Seattle - W.I.P.

I have ties to Sound Transit itself, I can ask for some design specs.
I'm very much aware of robin_hoods sounder equipment, and I use them all the time. I'm just taking the opportunity to see if I can make an 'updated' version of them. I might just only make a new interior and update the textures to HD or photographic. The F59PHI however cannot be reskinned due to how it was made, so I'll need to consider making a brand new engine (the F59s have a new livery) in addition to an MP40.

Im not promising any releases or if I will end up making them, I'm just planning out how I'm going to go about doing this.

Falcus said:

@applgath
Those are Rail-loading Doors, and the spacing there is a bit of guess work. UP redid the tracks that are currently used as Wellcar storage so they're not in their original Alignment (That whole Spur was originally the MLW Mainline into Union Station, which is now where the Bus Tunnel sits). But there IS space for the old Industry track that ran up the side of that honkin warehouse (And you can still see the stub of it on the North End where it would have met the next crossing street, so I think I got pretty close with the spacing). So I included it. At one time, almost every street in Seattle south of Denny Hill (The area where all the skyscrapers are) had tracks down them (I have a copy of an Old GN Rail Map of the area around King St Station dated 1948 which included NP and MLW lines), and many of the streets around the water front had track as well.

Space has always been at a premium in Seattle, as I had to explain to Ben Dorsey, what isn't crammed onto what little flat ground there is, is probably clinging for dear life to the side of a hill..... I did align the track so that there is probably 4-6 Inches clearance between the doors and any prospective boxcars, and thats pretty close to prototype for spacing around here (I've visited, exterior only mind, a few still operating Transload warehouses around the city). The real warehouses do still have their Rail Access doors (Though most have been bricked over, and of course the track is gone anyway), but they're not modern, they're the old "Concrete Ledge with a Sliding/Swinging door", and probably at one time had wooden or Metal Ramps inside.

If you want to hear some horror stories about the lack of space for railroads, theres a website I'll try to dig up that was written by a former MLW employee about his experiences on that line in the last few years of their operation (Think he went BN after MLW died), and there were all kinds of misery stories about their yard, which was parallel BN's (Former NP) Stacy Street Yard, crammed between a Substation (Might've even been built by MLW originally for all I know, I've been meaning to look into this, its still a Substation to boot), and the area where the Starbucks World Head quarter's currently sits. The tracks were so close together Yard hands actually lost limbs if they didn't ride on the END ladders of the cars they were working rather then the sides AND kept their hands to themselves. This scenario is pretty unanimous all over the city up through the late 70s or so, as the Death of MLW brought more available space to work with, and the loss of industry rail clients meant less track was needed. To top it off, I've known a few Rail hands personally that will all attest that Track space, particularly in Yards, even in flat open areas, are often tight enough they feel like they'd break their arms off if they stuck them straight out the window, so I've intentionally made alot of my track work close together. Though of course I test it as I go (Hence all the consists scattered around on the Maps above, lol).

Click to expand...

Ohh, that's pretty intense!!

DROOL. That's all I got to say.

Can't wait to see more progress! Have you done any work on the Tunnel by the waterfront yet?

jkuhn said:

DROOL. That's all I got to say.

Can't wait to see more progress! Have you done any work on the Tunnel by the waterfront yet?

Click to expand...

Yes. But finding assets for the water front has been a pill. The Mainline is solid from Tukwila to Edmonds.... I won't say complete because I'd like to go back and add some detailing to it (Notably Turn Out check rails and Speed Signs, though Signals are more done then not). This includes the area north of the Tunnel past Louis-Dreyfus and into Interbay Yard. I even have track down for the water front trolley (No Catenaries or Stations though), and a decent representation of the Viaduct.... What I can't find for the life of me are buildings.... Wooden Warehouses for the Wharves, early 20th Century brick warehouses for the areas behind the Viaduct (As viewed from the water), heck I can't even find a decent Pike Place Market! (Though I have found stuff to do the Seattle Steam Company GO FIGURE >.> ).

I've asked a few creators for some help getting some of these to be made before and gotten nowhere. For the time being I figure I'll keep plowing away with the route as I see fit, and when I get to a point in college where I can confidently use the skills I'm learning doing Engineering CAD for 3D Graphical Design and Building I'll cave and just build them myself..... But thats probably about a year away or so.....

