Progress on the Uintah RW

jango said:

Always very interesting.
Landscape OK.

Horrible bags!

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You'll have to dig out Blender once more and create some better looking ones. The wagon loads are the most interesting ones to do but trying to keep the poly count reasonable with a load of curved 31 sacks was interesting to say the least. The scenery ones came from the load.

Look for URY_Flatcar_100 for the wagon under my name. That version has LOD which the original didn't. It's interesting that the bogies are quite high poly but aren't cut off or have an lod in them so are rendering in great detail at a distance when you can't see the detail. Works fine on a machine with GTX 1080 but for lesser GPUs LOD is preferred.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

You'll have to dig out Blender once more and create some better looking ones. The wagon loads are the most interesting ones to do but trying to keep the poly count reasonable with a load of curved 31 sacks was interesting to say the least. The scenery ones came from the load.

Look for URY_Flatcar_100 for the wagon under my name. That version has LOD which the original didn't. It's interesting that the bogies are quite high poly but aren't cut off or have an lod in them so are rendering in great detail at a distance when you can't see the detail. Works fine on a machine with GTX 1080 but for lesser GPUs LOD is preferred.

Cheerio John

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Hey John, the problem with the bags isn't the shape or the polys, IMO.

It is that shininess, I don't know how many locos I have that now look terrible since they got all shiny. I'm not sure if it is a game thing or what but I have a lot of red locomotives that look pink now. I do know from personal experience that burlap bags are not shiny, quite the opposite, if you spend all day hefting 50lb or 75lb burlap bags you will end up with raw spots from the coarseness of the bags. I'm not sure that there is anything you can do to fix this, I do know that there isn't anything I'm talented enough to do about it.
Thanks so much for jumping in and helping Dan with this and that. We all really appreciate it.

Edit: Anonymous bags are very handy things, I have all sorts of plans for them.
BTW the color is spot on IMO.

normhart said:

Hey John, the problem with the bags isn't the shape or the polys, IMO.

It is that shininess, I don't know how many locos I have that now look terrible since they got all shiny. I'm not sure if it is a game thing or what but I have a lot of red locomotives that look pink now. I do know from personal experience that burlap bags are not shiny, quite the opposite, if you spend all day hefting 50lb or 75lb burlap bags you will end up with raw spots from the coarseness of the bags. I'm not sure that there is anything you can do to fix this, I do know that there isn't anything I'm talented enough to do about it.
Thanks so much for jumping in and helping Dan with this and that. We all really appreciate it.

Edit: Anonymous bags are very handy things, I have all sorts of plans for them.
BTW the color is spot on IMO.

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It's probably a setting I don't use very often in Blender.

try https://www.jatws.org/johnw/seven_sacks_scenery.zip as a scenery item for me and see how it looks. If its OK I'll change the whatever it is value on the rest if I can find them.

Thanks

Cheerio John

normhart said:

But, much better than no bags!

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yeah they aren’t totally convincing. But i’m Grateful to John for doing them , we can no doubt improve the texture later on down the road. There’s so many things that need specific assets making for them that as long as the industry is in position that’s good enough for me at the moment. The objective is to get a driveable route up as soon as possible and then go from there . I have more or less vegetated the first 28 Miles , the Baxter pass section is about half done and have parts of the rest done with basic veg that needs sorting and adding to. The mine trenches are giving us problems, it’s hard to blend them into the terrain convincingly. Paul Gorsky is making me some nice escarpment splines which should prove to be a boon for almost anyone who wants convincing looking cliffs, . So it’s getting there, slowly , but I ain’t thnking of getting into blender at all until the industries and final track adjustments are sorted.

That did it John,



Thanks so much they even look pretty good at very close range.

I'll wait for Dan's reaction before doing the rest.

Thanks John

Useful for any railroad that might be hauling wool or anything else that could be transported in large sacks!

normhart said:

Useful for any railroad that might be hauling wool or anything else that could be transported in large sacks!

