WIP screenshots of the B&M Hoosac Tunnel East Portal.

Thanks for those vey kind comments. While making a video of T:ANE in action is not itself a difficult task, making the video interesting enough to hold a viewer's attention is a challenge. 'Light & Shadow' is a little experiment in using a variety of techniques and effects to do just that. There is only so much that can be done in a Trainz video. This is the first time I used the 'streaming video' recorder built into Windows 10. It seems to work out well, shooting the video from within Windows. The app doesn't appear to add much overhead load overall. I recently purchased Sony Movie Studio 13 suite, which included Sound Forge Audio Studio and two other apps in the package ($100 US). Using the Movie Studio effects was fun and can yield some interesting results, such as the old time movie scratches, flicker and jitter. The transition from black & white to color was an eye catcher and not too difficult to accomplish. The overlapping transitions from cut to cut was also a simple task. But overall there was very little editing of the original recording. I did add some reverb to the sound track and edited over those aggravating 'thumps' that accompany some sound loops from within T:ANE. I enjoyed making this video and I'm looking forward to putting up more in the future.
 
As noted above, we developed a new river texture for the Deerfield River. Utilizing T:ANE's built-in water was not an option as the river drops in elevation several hundred feet from the Hoosac Tunnel area to its confluence with the Connecticut River in Greenfield, Ma. Although these new textures are, in the end, just simple ground textures with a normal map applied, they were developed over several months with numerous versions. Getting a mountain stream 'just right' was a task in itself. The river is quite shallow, normally, so in addition to capturing surface effects we wanted to show underwater rocks, giving an effect of depth. I think we accomplished all that, finally. While I'm still not committed to these textures as the 'final' version, as I think they are still a bit too light overall, I do like how they look. I don't think N3V has yet implemented 'reflectivity' as a ground texture property. When (and if) they do I think we can indeed, show some quite realistic river/stream effects. These textures were created from photos of the Deefield River taken several years ago. Some screenies of the new textures applied to the route are here:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...77&authkey=!AAtEd3dc9BxSBn0&ithint=folder,jpg
 
Here's a comparison shot between the still WIP and recently reworked East Portal yard and an early 1920s or 1930s photo of the same area. Still to do is the proprietary catenary as seen in the old photograph. This catenary is quite different than anything else around, including the supports, stringers, and the rest of the kit. than what's available in-game. This means yet another project to be done.

We will be showcasing the route and T:ANE at the upcoming 150th Anniversary celebration tour of the Mt. Washington Old Peppersass locomotive on June 25th and June 26th, 2016. North Adams will be the stop in Massachusetts as the locomotive is toured around the country. There will be rides available on the actual locomotive!

http://www.northadamshistory.org/events.htm









 
You guys are definitely doing a very fine job with this. Had a look at your river textures and think they look great.

Jack
 
Hi Guys.

Thank you for the compliments, but I'll send them Mike's way since he's doing most of the work on the route. Being a single-user (ahem) program, it's best that one person works on the project for now. At the moment, I've been proofing, vetting, and doing other background tasks while Mike has been doing the grungy bulk of the work.

He reworked the yard the other day and will send me a copy of the route so I can incorporate that into the HT&W, which connects at the wye and is a whole project in its self.

Mike agrees the catenary is going to be a lot of work. He's making it in Blender, and we will see it hopefully at some point. It's one of those things where you get tired and want to nap rather than work on. :)

Jack, I'll pass the word on to Mike about the river textures. He was concerned they weren't any good, though I agree they are great and are perfect, and are actually derived from photos of the actual river in the valley here.

John
 
How does the Windows 10 recording system work? By the way, great work. The river textures are quite nice. It's hard to make a good body of water in Trainz.
 
I think the river textures are absolutely brilliant.
I say this because I drive across countryside that has wee little rivers with bends and "billabongs" and many shallow parts.
If I am not in a hurry, I stop and get out and take pictures of the rivulets and flowing waters. This is why I think this work is excellent.

Of the wee rivers, some are murky, some are green, and some are clear.
Irrigation channels are often filled with arrowroot weeds (they have to be pulled out) and never clear.

Here are some irrigation channels not far from home:

channel%20003.JPG


Just like trains, you can spot the irrigation channels from the road because they usually have embankments.

What is above is a main channel. The one below is what the farmer buys, 24 hours of a waterwheel turning to fill his channels:

channel%20004.JPG


And this is what he spreads over his property: this is called 'soaking a paddock'.

channel%20005.JPG


And here are the weeds, they take away the water.