Falcus

SO! Post T:ANE. So far, VERY impressed with what T:ANE seems capable of.... That said, as with all new releases of this game franchise, DEFINITELY suffers from lack of immediately transferable assets.... le sigh. Who wants to see what T:ANE has done to Seattle!? I know I DID!

So, starting off with something Familiar:

Hey! Whats with that Dinosaur! <.< (Actually its an animated Dog. Whhoooo weee did it eat some spinach or what? Sit Boy! Or wait, he already does that...)
Definitely lost some buildings.... Notice the missing Track? But something I was Happy to see? See the Transparent Glass Panels on the Cross-over? Those were always almost Opaque in TS12.... Very happy to see that. Also, the Left side of the Station is awful bright right? Dynamic Lighting ftw! The backside is in Shadow, and as everything is orientated correctly as compared to the Real world, I might have to invest in some Moss Killer for the North sides of buildings now >.>. At least I have JR's RVX Weed Killer set for the R.O.W.s XD.

Next up:

ZOMG! Seattle has a Skyline! And I can see it from more then a Baseboard and a half away! /happy Dance!

And another!:

This is halfway or more to Argo Yard and I can still see the sky line! wtf mate? /awesome.... Of course, its only part of the sky line, almost half the buildings are broken so won't show up.... le sigh.... But for whats there? Very very happy making....

Next:

Hrmmm, what here looks familiar? But has never been shown in my seattle thread before? If you answered anything containing the word "Needle", GOLD STAR!. Now that we have greater Draw Distance to play with, you can actually see this from the Track (And further). So its not just a Useless Poly Hog anymore! woot!

Heading North, other side of Interbay yard, this shot should look familiar:

Le sigh, I can confirm the Death of all the old Speed Trees, as well as many of the awesome JR Products we've come to love and adore..... Amazingly enough, some of the Older assets work just fine (The Round House here is older then the hills! A true testament to Old Style Construction, buy Half Century Old products today! har har).....

Hey! Where'd the Road Go!?:

Unfortunately, Much of YARN seems to have died as well.... R.I.P. friend..... Still transfering some of these assets so it might return, but Im not holding my breath....

Remember that awesome Veggy Gully I posted as a first shot not so long ago?:

HA! Eat your Heart out Auran!

And another:

Ben Dorsey deserves full credit for making assets that can stand the test of time, and Auran/N3V Revisions!

There are also other redeeming features to T:ANE however, after all of this. This is probably my favorite shot of everything I'm posting today:

Look at that Gloss! and the Shiny Reflections! The fact that this game can do this is very very impressive to me... Of course, the water around Seattle is so Black and Green this is ENTIRELY un-prototype (Alot of the textures I was using were horribly butchered, if they showed up at all...), but wow, what a shot....

Last shot for the day. The single Most complete Piece of Seattle as it had been built to date, inside T:ANE:

If you see an asset in there you created, feel proud friend, because you survived!

Anyway, enough photos. Overall impression of the new simulator is very very good. Its gotta be like twice as stable as TS12 (I managed to load a locomotive that 189 Texture Errors, and get it running in the sim! Knocked my socks off that T:ANE is robust enough to do that!). The Dynamic Lighting and its ability to load up the assets you've seen (Probably about half of whats down) in a reasonable amount of time are all very good to see....

This all said, I think I will be returning to TS12 for the forseeable future to continue working on my route. There just isn't enough T:ANE Compatible assets yet to justify my working on a Reality Based DEM Route (Much as I would like to move to T:ANE today....).

So hope this little excursion made some kind of sense to people. This is what we have to look forward to folks.

-Falcus

Probably best to stick with one version of Trainz, and port it over post-completion. Ive decided to persue creating an MP40PH-3C for the Sounder, and maybe an F59 to boot. The BBLs are already high quality

What are those strange gray things, flying in the sky ? They look look like pterodactyls (flying dinosaurs)

cascaderailroad said:

What are those strange gray things, flying in the sky ? They look look like pterodactyls (flying dinosaurs)

Click to expand...

I have no idea.... If you mean the first shot, the giant dog/dinosaur thing that I commented on? After that, you'd have to mention which pic you meant.

@Landshark,
That was my conclusion. For the time being anyway. I wanted to see what it would look like in T:ANE. It was a good learning experience. Next screenshots I post in here will be a return to TS12 me thinks. I'll keep working on my route as I see fit. I bought T:ANE so I wanted to put it through its paces, and figured I'd share the results with any who cared to see it. I would need to see JR fix its tracks and YARN fixed I think before I'll make the switch. McGuriel's trees will probably be a draw, but we already know those are coming and when.