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yep ive told John they look much better like that so hes going to change them all to this setting .
Now all we need is some early 20th /late 19th cent figures set up to carry/roll them with arms extended , that's down the track yet again as very few laborer figures have been made for the older style routes. perhaps some of us should get together and commission them
not sure if john has added a roll feature to the sacks on DLS but you will need to add it if not if you want to nestle them on uneven ground.

been quiet for a while here, but have been working on the route nevertheless.
quite a lot has been done, but nothing completed to 100% yet. I spent about a week on the company division point and biggest "town" on the line. Almost the whole yard area is on an incline as are almost all the houses.




the company allowed the workers to plant trees and these were well established by the 1930s. all main houses were provided with a boardwalk which ran down as far as the school which is hidden behind the trees far right .



I've begun vegetating the surrounding hills as well as dropping in some cliff faces


The top end of the yeard had a 4.5% grade and was the place they dropped off old scrap and junk



there were a lot of company houses , all created by the late lamented Ben Dorsey .

the boardwalk and trees provided a much needed touch of civilization to this remote outpost.


in the canyon, deep gullies were covered in vegetation , although there is little rainfall flash floods and well adapted vegetation are enough to make the area quite heavlly vegetated in the bottom of the valley.

i also have been working on the Canyon between Carbonera and Atchee . all the ( seemingly countless ) side creeks have been given banks up into the hills and a lot of the scrub is now in place.


in carbonera number 51 simmers away as she waits for more coal for her load bound for Atchee and points north.

After all those creeks I needed a change so I jumped 40 miles to Bonanza and started to work on that area too. heres one of the wyes near the Cowboy West mine . This whole are has patches of sage and not a lot else.





on the outskirts of Bonanza a work train is preparing to do some repairs to the rail bed and banks.


and number 30 hauls a gilsonite load from Cowboy, destination Mack

This is still some utterly stunning work Dangavel. I am drooling more than a st. bernard at a sausage factory.

Morning Dan,

The route looks stunning as always Sir, my Jaw just drops when I see your pristine Mountains you've made..........:mop::mop::mop:

I feel like I got into a wonderland of natural Beauty along with everything else you have created................:udrool:

Hope your making lots of money with the Gilsonite mining.........I off to camping for week or more in the Fabulous Sierra Nevada Mountains.............

The peaks in some parts are 14000 feet, I couldn't climb 10000 feet let alone breath in 14K altitude, I leave that one for youngsters..........:hehe:

blueodessey said:

Morning Dan,

The route looks stunning as always Sir, my Jaw just drops when I see your pristine Mountains you've made..........:mop::mop::mop:

I feel like I got into a wonderland of natural Beauty along with everything else you have created................:udrool:

Hope your making lots of money with the Gilsonite mining.........I off to camping for week or more in the Fabulous Sierra Nevada Mountains.............

The peaks in some parts are 14000 feet, I couldn't climb 10000 feet let alone breath in 14K altitude, I leave that one for youngsters..........:hehe:

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Thanks guys, i will take credit for most of the hills in these last shots as the DEM i made cut off a few miles before the bonanza area, I had to create the whole area by hand. in order to get the right profiles to the hills, i went into google earth and got down as low as i could in street view and worked from there. its not 100% accurate, but its close. Would i recommend anyone to do this ? not on your nelly
Enjoy the hills Blue and try to avoid altitude sickness ......

blueodessey said:

I off to camping for week or more in the Fabulous Sierra Nevada Mountains

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Careful, there are wild normharts in the area, :hehe:

Dan, every post looks better than the ones before it. I'm looking forward to this route becoming a reality.

the Uintah has a new roster member, no 14 from Oregon and Nevada was on the market and due to increased traffic demands ( this particular year is 1942 and the increased demand for Gilsonite has led to the need for some more new motive power ) and number 14 fit the bill . no time to repaint , the crew in Atchee just painted over the old letting , dismantled the loco and strapped it onto a flatcar to get it over Baxter pass and slapped it together again to get it working.






a couple of miles up the road at Cowboy East a freight is tackling the loop.

