Tutorail / Help requested

[william516]

Well decided to start diving into surveyor, and found it very similar to 2004 trainz. So atleast i was able to get used to the interface and controls however there are many questions that remain that I no longer remember from my previous layouts.

For starters one of my bigest problems in getting "good looking / realistic looking rolling hills" instead of those darn spiky hills. I have looked at the built in tracks in surveyor and can not for the life of me figure out how they get those nice slopes and real looking hills. Not only that but then there is the problem of getting the track "up" or "down" to those locations and making it look good. Have yet to suceed in this area. How do you get a track to slowly curve up a mountain. There has to be an easy or fairly easy way to do this as i have seen it in so many routes. Can someone help me with a step by step process to make good looking inclines. I know the gradiant tool has to be used but i have never got the thing to work realisticly. What would be the normal / max grade that a train can climb or decend and how would you apply that to a curved grade. I have tried laying the track first and adding hills later and the reverse but still nothing that looks good. Are there any good tutorials via video or text that can help with the surveyor.

Also can someone explain how to get the mag lev train to run. I know it needs a ton of room but yet i have not managed to get the track to look right.

I'm sure i will think of a ton of other questions later as i keep chugging along.

Thanks for the help
Bill

 

[thegrindre]

Do you mean like this? That grade is about a 2%er.

Here's an aerial view;

Those yellow spline points are what I adjust in increments as I either climb or descend a hill I've made. (They are somewhat evenly spaced for a proper grade.) I then 'snap' the terrain to fit the track once the splines have been set. Then I mold the terrain carefully around my work.

I believe there is a number of ways to do it but I do it this way.


In the Topography tool, I use the smallest area circle most of the time. A larger area circle will raise or lower that whole area and won't give you any precise adjusting. It takes a lot longer my way but the results are superb. I can make rolling hills or mountain peaks. (I'm pretty good at it, btw. I usually wear out 3 mice a year. The left mouse button eventually fails on me.)
Now, don't just think you can jump right in and make perfect hills. It takes a little practice with a little trial and error before you can succeed. Patience is a virtue...


Here's another area I'm working on as we speak. That grade is around 3% down to the mine.

As far as grades go, anything from 0% to as much as 6% and more are common in the train world. The steeper grades are more common in logging or mines areas. I've seen pictures of a Shay push 5 full logging cars up a 15% grade. Awesome! Absolutely awesome!

As far as the Mag Lev goes, I've dumped '06 and only use '04, now. That CMP did it for me. It's '04 and Trainz Objectz from now on.

Need more help?

 

[AussieNightcrawler]

Another thing that you can try too, displacement maps, by adjusting the threshold you can make some very nice looking hills/mountains. I use these a lot on my own layouts, making adjustments as I go to 'tweak' the effect to get it the way I want it.

(I'm pretty good at it, btw. I usually wear out 3 mice a year. The left mouse button eventually fails on me.)

Only 3 Rick? I usually go through about 5 a year... :hehe:

 

[thegrindre]

You stinker... That's a lot of clickin'. :hehe:

I use those, too, to fill in an area I'm not going to really 'tweak' per say.

 

[leeferr]

I ususally do mine the same way that Rick does. I lay my track, apply grades, snap the terrain to the track and then start adjusting with the topology tools. I use the topology circle at it's largest diameter to get low rolling hills, but decrease the diameter according to the size of the hills and the detail that I want. I use the smallest diameter setting for detail work. Also important to pay attention to is the sensitivity setting.
I've found that having the sensitivity set too high will tend to give you those spiked hills. For detail work, I set the sensitivity as low as I can get it.
This process takes a lot of practice and patience, but after some practice, you should get the hang of it.

This is just the way that I like doing it. I've also built my terrain first and then laid in the trackwork, but I prefer laying the track first.
Mike

 

[AussieNightcrawler]

Sometimes I will do it Rick's way, if I know what I want then I will lay track first, apply gradients, snap the terrain, then continue to adjust the terrain around the track as I go.

But if I don't really have a idea what I want and 'working from the hip' so to speak, I will use a displacement map first, look at it, maybe 'tweak' it or flatten it and do another displacement map with different threshold setting and try again.

You stinker... That's a lot of clickin'. :hehe:

I use those, too, to fill in an area I'm not going to really 'tweak' per say.

Yeah I know... :hehe: I will be over the moon when they make a mouse that the left click doesn't fail...

Looks good too, can't wait for the finished version...

 

[thegrindre]

It's funny how we all do it the same way DEPENDING on what we're doing. I do it the same way as you all do too, depending. It really all depends on what we're trying to do at the time. Sometimes I build mountains then lay track. Other times I'll lay track first then build the mountains around it.

Here's a little update. I replaced the mine track with Pencil42's new 30" stuff and some 760 mm...

Have fun!