Tips for building a route.
- Thread starter nuni727
- Start date
The best advice I can offer you, is practice, practice, practice - remember, you're building a route for yourself, first and foremost - doesn't matter that which others think, its YOUR creation. Use light hands on the mouse when texturing, rotate textures like grass, etc randomly, to break up the pattern - experiment with various displacements and such...the list truly is endless - look at others routes, see what inspires you and how the did something - and just keep practiicng 
Hi nuni7270: It is your world do what you want to do..What ever topology you do try to blend colors etc, at the edges particularly..A good way to do this is push the Bracket [] key at the same time your texturing..also try to keep light hand, when texturing..Sometimes I like to make swipes of a second or third color(Do it fast)..You always want to start out with a base or neutral color, then add to that..
Remember when your laying track try to lay it in one direction..and always smooth your track with the smoothing tool, under track tab in surveyor mode..Even if you are using a gradient, be sure to use the smoothing tool..
Good luck in your route building and always remember there is some out there willing to help you..
Remember when your laying track try to lay it in one direction..and always smooth your track with the smoothing tool, under track tab in surveyor mode..Even if you are using a gradient, be sure to use the smoothing tool..
Good luck in your route building and always remember there is some out there willing to help you..
The build
I guess I can post here with a certain amount of authority... lol.
Won't go over texturing again, it's been done well enough, the only thing I will say is experiment on a board or two and try to get your fields or whatever looking like real ones, mostly with the light multi-texturing techniques.
You need to think about what you want to achieve, whether it be a prototypical or fictitious route, it still needs some planning. Having said that my Overhills & Faraway began life as an experiment with the deep valley and two river gorges just to see what I could do with them, then it just grew.
But a plan is much better and I did plan the rest of Overhills once it got going, otherwise where do you stop?
Decisions about an end-to-end or continuous circular type of route, what you wish it to be based on, for instance passenger with light goods or mainly goods with a bit of passenger work. Will it be in or near a town or set entirely in countryside? The latter has a lot to be said for it because frame rates when you run in Driver will be much better. But the type of work your route will do will also govern where it will end up.
Beware of railway lines on long embankments in towns, they destroy frame rates, I know, I tried it. This is because you are set higher up than normal so can see farther which means more detailed scenery.
Try to keep detail down away from the tracks, it won't be seen that much anyway, but do put a realistic amount in both sides and especially close alongside the running lines. A base of texture with splines assets of grass laid over that will bring that area to life, the AJS and FMA folk both do good grasses.
The 'greenery' trees are really nice and sticking to one type as much as possible will help your frame rate too. You can download them here :-
http://www.greenery.name/mstsg/mstsgd.htm?trainz,2
The main things is to create a lifelike railway, one you will enjoy both building and running. You won't manage it straight away, but if you do then congratualtions... however most folk (me included) took quite a while to get used to the different variations that can be used in Surveyor and many of the little tricks employed. These will come in time.
Practice and experiment, and have fun....
Angela
I guess I can post here with a certain amount of authority... lol.
Won't go over texturing again, it's been done well enough, the only thing I will say is experiment on a board or two and try to get your fields or whatever looking like real ones, mostly with the light multi-texturing techniques.
You need to think about what you want to achieve, whether it be a prototypical or fictitious route, it still needs some planning. Having said that my Overhills & Faraway began life as an experiment with the deep valley and two river gorges just to see what I could do with them, then it just grew.
But a plan is much better and I did plan the rest of Overhills once it got going, otherwise where do you stop?
Decisions about an end-to-end or continuous circular type of route, what you wish it to be based on, for instance passenger with light goods or mainly goods with a bit of passenger work. Will it be in or near a town or set entirely in countryside? The latter has a lot to be said for it because frame rates when you run in Driver will be much better. But the type of work your route will do will also govern where it will end up.
Beware of railway lines on long embankments in towns, they destroy frame rates, I know, I tried it. This is because you are set higher up than normal so can see farther which means more detailed scenery.
Try to keep detail down away from the tracks, it won't be seen that much anyway, but do put a realistic amount in both sides and especially close alongside the running lines. A base of texture with splines assets of grass laid over that will bring that area to life, the AJS and FMA folk both do good grasses.
The 'greenery' trees are really nice and sticking to one type as much as possible will help your frame rate too. You can download them here :-
http://www.greenery.name/mstsg/mstsgd.htm?trainz,2
The main things is to create a lifelike railway, one you will enjoy both building and running. You won't manage it straight away, but if you do then congratualtions... however most folk (me included) took quite a while to get used to the different variations that can be used in Surveyor and many of the little tricks employed. These will come in time.
Practice and experiment, and have fun....
Angela
If you're looking to build a prototype route then a small outlay on Transdem will repay itself several times over. There's a fairly easy learning curve to understand the basics but once yoy've grasped that it becomes a doddle to get your basic terraformed/mapping overlaid "boards" in Surveyor and go from there.
