Trees/Foliage for UK routes in TS2010? What do you use?

[Davie_UCF]

I've got a route ive been dabbling in for past few years throughout trainz versions.

Now in TS10 its mostly fine appart from the trees i've been using have issues with the alpha maps making them like ghosts. This can be fixed but they look a bit sharp and strange now.

I'm at the dilemma where I don't know what trees to use. What to replace the ones i've been using with..

What are people using in TS10 for foliage in native mode?

Screenshots welcome!

Thanks
David

 

[virgil_182]

I use speed trees personally.

Experiment with them, place each and every type and then decide which ones look best. Some of the speed trees are absurd, a problem I have noticed for years working with 3D content, many, many trees done in 3D look absolutely nothing like the real world trees they are supposed to represent, it seems 75 % of the speed trees are guilty of this. The other 25 %, however, look pretty fantastic, especially when one considers the benefits that they are fully 3D and react to seasonal changes. (On a side note however, fully 100 % of the speed trees look horrible and fake in their leafless winter version, so bear that in mind.)

For UK routes I've found the -tree broad leaf 4, and -tree sugar maple 2 to be excellent, quite realistic replacements.

I have updated several routes using a select few summer spring or fall speed trees to replace the old style cross trees and the routes look very good. Typically I'll use a mix, keeping the best looking cross trees, replacing most the others with speed trees.

I've found myself wondering is there a tool available that will allow route builders to modify speed tree geometry ? Short of the full version of Speed Tree. They can look quite good, they just need some work on trunks, branching, etc... Personally, I've never like speed tree much, there are much better tools available for building digital trees but speed tree has the market for games so we are stuck with it. As I've said, I think they can look quite good, if tweaked with care... which would require access to an editor, hence my question. Is there one available in trainz ?

 

[Davie_UCF]

Yeah weird people seem to hate speedtrees. I do think they're not as great as they could be but some do the job rather well really!

I tried to use a few to mix it up a bit and see if I still got the same feel I was going for before with the other trees but there doesn't seem to be much diversity with them unless i'm missing them.


Rather annoying TS10 ruined the trees I was using!

 

[misterchugg]

hi mates
can speed trrees be turned off?
i personally wont buy 2010 until i can use the australian trees that i need rather than a faulty piece of junk with funny looking trees from somewhere else

thanks
ron

 

[Pladroid]

Why would you want to turn them off? If you don't want to include speed trees on any route you build just don't put them in.

Personally I like most of them and most of them look good it's just an odd few which look bad and you could always try Ultra Trees which look good and somebody else has done some alterations to the built in ones to make them look better.

Also David some of the spline trees look okay when placed in the distance i.e. about 40 metres away from the track.

 

[misterchugg]

hi pladroid

i would prefer to use australian trees like falcon 500 makes

the posts state that speed trees are pretty crummy and i would prefer them not to use up the extra space that i can use for the goodies that i want to run

cheers
ron

 

[Pladroid]

Hi misterchugg

Some of the trees made by falcon500 are speed trees and are Australian.

See this thread for more details: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=52763

They look a lot better than the cardboard cut-out looking flat trees.

 

[misterchugg]

k
thanks
mate
i will check it later when i get home
thannks
ron