Progress on the Uintah RW

Hello Dan!

I have finally been able to download the Uintah previw that is on the DLS.... My jaw needs to be re-attached to my skull. An absolutely beautiful route. I find it hard to believe that (even though based on real life) the scenery was all placed by hand. Everything looks so natural and realistic. A great route to explore.

My only issue is that in 2019 the very nice looking dirt road has shadows underneath them, and I found that i was unable to operate the junction "2734198" at the most western of the mines when my train was in the little switchback, as the junction was "locked"!! I really hate that with Trainz. Also bridge 79B and maybe 79A on the track to the north east mines, the telegraph poles were quite low!

Other than those two..... I found nothing else.... Incredible. I am so glad you have kept this project going, and (as I original though when i first saw it) It has restored my faith in Trainz!

Glad you liked it , the vegetation is getting easier to now I've created a lot of my own as I've put most of it so it is slightly below the surface , it saves me having to drag it all lower to avoid the annoying floating effect , and thanks for telling me what needs fixing , I thought the roads would need resetting in 2019, one reason why I've continued in tane , if it can get finished ( I estimate another six months at the rate I'm going at present,, but it all depends on what life has to throw at me) , I'll then look into doing a version for 2019 .I will probably put a full wip up sometime before that but first I have to get rid of the missing assets ....

I can remember thinking when i started this route, well i can get this done in about a ear, that was in 2017 !!!!
then i look at this section alone and i consider myself an utter dolt. this is looking towards watson, rainbow and white river. I've changed the splines three times in this section and have had to make two new series ( which took most of a day )in order to get it anywhere near what it looks in realiry and its a poor imitation, but given what I have to work with, its probably as good as i can get it , its roughly in place and the textures are form the area, but i think the cliffs are a bit different in reality and of course it still is a bit clunky , but there you go. unless one has custom items made to fit each cliff, trains isnt really the best app to make stuff like this with the cliff splines that are around at present, especially cliff rock patterns which run horizontally . these are tough to model.
looking towards this first section in the picture from about a mile away
looking towards Dragon from the bend in the last image



Below: looking towards Watson about a mile up the route
below looking back to dragon


the canyon another mile up the route, looking towards Dragon





just round the bend looking towards dragon again
There's still a lot of fine placements to do, as well as vegetation ( thankfully hardly any on the mountains here ) but this is significant progress as it means I have only about 10 miles of canyon to rough out before I put up a WIP of the whole route.

I'm no expert and as such am not qualified to be judging but to my eyes you are doing a magnificent job. Until I had seen your work with the cliff splines I never realized what could be achieved. It's opened my eyes to what can be achieved. A big part of the end result is the textures being used. I am amazed at the volume of the textures that you have been using. I can't imagine how much time it took for you to collect and organize those.

Your work is a showplace for what can be accomplished in this sim. Very Nice Indeed!

Paul

Happy New Year Sir Dan Gavel,

You are a true Artist, there is no doubt about, Unitah is nothing short of amazing.........

You have accomplished a great feat in representing this Route, and it sure looks to me, that others are in full agreement...........

Peace and good health to you Sir..........:wave:

been working on this section form watson , rainbow junctions and to mp 60, which is now largely completed, save the sage on top of the hills.


unfortunately these chooks are third party so they have to go.










Rainbow junction



MP 61

mp 61-to-59


leaving rainbow junction


ot would be nice if these cliffs were higher resolution but unfortunately the source images arent any bigger.


it

thats yer lot for today




so this is the sections thats about 90% complete, i spent today working on a new escarpment splines to do the next section, this is the hardest bit to get right as the rock formations are quite ridiculous.



you can see the new ones on the top of this cliff, i think I've cracked it making these work. bit like a jig saw puzzle, you just have to keep trying different strategies to get it all to fit but it taqkes a lot of fails before you get there .thus all those splinea on the dls half of which i haven't actually used in the final product. !!!!!!
.

