Fort William-Mallaig

Vern said:

Chris - in the immortal words of Capt. Picard, "Make it so!"

With regard to 5m grid probably not much point in changing to this, as noted the terrain was created by older crude methods not the hi-res DEM and fully featured Transdem system we now enjoy.

Click to expand...

Aye Aye Captain, making it so, Sir! Thanks.

I agree with you about the 5m grid,Vern. too much work for too little return.

I'm taking the You Tube Fort William to Mallaig cab ride to get a feel for the lineside vegetation, but I realize now that if I make it "real" it's almost impossible to see anything else but uh, lineside vegetation.

So I'll not do very much of that.

Cheers and thanks again Vern

nimec said:

Hi Nawlins.

All good. In your post above you mention 'sessions' but there were no sessions in the route I downloaded which was <Kuid2:117648::1022:1> a 2.9 version which I presume is your latest one?

There was a session on the DLS but it was not by you , Vern or tmz06003. Are there others that I have missed or were you talking about your own ones?

Cheers

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Hi nimec. Yes, you have the latest version of the route. Glad to hear that it installed without too much trouble.

And on the download station, if you do a search for user name nawlins, you will find the route followed by three sessions.

Remember, if you download a route you do not get associated sessions but if you download a session you will also get the associated route.

The sessions are:

Fort William- Mallaig 1983-TS09 [Detailed]

TS2009
Created by: nawlins
File Size: 41.79 kb
KUID: <KUID:117948:1035>
Date: 26th May 2009
Downloaded: 3337



Fort William- Mallaig 1981-TS09 [Detailed]

TS2009
Created by: nawlins
File Size: 34.1 kb
KUID2: <KUID2:117948:1024:1>
Date: 26th May 2009
Downloaded: 5748



Fort William- Mallaig 1982 TS09 [Detailed]

TS2009
Created by: nawlins
File Size: 32.05 kb
KUID: <KUID:117948:1037>
Date: 20th May 2009
Downloaded: 2652



I'll be updating them for T:ANE so hang on a bit. Shouldn't be too long.

Cheers

I'm taking the You Tube Fort William to Mallaig cab ride to get a feel for the lineside vegetation, but I realize now that if I make it "real" it's almost impossible to see anything else but uh, lineside vegetation.

Click to expand...

Last time I had a trip over the Central Wales line it was suffering from an outbreak of "tunnel of trees" syndrome, far worse than in years passed. Much harder to see and appreciate the terrain being travelled through. Many other routes in the real world suffer from this and not just the UK either. Personally I think it's better to craft the route how you want it to be seen, rather than prevent users seeing the distant hills etc. so painstakingly placed and textured.

Vern said:

Last time I had a trip over the Central Wales line it was suffering from an outbreak of "tunnel of trees" syndrome, far worse than in years passed. Much harder to see and appreciate the terrain being travelled through. Many other routes in the real world suffer from this and not just the UK either. Personally I think it's better to craft the route how you want it to be seen, rather than prevent users seeing the distant hills etc. so painstakingly placed and textured.

Click to expand...

That's exactly the type of thing I saw on the You Tube FW-M route Vern. I'll take your advice and use some artistic license.

Cheers

Hi everyone. The T:ANE version of the Fort William-Mallaig route and three sessions have been uploaded to the DLS and will be available in the next 24 hours.

Search for username nawlins.
All assets should be either built-in to T:ANE or on the DLS. If not, please let me know.

Vern, I'd really appreciate it if you'd try it out. Constructive comments are welcome.

The route is fundamentally the same as the TS09 version with procedural track substituted and some invisible signals and a trackmark added to keep T:ANE happy.
Trees and other vegetation have been updated along with a few other little scenery tweaks.

One of the sessions, Fort William-Mallaig 1983-TANE, needs pikkabird's <kuid2:2512:2382:7> BR Class 37 Reskin Base 2.