Well I lost three days worth of work ( all the stuff in the last screenshots ) and the route corrupted, had to return to an earlier version, but fortunately I had a recent backup so not a lot lost. The whole route had lost colors and sections with corrupted colors, normally I save every day and make a new cdp but hadn't done so last time.

So i had a week off and installed SP3 which seems ok and bought a new 8gb graphics card, which is more than ok, so I've gone back to the gilsonite loading areas and have more or less about half the branch mine to the mines completed or under way. There are still more veg and rocks to drop in, but its starting to look like the area, which is very remote and can only be accessed by 4wd on private land . Heres a few shots of recent work. .
first off the end of the line China wall mine, there seem to be no photos of this area at all so have used google earth as a source..
there a new addition to the roster, not yet given URY lettering which will be of use in the Bonanza extension ,






all ready to depart China Wall Mine and head down the canyon to Rainbow.

Dangavel, I hate to be a critic in anything but that locomotive is obviously the incorrect motive power suited for the 3-foot gauge here.

jcbeytien said:

Dangavel, I hate to be a critic in anything but that locomotive is obviously the incorrect motive power suited for the 3-foot gauge here.

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Ah you "hate to be a critic" , well that's all you ever have been so far. Cant think of one positive word, just carping about rolling stock authenticity .
So far you have never said one positive thing about this project so i reckon you'd be better saying nowt if all you are ever going to do is go on about the locos i am using !
if you don't like it, I suggest make your own version


As for this loco, if the line had continued as planned into the 1940s, how the hell do you know what power they would have bought in ?
, they used a 2-6-6-2 over Baxter pass , this is a 2-6-6-2 (although the tender would have probably meant it would not have been usable in that single section of the line due to lack of traction . The water tanks over the drivers helped with adhesion over Baxter Pass. )

However, I would argue that this is PRECISELY the sort of loco the Uintah would have purchased secondhand because it has two advantages over Mikado's.

1. it can operate over the whole line , no taking apart to get it over Baxter pass, just drive it , it would be able to be serviced at Atchee rather then in the open air at Dragon. it could pull light loads over baxter, or act as a helper if needed .
2. it would be able to pull a much bigger load than a 2-8-2 , saving on fuel and turn round times . The tender 2-6-6-2 could pull very long loaded trains to Wendella from Bonanza , leaving the tank 2-6-6-2s to pull heavy loads over Baxter pass.
Anyway, if i could prevent you from getting a copy of this route if it ever is distributed , I'd do so, its people like you that make me feel like giving up on occasions, or at the very least keeping the project in house so i don't have to put up with all your carping and negativity if it is released.

What really rankles is I have spent thousands of hours on research to ensure that this route is as accurate as possible and you go on about the engines i'm using in some screenshots ,which I think is ridiculous

:wave: Evening Dan,

Sorry to hear about the Corruption etc on your Route, thank goodness you had a recent good backup to get going again........I'm playing around with a Copy of Marias Pass, making several changes here and there. And the other day, I was running some Trains on the route, and noticed that some 30 tiles in outside corners had lost their Texture and several hundred feet of elevation.......Don't know why, but I do remember my Route trying to save, and it never finished completely.....I had to close Trainz and re launch the Program. Re save the Route, but apparently it got corrupted and since it is a large Route, it didn't come up till I entered the affected area a week later on New Safetran Signal checks........

Thus I had to rebuild several miles of Route, and re texture too. Ironically the Trees and Shrub held in their position, so I just had to re level and build the Mountainous areas back to the Tree levels. Crude but effective.......

And while I'm thinking about it, even though you don't have the proper Google Maps you need for your Route, I am sure, based on what your work product emanates thru Screen Shots, everything will come out just fine.........Your Route looks so natural with all the detail you have projected into it.

Take care ole friend, we are all watching with great anticipation as you perform your magic.