Lots of main channels and farm channels adjacent railway lines over here.

channel%20008.JPG
 
Thanks for the positive responses on the route , guys. A 'thumbs up' here and there keeps us motivated.
While John downplays his role on the route, he's really quite helpful. Being an 'insider' he knows TANE quite well. He serves as 'technical advisor' in all phases of route creation as well as being a sounding board and objective critic. Generally we discuss methods and variations as well as content creation, as the route progresses. I know he's wanting to see the overhead catenary in place, before the June show up in North Adams. This may or may not happen.............it's a somewhat daunting task, as the cat wire structures are quite unique to the B&M. However, we do have several versions loaded into TANE; which were created in Blender, months ago.
For those who are interested in the new river textures, they can be found on the DLS. They comprise a set of six matched textures: four named RiverTex_1 (through 4)_mbk, and two called Riverstone_1 (and 2)_mbk. Enjoy!
Right now we're working on a substation building found in the East Portal Yards, We will upload new textures and buildings to the DLS as they become available.
The WIN10 recording app may or may not be installed on your OS. It's available as a free download from Microsoft. Google (Bing) it. Personally I think your better off with Fraps.
 
I think the WIN10 app only records to 480p. Your best recordings are at 1080p or better. Of course it all depends on how much muscle your mobo/video card can muster. Good Luck.
regards
steamboat
 
Can you show me where your water dials are set, that's just the color I need for the Tug River. I just cant seem to get the colors right. Thanks.
 
At this time, we have no water dials set for the route(s) because we don't use 'TANE water'. It's rather undrinkable do to the slope of the Deerfield River as it flows to the Connecticut.
However, we do us 'water ground textures' which are cool, clear and refreshing. We even canoe in the stuff sometimes!
 
While I'm taking a break from route building I'll use this time to update our progress and experiences; more as 'sea stories' than tech info.
John and I arrived in North Adams, MA. in the late afternoon of Friday, June 24th. We checked in with Chuck Cahoon, our resident North Adams Historical Society contact, who showed us where we could set up our little travelling circus. Thank God it was inside and air conditioned, as the Saturday and Sunday temps went into the 80's. We next checked in to our 'condo's', located in a vacation 'resort' complex about 18 miles distant. It was pleasant and relaxing with a great swimming pool and (mostly) nice folks.
Saturday morning we were back in North Adams at Heritage Park. John set up his 32" TV and his laptop, loaded with the route and several videos.
I am pleased to report that the Hoosac route, and the Trainz program (T:ANE) was greeted with oooohh's, aaahh's, surprise and smiles. We got compliments not only from the North Adams Historical Society and the Heritage Park Museum; but also from the Rowe (MA.) Historical Society, the Shelbourne Falls Trolley Museum, and the Boston & Maine RR Historical Society, as well as positive comments from several authors who have published histories of the Hoosac Tunnel construction. All in all, a very positive experience.
And here I would be remiss if I didn't give a thumbs up to N3V and the TANE team. Great job guys! Your program was received well. And to Roland Ziegler; who created the TransDEM program, a great 'Thank You'. It was his program that made the entire project possible. Historical Societies and museums demand a bit of excellence in re-creating scenes and routes; and even our bare Berkshire hills and mounts created a bit of eye popping response.
After a day's rest, John and I were out walking the old routes, camera clicking away. We got to the west portal, the east portal and even waked some of the old HT&W route. We covered an area from Williamstown, Ma. to Shelbourne Falls, Ma. snapping pix of old mills, right of way, and even the beautiful countryside itself. Regretfully we had to leave Friday morn. We are now planning another trip for September.
John has all the pix and will comment here later.
Regards to all
Mike
 
Hi gang...
Apparently I was never aware that there was another group that was striving to recreate the Hoosac Tunnel territory in TRS. I have been puttering around with just that for several years now in my spare time. My recreation of the East Portal territory is physically complete but still need scenery detailing. Everything though is accurate down to the actual placement of catenary towers. I had friends produce both the towers and the electric motors. Signals are all accurate and placed where they should be. The armstrong East Portal tower is there along with all rods and bellcranks. I have links to image screen shots while I was in production. I wish I had a current image of the color light signals in place but I only just stumbled upon this thread while I was doing an HT&W image search with Google.
hoosac-03.jpg
hoosac-04.jpg
hoosac-05.jpg

hoosac-01.jpg
hoosac-02.jpg
 
:udrool: Dang .. Man that looks great . what catenary are you using ? It works well with your work , Please post more shots


Matt
 
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