Would you like that supersized? Ground texture issues.

[mjolnir]

...or, "Would you like to supersize that texture?"

I've come to realize some of the limitations of the ground textures in TRS. This

is supposed to be a column of sedimentary rock. I don't think it's going to work, for one thing, I'd like it less angular, and I'd like to have some a plain grass texture of some type on top. My best plan of action for this at this point is to build this bit of terrain as a "structure" and install it as such.

When the height of the cliff is relatively small, as in

pretty good results can be had as shown in the bottom portion of the screen shot, where the "cliff" is about the same height as the one which can be seen further back.

Larger cliff, like

though, are more problematic, especially if the contours are as, or more, erratic as this one, though if one is willing to accept a vertical orientation of the texture, as

a reasonably tolerable result can be obtained.

But what I'd really like is for the large cliff to have an appearance like this

or this

and try as I might, I just have not been able to obtain the effect I want.

So, I've been thinking, how about a ground texture that had spline characteristics, that could be pasted along a cliff, or a riverbank. Maybe it could be a little stretchy in the "crossways" direction, but...

Or, how about the ability to trim part from an image like the second one above, and paste it over particular squares, with the image applied to the terrain as rendered, not the terrain as mapped to the baseboard grid.

Just some idle musings....

 

[boleyd]

The rock in the first picture looks very bad due to the fake ahape. Stretching textures over vertical surfaces also looks bad (see FSX). Your last methods look promising. If the texture follows the contours of the cliff and not its own, as in the first pisture, it may work.

 

[mjolnir]

The rock in the first picture looks very bad due to the fake ahape.

This work is done in 2k6, and I'm aware I'm stretching the lower limits of the capabilities of the built in tools. But I do thing there's certain promise in creating certain terrain and landscape elements as "structures". For now, though, the first picture is just a placeholder to remind myself that this is a place where I want something of similar overall dimensions.

Stretching textures over vertical surfaces also looks bad (see FSX). Your last methods look promising.

Actually, the structure-as-landscape idea might work for the other problem, too. The general process would be

1) generate the basic form of the landscape;

2) map the grid points, and elevation co-ordinates of the part you want to map;

3) make the cliff, and texture it in a 3d-modeling package, make it as a structure, rather similar to a large billboard, and import it to the game; and

4) cut out the squares where it overlaps, or just drop the terrain to some conveniently low point so it doesnt pop through the sturcture.

ns

 

[Dermmy]

All ground texture in Trainz is tied to the grid squares. Near-vertical terrain deforms the squares into long narrow rectangles at best and evil twisted rhomboids at worst. Unfortunately ground textures (which are based on a square graphic) need to be stretched to the same extent when applied to the deformed terrain 'squares'. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. Often a texture will look terrible one way, but look acceptable if rotated.

Trying to exactly duplicate real near-vertical rock forms using ground textures will always be difficult - aiming for a more impressionistic artistic approach may be more successful.

I am currently battling with the same problem in attempting to model the Union Pacific's Cane Creek Sub, part of which winds through the canyon of the Colorado River. Some screenshots can be found here.

Andy

 

[boleyd]

Very nice. Some of the 2009 textures might help for foreground. Good tree selection. If you run thr route from the engine cab how does it look? Usually this is where some trouble starts.

 

[railroy19]

Amazing Screenshots Dermmy.

Mjlnior
Try this trick I use. After you use your texture use The raise feature in surveyor And try to lift the gridwork along the cliff you will see a significant change in your textures' You need to experiment but you will see quite a change in the finished product. Play around with the radius button to achieve several views.

Bob

 

[mjolnir]

Trying to exactly duplicate real near-vertical rock forms using ground textures will always be difficult - aiming for a more impressionistic artistic approach may be more successful.

Well, it's not nearly as difficult if one is using a textures with a vertical axis of interest, than a horizontal one. I'm not really big on the impressionistic approach at this point, because I've thought of a couple of solutions which I think provide a more accurate presentation of the effect I want. As far as I can tell, modeling the cliff as a structure mesh is the only solution which can be presently implemented in Auran. I can't claim credit for the idea, as I saw it in a download of a series of river rapids water fall which appears to occupy a significant portion of a baseboard. This is the only way I can think of at the moment to get a nearly vertical cliff, and indeed, to get an overhang, or natural bridge.

Two other solutions are somewhat related; one depends upon Auran's changing the internals of the sim. If one had the ability to paste a single square of texture to an exact single square of the board, then one could create a custom texture for the several individual squares in a cliff, and pin the textures to the square as one wanted. Rotation and scaling would not be needed, as the texture would be custom fit to a particular grid square.

Given a particular grid square, suppose you know the 3 dimensional co-ordinates of the rendering of a grid square. Those co-ordinates would allow one to replicate the planes (there are a maximum of two planes in a grid square), project an image onto the replicated planes, and map the projection from the 3D on the render of the terrain to the 2D of the basemap. THis approach could actually be built into surveyor, or it could be a stand-alone utility.

I think of the three choices, I'm inclined to think the first is the most valuable. For one thing, I can envision making quite a detailed model of the cliff in one's favorite 3D modeling environment, using a material or texture, taking a picture of the detailed model, and using the picture as a texture on a simpler mesh.

ns

 

[ZecMurphy]

Hi mjolnir

There are a number of 'cliff spline' type assets on the download station which should allow you to create fairly effective cliffs on your layout. Some are under the user ID of "1854" on the download station.

 

[ldowns]

Another workaround would be to create a base texture file which is 2 or 3 times taller than wide, then resize it to a square so that everything is "squashed" vertically. When applied to a near-vertical texture it should re-stretch vertically and look more natural. Of course you'll lose some vertical resolution in the process, but if you use a fairly large texture file to start with it might not look too bad, especially from a distance. Sort of like the anamorphic lenses used to shoot extreme widescreen movies onto 70 mm film. (And it's lots of fun to go to a theater where they fail to put on the proper compensating lenses and the picture on the screen is squashed horizontally...)

--Lamont