Invisible trees - but they are not!

Yesterday I tried to place some trees on a route I am building. After placing several, the next few did not appear in Surveyor. I exited, saving amendements, and re-opened. The invisible trees were there! Very odd.

So if anyone else has this problem, the solution is simple. Of course, this may be well known - but I hadn't come across it before in seven years, of which two or more with 2010.

Ray

Were these Speed Trees? Did you do a lot of "undoing"? This happened to me a few weeks ago in TS12. I was "landscaping" with speed trees and was undoing and redoing a lot. All of a sudden the speed trees would not show up in the surveyor pick list anymore nor if I tried to place them. I saved, quit and came back in and everything was OK again.

I been trying to force myself to use undo less and use the delete button instead. So far, so good.

Andrew

Hi Ray,

This has been an issue with the Speed Tree assets from day one. They hog the video memory then disappear. Exiting and starting the edit again usually fixes the problem. If it continues afterwards, I'll exit from Trainz completely and start again. This seems to fix the problem most of the time.

John

Another solution is to move away from the area you are in, wait a second, then move back.

Were these Speed Trees? Did you do a lot of "undoing"?

Click to expand...

Andrew - 1) yes 2)no. It seems that my experience was not unique - although it was for the first time.

This has been an issue with the Speed Tree assets from day one.

Click to expand...

John - thank you. At least I know what to do if it happens again! But I prefer Speed Trees to the 'older' style, although I shall have to keep an eye on the memory requirements. I do try to keep to just one type, randomly rotated, in a given area.

Another solution is to move away from the area you are in, wait a second, then move back.

Click to expand...

Paul - another helpful solution - thank you.

Ray

Ray,

If you are trying to place a lot of speedtrees, the best way of doing it without having this problem of invisible trees etc. is to make a small group somewhere in your layout then use the copy and paste method to place them where you want them. You can then use the move and rotate tools for final positioning.
It is a good idea anyway to keep the number of different types of trees to a small number, since this will reduce the amount that has to be loaded into memory when in Driver. Using small groups and 'copy and paste' will keep the number of types of trees down. I am talking here about the number of tree types, not the total number of trees in the map. I have some routes with hundreds of speedtrees and have never had a problem after I started using this method.

Scottish

Scottish - many thanks for your advice. Copy and paste sounds like a very good idea - I will certainly try it for a large area of trees. At the time I mentioned above, I was placing an avenue of trees in a straight line, using my 10 metre marker spline (available from the DLS) for even spacing, and trying different types to select the best one.

I'm certainly aware of the need to limit the number of different types of trees, and as the next area to model will consist of just two varieties, I will use your suggestion then.

Ray