Wow! You are doing an amazing job of lining up all those cliff splnes! Everything looks real! (By the way, msgsapper has a dozen animated and non-animate chickens on the DLS! )

Happy New Year Sir Dan Gavel,

Was snooping around looking for some help Turf x issues I am going thru, saw you posted some more Fantastic Pictures of your renown creativity. When I come thru here, I am happy to see what the latest ones look like.


Your Cliff assets look terrific on them tall Mountains...

Take care ole friend, wishing you the very best in this New Year......:wave:

thank you Blue and Forester, your praise is always appreciated, this section is now almost complete. i now have about 4 miles to do beforre dragon, 6 miles near atchee and a general clean up before i put a tentative full route on the DLS .
one thing i have sworn to do if I ever complete this route and embark on another.


NO SAGEBRUSH
hardly any cliffs
and minimal creek beds,
I've had enough of all three to last me a lifetime.

you may well notice a large number of Uintah assets going up on the DLS in the next few days, not all may be included in the WIP version I'll be uploading ( hopefully within a month ) but i am attempting to get as many assets updated as possible so nothing will be missing . as usual bulk replacement isn't always working for me, I've replaced items only to still see them regarded as part of the route . this is extremely annoying . I also found about 8 Ben Dorsey items that he'd never uploaded to the DLS so they have had to be replaced by ones I've cloned.
I see trainboi has created a williamette for TS 2019 and was wondering what the scope was to reskin one of these as a uintah shay, it might be closer to the real thing than the slugsmasher items that are the only assets that can be reskinned at the moment . Unfortunately TB's assets are only usable with sp4 , which is a drag. IF I DID A ts 2019 version i'd be making it in the earliest version of 2019, dunno if it would then be compatible.
Anyway, i would not download all of these new items because i may well be able to remove them eventually, so just thought I''d let you folks know.
working on getting a video of a run through Atchee canyon online, but still have to sort out the sound.

Wonderful work you are doing Dan! The cliff splines are magnificent and overall the route is a joy to use, even in TRS22. I originally loaded it in the first 22 beta with the extra sharpening and it looked amazing, like driving in 4k on a 1080p monitor. Hopefully they bring that feature back in a future build. Keep up the great job you're doing, I know how frustrating building a high quality route can be at times, but the end result is worth it.

Cheers Graeme

As a creator of routes I can say that it always takes a good dose of bravery to undertake the creation of a route of such a size. Congratulation, dude.

Thanks for the encouragement folks, I'm currently suffering from a sore heel and cant go for walks, but this has given me more time to spend on the route and I've more of less completed the section from Wendella to Dragon, only about 1.5 miles of vegetation to fix , did 12.000 feet today so a few weeks wiil see this good enough to go online as a WIP .
I also have the section already on the DLS more or less recompleted too. I was loathe to merge it as it can lead to mistakes , so i have just reworked it again, and that's mostly done, the rainbow branch looks far better now as Ive revisited it and changed a lot of the area ..
The longest section remaining to do now is Atchee canyon with about 4 miles of canyon work ans well as a short section from Dragon to Watson, which is another 2 miles max. there are extensive side canyons on all these sections that cant be left as they are visible for a long way on either side of the main canyon, very annoying that they have to be worked on for hours when they arent actually being driven in.
Biggest issue is the missing kuids, if it wasn't for them I'd put it up as is, but there are still around 150 to replace and it seems a never ending job. if ken green is watching i added your old west blacksmiths shop in the far left in the shot below and also in Rainbow, which has been updated a lot . more of that soon.
.
my plans for putting up a video are scotched for the mkoment as i cannot get sound recorded , i have paid screen capture software but its on another computer and cant be transferred




some detailing is needed on the other side of the canyon, which is in general more complicated in terms of geology , but this side is now almost complete.

this grass is not to my liking , its too tall but i cant find any better substitute , they all seem either too short or too long,

one of the last sections that need completing


work that was done today



This section took forever to do as some parts were 10 meters too low, the dem wasn't that accurate and I've had to measure up hundreds of sections to ensure accuracy .