Falcus

Falcus said:

Of course, the water around Seattle is so Black and Green this is ENTIRELY un-prototype (Alot of the textures I was using were horribly butchered, if they showed up at all...), but wow, what a shot....

Click to expand...

You may already know this, but in case you missed it- water colour is adjustable in the environmental settings.

thanks for the screenshots!

chris

I like it so far. It's starting to look like Seattle. I live about 30 mile south of what your showing so far. Don

@DON49PLM,
You live on JBLM?

@WindWalkr
Yes, I know you can change the slight hue of the water with the Environment settings, but the actual color is in large part dependent on the texture being shown through it. The textures I was using for the bottom of the water went from being somewhere near a shade of Olive Drab to being 2 rungs shy of incandescent blue...... I have not examined them in CM to see exactly what the errors that are causing this are..... The fact that the texture shows up at all is somewhat impressive, as so many others now are out and out broken.

As for the buildings, I've only spot checked at random off my faulty list (50% of the buildings on this route is still probably approaching 5-600 or so assets. Total Number of assets for the route is just under 2600... And I'm NOWHERE near done detailing, lol). Its probably safe to assume that most of the "serialized" buildings (Buildings from some set or series the author put out, TUME's City stuff for example, though I don't know that his are broken at this time, I'd have to check), are probably mostly suffering similar issues to each other. What I did see was alot of error's pertaining to textures and Night Mode. I would guess the Night Mode is probably having a larger effect then the Textures, because at this point I've seen, as I mentioned before, a Locomotive with 189 Texture Errors Load up *almost* correctly (Certain Textures wanted to pretend to be QR Codes, but the majority of them were fine), and I can confirm that most of the buildings I'm seeing as still active are either Old, Simple, or simply Built without a Nightmode. I'd have to do more comparison work to confirm that, but this is making the most sense to me of what I've seen.

Shoot me an Email address via PM if you want and sometime tonight or tomorrow I'll try and pull up some KUID Examples with Lists of Errors.

-Falcus

The rule of thumb for scenery usually is "if you can't see it from the cab, don't include it"

So, after having spoken directly with a couple gentleman from N3V (That Dinosaur dog is quite the conversation piece isn't it?), I feel a need to amend some of my earlier statements.

I am currently in the process of reviewing my assets..... Of the ~2600 dependencies, about 335 of them are faulty.... After some digging by both N3V and myself it appears that exporting them from TS12 was the cause of some of this at least (Notably Buildings, which is honestly very good news, because a simple re-download should fix most of them). Further, I have discovered some 110 Assets that are listed with a newer Build Number then I have for them in TS12, which either didn't transfer, or just aren't appearing after the Blanket Transfer of Assets. Alot of Yarn Assets are included in this list, so YARN may in fact not be dead (Further experimentation required).

Also something that came out of my discussion with them: Of my 2600 hand picked assets from TS12 (Picked for being generally of a certain level of quality or higher), 600+ of them are now considered Built-In Assets for T:ANE. I found this very pleasing. I don't really care to hear anymore that N3V is entirely blind to the fact that the DLS is littered with old assets when they're willing to freely distribute the newer quality stuff. I won't say N3V is perfect, nor is T:ANE, but I've been seriously impressed with many many aspects of whats gone on with T:ANE.

So, I'm holding off my return to TS12 while I play Asset games to figure out what the actual status of my route will be.

More to follow as and when I can,
-Falcus

So, after some monkeying around, learning about the new errors that are likely to occur, I have gotten the route back to this:



You can't see it, because its now effectively covered up, but there are still some Texture issues. JR Tracks are in fact operable. But as you can see in the pic, they have this tendency to have entirely flat Ties as often as not. Still unsure as to what causes this.... I DID get Grazzy working again, much rejoicing to be had. Still working out errors. But the return of the Track and the Grazzy was a big piece of happiness I figured I'd share. Was also informed that the Dino-dog is on the list of things to be worked on by N3V. If they fix him I'll have to give him some brothers and sisters spread around the route, lol.

-Falcus

So, Been awhile. College, Work, Life.... Gawd Christmas has come, and gone, again.... Happy Merry Chrismahaunakwanzaka (Yes, this is pronouncable) all you wonderful trainzers out there......

