Winter Scenery Search

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chris2001trainz2010

C2K
:wave: Hello, all. Chris here.

I recently (this morning) uploaded some pics of my Moonbrooke & Western project's new winter style in the Model Railroadz thread, wherei also asked for some help. What i basically asked was...

Are there any winter-themed SpeedTrees available?

Here's what i'm using now: some old billboard trees i found.

SL3cGMp.jpg


With TANE rolling around, i'd like to replace the billboard trees with SpeedTrees due to what i've heard a little about hat TANE does to the old billboard trees.

On a side note, how do you guys think i should fill up he scenery around the yard? Just wondering what you guys think scenery-wise.

Since i haven't gotten a response in the Model Railroadz thread, so i decided to just ask here in the General Trainz portion of the Forums.

As with all of my Q&A threads, any suggestions are appreciated.

Best Regards,
 
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Chris,

You may want to hold off on replacing your trees with Speed Treez before bringing the route into T:ANE. In fact it's actually the opposite issue until there are new Speed Treez for T:ANE. Any current, version 5.0 Speed Treez as found in TS12, will not come in at all. The solution for now is to replace the current Speed Treez with old billboards.

As far as winter trees go, I can't remember off hand... Most trees are bare or remain green, as in the pines and fir trees. I really don't recall seeing any snow clumps which would be ideal.

John
 
I realize we are talking about trees here.. But the roof of the roundhouse.. should have some snow? Unless there is so much heat coming from inside that it melts the snow. Just a thought.
 
JCitron said:
Chris,

.. As far as winter trees go, I can't remember off hand... Most trees are bare or remain green, as in the pines and fir trees. I really don't recall seeing any snow clumps which would be ideal.

John
Click to expand...

That's actually by deliberate design.

The convention for Trainz seasonal assets such as trees has them displaying summer, autumn, spring and winter skins depending on the time of year. But the winter skin does not, or should not, include snow. The most you should get from adjusting the time of year alone is a bare tree in winter season. Snow is invoked independently of season - it is only displayed if the layout's snowline value (under Environmental settings) is adjusted to be lower than the actual altitude of the layout (provided the asset has a snow skin and the correct config to show it).

The reason they have done it this way is to allow for places which have winters without snow, but to still allow users to force the snow when they want it. It took me ages to really understand the logic of this, because like many others, I just assumed winter = snow. But of course, it doesn't always, and the convention allows for that.



.
 
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It's a personal reskin. Still waiting for Andi06's PM about releasing it, but then i'll have to contact sniper297 cause i used his textures and reskinned them, not AJ's original textures.
 
Dinorius_Redundicus said:
That's actually by deliberate design.

The convention for Trainz seasonal assets such as trees has them displaying summer, autumn, spring and winter skins depending on the time of year. But the winter skin does not, or should not, include snow. The most you should get from adjusting the time of year alone is a bare tree in winter season. Snow is invoked independently of season - it is only displayed if the layout's snowline value (under Environmental settings) is adjusted to be lower than the actual altitude of the layout (provided the asset has a snow skin and the correct config to show it).

The reason they have done it this way is to allow for places which have winters without snow, but to still allow users to force the snow when they want it. It took me ages to really understand the logic of this, because like many others, I just assumed winter = snow. But of course, it doesn't always, and the convention allows for that.



.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I forgot about that and it took me awhile to comprehend this little detail as well since where I live winter = snow 99.9999% of the time. In fact we finally got rid of the last of a Mt. Everest-size pile in my driveway about a week ago. :D

John
 
And I live in a place that never sees snow but when it comes to seasonal assets, we must think globally not locally. Scenery in Trainz could be placed anywhere from Boston to Bangkok.

Under the convention, the good news for making buildings "seasonal" is that they don't need to have 4 or 5 alternative skins like trees do. They only need 2 - just the regular skin for all the seasons and a snowy skin for when the snowline trick is used to make it display snow. The config is also relatively simple since it doesn't need any code related to time of year, only the bits related to snowline.

Usually the hardest part is making a realistic-looking snowy texture that fits in with the UV mapping of the asset. It's rarely good enough to simply make everything white.


.
 
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When did seasonal buildings get added to Trainz?
I've been away so long, I didn't have a clue it had been added.

And does anyone know if it's getting carried over into T:ANE?
 
Go check out the speed trees thread in the T:ANE Forum. I think McGuriel's new speed trees will have the Snow ability (Though she doesn't explicitly say this, she definitely has some nice shots of some speed trees wearing a winter "coat", lol).

Falcus
 
Smileyman said:
When did seasonal buildings get added to Trainz?
I've been away so long, I didn't have a clue it had been added.

And does anyone know if it's getting carried over into T:ANE?
Click to expand...

Brian,

It's been there for Kind scenery and groundtexture items at least since TS2010. TS12 extended it to splines I believe, but I can't confirm that since I don't have TS12. I'm (unofficially) sure it will also be in T:ANE.

Not many creators bother to make their scenery "seasonal", and if they don't happen to show the snowy version in a thumbnail image, or have "seasonal" in the name, you may not notice. It's frequently a pain in the backside to make them and effectively they are 2 assets in one, so they make for some big downloads especially if we use normal map textures. I've made quite a few like that myself, but sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it.

The German trainzer TUME is into making snow scenery big time and is worth checking out. He's also been very helpful to me personally in patiently explaining the logic of why snow in Trainz should not be part of the time-of-year seasons, but independent from them. (Uwe, if you're reading this, thank you once again!).

~ Deane


.
 
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Looks like I've got a bit of catching up to do. :)

I'm surprised they didn't use texture replacement, rather than the 2 models in 1 approach.
Seems like it would have made more sense.

I've noticed TUME's pics in another thread.
I think he's the one creating a new route for T:ANE isn't he?
The screenshots look great!

Brian.
 
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