This asset must be downloaded from pikkabird's Trainz web site. http://pikkarail.com/trainz

Click on the Class 37 link and look for the Reskinning base templates and download. Unzip and install into TANE.

Unfortunately the pikkabird reskin asset kuid2:2512:2382:7 is faulty. There is a missing texture and the thumbnail needs editing.
The missing texture can be found in the DLS asset kuid:283805:37015 by tmz06003 and pasted in, You will find the horncover.tga texture in its folder, just copy it over.
You'll also have to fix the thumbnail. Then you can delete kuid:283805:37015 or not, as you wish.

Sorry for all the bother, but many of the class 37s on the dls are afflicted with some problem or other because they rely on pikkabird's meshes.

Please read the session descriptions.

Thanks

Vern, I'd really appreciate it if you'd try it out. Constructive comments are welcome.

Click to expand...

On my "to do" list Chris. Looking forward to it.

Class 37 - pah! Real men drive the West Highland with a 27!! :mop:

Okay Folks, the route and sessions are up on the DLS.

You could put a class 27 session together Vern if you ever get the time. I'd like to see that.

Cheers

Vern said:

On my "to do" list Chris. Looking forward to it.

Class 37 - pah! Real men drive the West Highland with a 27!! :mop:

Click to expand...

Vern, I was just reminded by Tony that we in fact do have a Cass 27 session on the DLS for TS09. <KUID2:117948:1024:1>. I had totally overlooked that one.

So I shall grab it and make a T:ANE compatible version and the Class 27 will ride again!

Cheers

The route is excellent in T:ANE! Thanks.

Rob.

robd said:

The route is excellent in T:ANE! Thanks.

Rob.

Click to expand...

That's good to hear! Thanks for the kind words Rob.

Cheers

Had a quick drive from Mallaig to Arisaig so far, yes nice job Chris.

Only thing I can think of as a further enhancement would be to exchange the terrain textures for something more appropriate to the area - possibly some of clam1952's (Malc) texture. A factor when I first created the route was that we didn't have much in the way of wilderness textures hence the Auran default green everywhere. Even with the environmentals adjusted and post processing on, to my eyes now they look garish and completely out of place in North-West Scotland. The other textures it might be worth experimenting with are the ones by masontaylor though, unfortunately, about 50% of these display in TANE with a chequerboard effect when swirled so not suitable.

Of course as we all know and have learned over the years texture replacement is a potentially destructive tool with unpredictable results (as I found working on my Kovdor route) or can trash the route entirely!

Vern said:

Had a quick drive from Mallaig to Arisaig so far, yes nice job Chris.

Only thing I can think of as a further enhancement would be to exchange the terrain textures for something more appropriate to the area - possibly some of clam1952's (Malc) texture. A factor when I first created the route was that we didn't have much in the way of wilderness textures hence the Auran default green everywhere. Even with the environmentals adjusted and post processing on, to my eyes now they look garish and completely out of place in North-West Scotland. The other textures it might be worth experimenting with are the ones by masontaylor though, unfortunately, about 50% of these display in TANE with a chequerboard effect when swirled so not suitable.

Of course as we all know and have learned over the years texture replacement is a potentially destructive tool with unpredictable results (as I found working on my Kovdor route) or can trash the route entirely!

Click to expand...

Glad you like it so far Vern.

I take your point about the current terrain textures, however, the suggestion to re-texture the route terrain fills me with dread!

Malc's textures are very good, perhaps I'll play around a bit and see what happens.

Cheers

Using the bulk asset replace is not too onerous, the biggest issue is how the revised textures look and blend. As noted when doing my Kovdor route I changed out some of the previously laid textures for Ultratex and unswirled they didn't look good with the repeated pattern clearly showing. Malc's textures are better in that respect, in fact I did a little experiment and if you use the various yellow - green shades on the Auran colours, the results aren't too bad. The challenge would be finding something suitable to replace the rocky texture. In that instance, possibly one of the Ultra hillside (not rock) texture, though I didn't get that far.

nawlins said:

Hi everyone. The T:ANE version of the Fort William-Mallaig route and three sessions have been uploaded to the DLS and will be available in the next 24 hours.