This chunk took a day to complete, i had to rebuild it as i mistook it for another section, one of the biggest issues is working out where one actually is, as so much of this terrain looks like other bits.

The vegetation is looking great! I can tell north from south in your screenshots because there are more trees on the north slopes than the south slopes, just as there should be, and more trees in the draws and swales, just as there should be. Marvelous! :Y:

rjc0235 said:

Hello Dan!

I have finally been able to download the Uintah previw that is on the DLS.... My jaw needs to be re-attached to my skull. An absolutely beautiful route. I find it hard to believe that (even though based on real life) the scenery was all placed by hand. Everything looks so natural and realistic. A great route to explore.

My only issue is that in 2019 the very nice looking dirt road has shadows underneath them, and I found that i was unable to operate the junction "2734198" at the most western of the mines when my train was in the little switchback, as the junction was "locked"!! I really hate that with Trainz. Also bridge 79B and maybe 79A on the track to the north east mines, the telegraph poles were quite low!

Other than those two..... I found nothing else.... Incredible. I am so glad you have kept this project going, and (as I original though when i first saw it) It has restored my faith in Trainz!

Click to expand...

i've fixed those telegraph poles, but having trouble finding that switch, it is indicated when i use the find function, but when i got to the destination, the junction has a different number 2619552 ! it does look short enough for it to lock up either.
it is the furthest west of the mines at cowboy ?

Been continuing with work in the canyon near Atchee which is the biggest section to be completed as its so complex. Side canyons needing vegetation and the amount of vegetation needed to make it look close to what it actually does look like in reality means that short sections like this can take a few days to compete. there's still a patch just above the caboose that needs more work in the shot below.

I'm moving towards completing the last parts of the looooong canyon to Atchee ,there's probably a mile and a half in total to flesh out, I decided i had to add some sage onto the hills as they just don't look right otherwise, I obviously can't add it all , as there millions of the bushes all over the hills , but a sprinkling makes the hills seem a lot more solid and added with some rocky ground textures it takes away the flatness. These shots were all taken at ultra settings and 15000 meters draw distance, surprisingly the 8gb rx 580 ( not exactly a titan among cards but its all that will fit in my 10 year old mac pro ) didn't stutter , i was rather surprised, as there's a lot to render here.
mp 18, same spot as Otto Perry stood to take his photo of number 50 in 1939 . I've not been able to fathom how to change the artwork on this loco to number 50.... I've managed to turn others into different engines, others, but not Ben Neal's stuff.
The cliff profiles don't match exactly , but its as near to the right spot as I can get it .



mp 19 , you can see a few hills on the left that have to have their covering of sage added on the far left.
I'm putting these up purely to give myself some variety in my daily routine, since I've fixed most buildings and track, theres not much left to do other than just apply sage and decide where rocks go rocks all day, somewhat tedious when you do it for hours at a time.

Mostly completed this section yesterday , mp 19 approaching Carbonera

Carbonera "station " the platform ( such as it is, ) needs to be moved up on the right , one good thing about screenies, they show you your mistakes !



replaced all trees and rock splines near the coal mine Just out of Carbonera the rocks suddenly turn redder, there's a few other outcrops of the same colored soil and rock for the next few miles . Ive had to tweak so many splines in order to avoid having to use the same splines repeat over and over up this canyon.

Off we go towards Atchee . this is near MP 21 and Atchee is MP 28 , sometimes I can see why people do 'model' railways of this sort of route, knocking out 10 miles of canyon is sheer slog . However, on a brighter note, there's not that much more left to do in the grand scheme of things, about two miles around and after Dragon and then tidying up....altho no doubt I will add it to the DLS and there will STILL be some epic boo boos.