shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
If they are built-in assets there is a very good chance that the game will not start.
Shane
Shane
Yikes! My layouts have been infested with weeds!
- Thread starter Zapata935
- Start date
Good evening. I think it would be good to have the option to switch on or off the automatic replacement of the trees. Especially in TS2010, where the original trees still look their best in compatibility mode. (Some trees look good in both modes. And I find that on a powerful computer, compatibility mode poses no problem anymore on not too crowded maps.) Since a handful of trees is replaced by just one speedtree, the original diversity of trees is lost as well, and it cannot be restored by replacing the speedtree by a more satisfying tree. I really think the option would be welcome, it would allow a mix of old trees and modern trees, the latter being planted on purpose.
Paul
Paul
Paul,
There are now 3rd-party Speed Tree assets available which you can use to replace the built-ins on your routes. Check out those by mcguirel and others that are available on the DLS. If you want to venture to a Russian site, check out those by Pofig. These creators have done an outstanding job create much better looking and more realistic trees than those supplied to us by N3V. I think of the N3V trees as examples upon which the true artists expanded upon to make better assets.
John
mezzoprezzo
Content appreciator
Just get the right product...
Some of us don't get the problem at all!
(Cartoon tree photoshopped)
Some of us don't get the problem at all!
(Cartoon tree photoshopped)
Thanks John,
I am very well aware of it, I have been into Pofig's wonderful trees for a long time. I have ventured out into Russian and Ukranian sites two years ago, and I have visited more sites there than anywhere else. Well over one hundred I think (with no problems at all.) With Google Translate I have had few problems in understanding what buttons to push on Yandex and loads of other file storage sites. I daresay that the Russian trainzers are ahead of others, although they put an emphasis on prototypical and technical correctness of the maps more than on anything else.
I do however maintain my opinion that some of the older trees create a finer ambiance on some routes; Pofig's trees are heavier, more overwhelming. Anyway, replacing a not-so-beautiful speedtree by a realistic one does not change the fact that two, three, maybe eight old-fashioned trees (cardboard is what the Russians call them) have been replaced previously by a single speedtree, thus very much reducing the variety of trees. Now that computers are more powerful, it is perfect (for me) to maintain TS2009 and run the old maps in compatibility mode in TS2009.
If only TS2010 would have the aforementioned on/off option, we could have the best of both worlds in one game. This may not hold for multiplayer users, but that is another topic.
Paul
I'm glad you're not so scared to venture off and look to the blue yonder for assets. 
I've found some really nice things out there as well and yes, Yandex is a bit confusing even with the translators in place.
I agree that the Speed Trees are a bit heavy size wise. This is something I hope content creators will remedy. I looked into the creation tools myself, but they are well beyond my pensioner's budget, and Windwalkr piped in and said hold off because the version might change. You also need to get the older version as the new one won't work. I'm glad I was informed of that should I decide later when I scrape up some cash. What I would like to see are forest-clumps of a sort. These aren't the full trees with the fancy bark and detailed leaves. We don't need this for the background. What we need are forests with straight simple trunks and a big tree canopy. They would look nice for the background and be realistic as forests tend to have bare bottoms and full tops as the trees drive upwards for light. The other issue I have too is the size of the trees. Where I live, at least, the trees are a lot smaller for the most part. The bigger trees are long gone except around the older homes and estates. The remaining ones became furniture and firewood nearly a century ago, and were most likely cleared away too for the many farms that once dotted New England. Today we have new growth forests and our trees are thinner, smaller, and less densely packed.
Cardboard trees is an excellent analogy. In a sense they are very much like old printed cardstock as the setup is very similar. The image is printed on various bits of cardboard that are crisscrossed in a star pattern. In the architectural world, they use these as well as film positives of tree images to represent foliage. Sound familiar? They look just like the older trees that we have in Trainz. The difference between the cardboard and our older-billboards is our trees will flip around to face the camera. This is why they are sometimes referred to as flip board trees. The problem with them is they don't render well with newer video cards, use up a lot of resources, and worse, don't cast shadows or block light. They will forever look the same whether it's light or dark, raining or snowing. After all, they are pictures of trees pasted on a thin mesh. There are some newer ones, however, that are fairly decent, but they too suffer from the same ills as the older ones will when it comes to the newer simulator (T:ANE) and light blocking and shadow casting will be out. We don't have this capability now, but this seems to be a new feature in the new version which will truly help make things more realistic.
I agree that the replacement process was a bit haphazard to be nice about it. N3V should have been a bit more careful with that as I agree having a multitude of trees being replaced by a single species isn't very well thought out. The problem now is you can't even replace those with the search and replace tool because you'll end up replacing all at once, and this doesn't look good when they are next to each other.
John
I've found some really nice things out there as well and yes, Yandex is a bit confusing even with the translators in place.I agree that the Speed Trees are a bit heavy size wise. This is something I hope content creators will remedy. I looked into the creation tools myself, but they are well beyond my pensioner's budget, and Windwalkr piped in and said hold off because the version might change. You also need to get the older version as the new one won't work. I'm glad I was informed of that should I decide later when I scrape up some cash. What I would like to see are forest-clumps of a sort. These aren't the full trees with the fancy bark and detailed leaves. We don't need this for the background. What we need are forests with straight simple trunks and a big tree canopy. They would look nice for the background and be realistic as forests tend to have bare bottoms and full tops as the trees drive upwards for light. The other issue I have too is the size of the trees. Where I live, at least, the trees are a lot smaller for the most part. The bigger trees are long gone except around the older homes and estates. The remaining ones became furniture and firewood nearly a century ago, and were most likely cleared away too for the many farms that once dotted New England. Today we have new growth forests and our trees are thinner, smaller, and less densely packed.
Cardboard trees is an excellent analogy. In a sense they are very much like old printed cardstock as the setup is very similar. The image is printed on various bits of cardboard that are crisscrossed in a star pattern. In the architectural world, they use these as well as film positives of tree images to represent foliage. Sound familiar? They look just like the older trees that we have in Trainz. The difference between the cardboard and our older-billboards is our trees will flip around to face the camera. This is why they are sometimes referred to as flip board trees. The problem with them is they don't render well with newer video cards, use up a lot of resources, and worse, don't cast shadows or block light. They will forever look the same whether it's light or dark, raining or snowing. After all, they are pictures of trees pasted on a thin mesh. There are some newer ones, however, that are fairly decent, but they too suffer from the same ills as the older ones will when it comes to the newer simulator (T:ANE) and light blocking and shadow casting will be out. We don't have this capability now, but this seems to be a new feature in the new version which will truly help make things more realistic.
I agree that the replacement process was a bit haphazard to be nice about it. N3V should have been a bit more careful with that as I agree having a multitude of trees being replaced by a single species isn't very well thought out. The problem now is you can't even replace those with the search and replace tool because you'll end up replacing all at once, and this doesn't look good when they are next to each other.
John
Thanks John, for sharing your thoughts. I do not know anything about the technicalities of the speedtrees. Some are really wonderful. And for sure, the old trees have a lot of shortcomings, such as the alpha problem when transparency is partial (a lot of wrong ordering and flickering as a result), but some map creators have done really well in choosing the right combinations where such effects are almost absent. The are some wonderful french routes out there (but the search for assets is a major task; it has become addictive because I keep on finding new sites and new routes). I guess everyone has his favourite way of trainzing. Mine is driving a map for the first time, with a camera in front of the train to enjoy the landscape.
Paul
Paul