I have been thinking of making my own layout and have been looking at some from the DLS. One thing has me confused though; does one make a route purely for scenery (ie just to run trains on to look at) or for the purpose of running trains (ie to meet industry needs-passengers,freight etc). Some I have downloaded seem to be for industry but don't cater for all the products eg the lumber mill is supplied with logs and has an outlet for its lumber but the woodchip piles up with nothing to use it for and eventually stops everything working. It was said in an earlier post that " its your world you can do what you like" but it just seems that no-one really thinks this asspect out. To me it seems as if it is one or half of the other. This may seem a trivial thing but it has been going round in my head for days and I am just so confused about it. Does anyone plan out a non proto route with this consideration?
Thanks
Glen
Thanks
Glen
cascaderailroad
New member
Tracklaying a curve, it always has a lead in, and lead out, straight segment of track, as do switch's.
The Hold/Don't Hold "Shift" Key is the most useful tracklaying technique.
Gradients should be under 2%, and curves should be @ 250m+ for modern mainlines.
The Hold/Don't Hold "Shift" Key is the most useful tracklaying technique.
Gradients should be under 2%, and curves should be @ 250m+ for modern mainlines.
Glen,
You can make your world as detailed as you want.
I know it sounds vague, but it's true.
Now getting down to the basics. When planning a route, other than a mock-up of a table-top model railroad, I would think it would be a good idea to plan what you want. - Wireframe it, as they say in the web design world.
Anyway, plan what you want your route to do. Come up with a story if you want. This will help set the purpose and time period. Look at maps, aerial photos, topographical maps, etc.
With my fictional route, I based it on the New England area where I live. The town names are real, but not necessarily built exactly as they are in real life. I liked the way a certain junction existed in one area for example, so I took that and added to my route, but placed the town in a totally different area. In one area, I have two cities - Plymouth and Bristol. These are good size cities, with Bristol being quite a bit larger. This are of my route is based off of a DEM terrain made by Paull Haglund (Fishlipsatwork). The actual terrain is Bangor to Bucksport, ME. I called the cities Bristol and Plymouth, respectively.
Businesses and goods all depend upon the needs of your cities. You again can model these in detail complete with interactive industries, or like me with sidings next to warehouse buildings to represent various industries in an industrial park. I make up fake switch lists, and deliver the cars one day, then go back and pick them up at a different time in the session. This doesn't mean I don't have any interactive industries, though. I use the stations for passengers, and there are a number of power plants, a few forest industries, and some interactive factories. The thing is with interactive industries, you can spend a very long time setting them up long before you even run a train, so keeing this in mind, I went back and eliminated a lot of the interactive industries I used to have on my route.
Then there are the little details. This is all up to you. Choose textures to represent the area, time, and season. Choose your buildings and road details too. Some builders have gone as far as setting up stop signs, traffic lights, and lots of people. I tend to keep these details down unless they're close to the tracks. There's no reason to have a stop sign in the middle of nowhere, besides in many cases, when your whizzing by in the train, your' not going to notice some of these very tiny details. Again, this is all up to you.
One of the biggest things that helped me in route building was to look at what other people did, and try to emulate what they did. In some cases, as my skills have gotten better, I've gone back and improved what I've done before by replacing the baseboards, or replacing textures and other content.
I could go on with more details and such on this, but I'll leave this to your imagination and experimentation to see what works best for you.
John
John,
Thank you very much for your reply. Part of the problem has been that I have been looking at it from one point of view. I usually run a route for the industry, whether it be passengers or freight or both. I start in surveyor, look at what industry is on the map, set up trains accordingly i.e. one with wagons for the forestry logs, another with flats for containers or goods etc, then loaded up 'Driver' and waited for the waybills to start rolling in to see who needs what. Being a Driver myself this is just how things operate at work so it is how I interact with Trainz I guess. I have been trying to work along the line of interlacing an industry with a close by township or city (seems silly to me to have something like a container park stuck in the middle of nowhere, for a start, where do the workers come from?) and then go from that. So far, I have Hyde Mill, a Brickworks and of course a Clay Mine to support it. There will also be a depot for the locos and rollingstock to come from and be maintained etc but just some of the planning has been doing my head in and I've been getting a bit bewildered and confused quite probably due to the way I've been looking at the problem. Thanks again for the response and I will start considering my route with your suggestions in mind
Regards
Glen
Thank you very much for your reply. Part of the problem has been that I have been looking at it from one point of view. I usually run a route for the industry, whether it be passengers or freight or both. I start in surveyor, look at what industry is on the map, set up trains accordingly i.e. one with wagons for the forestry logs, another with flats for containers or goods etc, then loaded up 'Driver' and waited for the waybills to start rolling in to see who needs what. Being a Driver myself this is just how things operate at work so it is how I interact with Trainz I guess. I have been trying to work along the line of interlacing an industry with a close by township or city (seems silly to me to have something like a container park stuck in the middle of nowhere, for a start, where do the workers come from?) and then go from that. So far, I have Hyde Mill, a Brickworks and of course a Clay Mine to support it. There will also be a depot for the locos and rollingstock to come from and be maintained etc but just some of the planning has been doing my head in and I've been getting a bit bewildered and confused quite probably due to the way I've been looking at the problem. Thanks again for the response and I will start considering my route with your suggestions in mind
Regards
Glen
just to put this out there, i discovered virtual railroader not long after i purchased UTC. on their site is a very extensive list of tutorials that cover ALOT of stuff regarding building routes and a whole series of basic building articles. i still refer back to these quite often.