So, I had updated my TANE whatever the latest Auto-install was a couple months ago, and just not had the chance to play with it much. Finally got bit with the bug again to dink around with it. Not sure how long it will last or how much time I will have going forward, but figured this ol' thread could do with some notable updates.

So, First major Update (Compare to the photo Above):

SO much better..... You can actually see the Shadows from the trees on the tracks if you look. Yes this was taken with Snip Tool, IDK if the shadow bug in the Ingame Screenshot function has been fixed yet or not.

Next: does anyone remember this photo? (I mean, seriously, if not, just jump back a couple pages and you'll find it)?



Well, I can say he's been fixed.... No more Dino Dog, as of this evening:

All Back to Normal

Next, I want to give a big shout out to someone Im sure isn't going to see this, but here it is anyway:

Not quite the Vine Maples et al I was looking for, but they'll do. Thank You McGuriel, whatever you might be doing now.

Finally, Progress with what I've been dinking around on. Should be a very familiar shot to anyone thats kept up with this thread to date:

Definitely still a W.I.P, but more done then it ever has been. The water is a much more WA/PNW Appropriate shade of Greeny-Algae-Black to boot.

Enjoy,
-Falcus

Looking great, and with my plans to go railfanning in Kent this week, seeing this thread pop up again is a warm welcome!

Cheers

Holy Cow! Looks great. I like that shot of the double tracks surrounded with foliage. Down town and the big station look good too.

Thanks Both of you.

Been working on the Locks alot tonight. Almost done with the Subsurface (Quasi Surface? Since so much of it is both above and below the water level) fixtures. Still at a loss for Structures for it. Also at a loss for the Plate Glass Restaurant Just East of the North end of the Bridge, le sigh. SO MANY Structures this game just does not have a suitable stand in for.....

-Falcus

So, back in College, and IDK how much time I'll have to continue dinking around in Seattle. But I've gotten a fair whack done on extending the Line North from Interbay to about 2/3 of the way up to Edmonds. Most of the Bulk Easy stuff is done. Lots of little things left to do. Still working out the finer details of doing Beach, but even the incomplete stuff I'm playing with seems to come out really well.

One of the things I wanted to post tonight though was to honor 210009222 (A.K.A. Gerald) for helping me with some pictures. And I hope he's able to provide more. He took this shot (And many others) while coming into Seattle at one point:
This was Taken Facing North from the back of a Southbound (Listed West Bound) Empire Builder Superliner. The location is probably some 10 miles north of King St Station, or about 2 Miles from the Ballard Rail Bridge:

Compare:

Yea, things are off color wise, still working on lighting and lack of assets, but overall moderately impressed with my work if I do say so myself, if only because I feel like its starting to look how I feel it should.

Another Shout out to McGuirel. ALL of the trees in This Shot are Freeware, and are available on the DLS. I highly recommend them and their counterparts:


Controversely, and I don't know the status of her Payware site, but if you can get a hold of these, they are WELL worth the money. These were her Payware Trees, and they perform incredibly through the seasons. I This shot is a few days old, but I plugged in that days date and lowered the Snow level to 0 (Since most of this route is around Sea Level) to test my Seasonal Assets:

Hey looky there! They lost all their Leaves!

After that, No, I haven't forgotten the namesake of my route and my thread. However progress has been slow going aside from Cleaning up Disturbances left over from T:ANE Conversion and Updating/Upgrading. I need assets.... I need people willing to at least work with me on their creation to finish Seattle. Im not looking for Custom Seattle Stuff, just Generic Stand-ins that meet certain requirements, like Early 20th Century inner-city Brick Warehouses/Offices/Apartments (This is a huge one that is limiting me. I already have an have employed all of TUME's stuff, as well as anything I could find use for from DMDrake, and many many others. I need more).


Lastly, I want to give a shout out to Bendorsey, who Handcrafted about a dozen of the assets in the following 2 shots. These shots would not have been possible without his help. I've shown parts of these areas before and Ill be surprised if some of you don't groan, but there is one key new area Im showing here tonight:
The Seattle Hirram Chittenden Locks, More commonly Known as the Ballard Locks:
They're not finished. Im missing assets to finish the topside. But the Subsurface stuff is done. Of course the background, as with so much of the rest of the route, is awaiting some attention. But there ya go. Huge project requires huge amount of time, and I knew that going into this.

Lastly, the Groaner:


Thats all for now. Hopefully I can still keep working on Seattle while I continue attending College.

-Falcus