Search for username nawlins.
All assets should be either built-in to T:ANE or on the DLS. If not, please let me know.

...

Click to expand...

nawlins said:

Okay Folks, the route and sessions are up on the DLS.

...

Click to expand...

Ok, am I doing something wrong?

I've searched for username=nawlins, category=session.

I can see the TS09 sessions, build version = 2.9. I can also see the Paddington - Westbury TANE sessions, build = 4.3.

I cannot see any Fort William - Mallaig TANE sessions.

Is it just me?

Edit: If you're re-texturing as it is now, after a week and a half of hot, dry, windy weather, and with the steam train running, you will need some black ground textures :hehe:

The Map:
<kuid:117948:100422> Fort William-Mallaig TANE Procedural

The Sessions
<kuid:117948:100426> Fort William-Mallaig 1982 TANE
<kuid:117948:100427> Fort William-Mallaig 1983-TANE
<kuid:117948:100428> Fort William-Mallaig 1984 Steam -TANE

Peter

They are showing up in my SP2 beta install, but not in the main SP1 install...

p-dehnert said:

The Map:
<kuid:117948:100422> Fort William-Mallaig TANE Procedural

The Sessions
<kuid:117948:100426> Fort William-Mallaig 1982 TANE
<kuid:117948:100427> Fort William-Mallaig 1983-TANE
<kuid:117948:100428> Fort William-Mallaig 1984 Steam -TANE

Peter

Click to expand...

Hope you find them David. They are definitely there.

There is another session going up in the next day or two. Fort William-Mallaig 1981. This one features a Class 27 and a double headed tanker train among other stuff. It's quite long.

Cheers

Vern said:

Using the bulk asset replace is not too onerous, the biggest issue is how the revised textures look and blend. As noted when doing my Kovdor route I changed out some of the previously laid textures for Ultratex and unswirled they didn't look good with the repeated pattern clearly showing. Malc's textures are better in that respect, in fact I did a little experiment and if you use the various yellow - green shades on the Auran colours, the results aren't too bad. The challenge would be finding something suitable to replace the rocky texture. In that instance, possibly one of the Ultra hillside (not rock) texture, though I didn't get that far.

Click to expand...

Hi Vern. Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a go after I get through with some other projects on my to do list.

Which reminds me. A long time ago Tony Z asked you permission to update your Fort William-Crianlarich route. You graciously consented but Tony could not complete it due to personal commitments.

I was helping Tony and I'd like to get the route completed if you would allow me to do that. May I have your permission to complete Tony's TS12 update of your Fort Willliam-Crianlarich route please.

Hopefully it will also be T:ANE compatible.

Cheers

nawlins said:

Hope you find them David. They are definitely there.

There is another session going up in the next day or two. Fort William-Mallaig 1981. This one features a Class 27 and a double headed tanker train among other stuff. It's quite long.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Thanks Chris. I've managed to get them from the web version of the DLS, rather than Content Manager. Downloaded as cdp files, which I will install into TANE SP1 CM, which should then allow me to get all the dependencies.

nawlins said:

Which reminds me. A long time ago Tony Z asked you permission to update your Fort William-Crianlarich route. You graciously consented but Tony could not complete it due to personal commitments.

I was helping Tony and I'd like to get the route completed if you would allow me to do that. May I have your permission to complete Tony's TS12 update of your Fort Willliam-Crianlarich route please.

Hopefully it will also be T:ANE compatible.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Of course you can Chris and look forward to seeing how it turns out.

At some point I must update my old Stranraer route but TBH it is so old and inaccurate and such shonky track laying, I might just start over and redo it from scratch some day.