler trying to make the speed, so how to slow them down?
While trying to get Alastair to run in the right direction I put several track marks along it only, in my haste to see it work, I put "Drive to..." instead of "Drive via..." and hey presto! he slows as he comes to the track mark and then speeds up before slowing for the next one. I found that by varying the distances between the marks you can pretty much set the maximum speed. So, for slow or local working use "Drive to..." while for express working use "Drive via" (Or you can just leave them out altogether!)
 
SpeedyReidy said:
I discovered this by accident. I have a test track with a straight rated at 100mph. Fine for express workings but local and slow goods workings tend to try to bust the boiler trying to make the speed, so how to slow them down?
While trying to get Alastair to run in the right direction I put several track marks along it only, in my haste to see it work, I put "Drive to..." instead of "Drive via..." and hey presto! he slows as he comes to the track mark and then speeds up before slowing for the next one. I found that by varying the distances between the marks you can pretty much set the maximum speed. So, for slow or local working use "Drive to..." while for express working use "Drive via" (Or you can just leave them out altogether!)
Click to expand...

I think there is a MaxPermittedSpeed rule floating about on the DLS or elsewhere, IF it isn't built-in already. Saves a lot of hassle. ;)
 
I know this...

:cool: If you change the config.txt files for correct mass of the locomotives & cars you are usually bringing them above what they were originally set for which means they are light-weight & are easily moved...

I load my stuff up to the max, my trains crawl.

Correct signal placement including intermediate signals also help train the AI Driver on taking junctions & speed limits.
 
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