Lower the floor or use lots of digholes?

DaveBaum

New member
I have seen two different ways of carving out the "floor" area of a model route:

1) Drop the terrain height to something appropriate for the scale (-50, -80, whatever), then use digholes along the edges to get rid of the slope from 0 down to floor level.

2) Keep the terrain at 0 and use a dighole anywhere that you want to see the floor.

In both cases a flooring spline then provides the visible floor for the room, so it doesn't seem to matter whether the terrain is low or dug out.

#1 appears to be much more common, though perhaps that's just because I'm looking at a lot of routes from the same authors or everyone was starting from the same tutorial. In my own experiments it seems like #2 is a little easier for editing the route because my view height doesn't keep bouncing around, and any digholes or splines I'm using for the edges of the table will always be relative to my 0 height (no spline points down at -50).

Are there advantages to #1 that I'm missing? Maybe less digholes = better performance? Does walking around the route look more natural with #1?
 
I find dig holes agonising slow and painful. And difficult to remove if necessary. Dropping the floor to -55 is quick and painless. And it offers the ability to do a 45 degree baseboad edge. So I'm an advocate for #1.

I've just posted pictures of my latest work in progress Post #2497 here:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?109038-Model-Railroadz/page167

Dropping the floor and adding the fascia took minutes. Dig holes, fascia, supporting legs and floor spline? -- well, I'd still be working on it next week.

Phil
 
Yeah, the builtin dighole is very fiddly to use, impossible to select, etc. Something that has worked a little better for me is to use the C+ MR digholes, put them in their own layer, and try to keep them all at the same height. If I'm not lowering the floor then it is easy to keep them at 0 height. With a lowered floor perhaps its better to place them at floor height.

That fascia looks great. Is it on DLS? Do you skip digholes entirely then? If so that sounds easier than anything I've tried.

Phil - your routes are amazing. Every one of them looks like the kind of model railroad I would love to have in my basement if I had unlimited space, money, and time. Actually even with all of that I don't think it would look as good as your routes! I bought TANE instead of TMR, but at some point I will purchase the TMR DLC primarily to get two more of your routes. I'd love to learn more about how you create your routes - both from a creative standpoint and the techniques that you have found to be productive. Are there some specific threads where you've written about this sort of thing?

Dave
 
I found the fascia on DLS. Thanks for making it available! I'm curious about the choice of -55 for floor height. Does that work out to a typical viewing height if the layout was in O scale? It looks low to me, but perhaps that's because I'm used to HO.
 
Hi Dave --

Floor height. This video was the original guide and inspiration:


At 6:00 the floor height is set at -40. I've always thought that this results in a baseboard that is too low. But when I started making model railroads the height of the baseboard was governed by what was available. With the legs that were on the Download Station -55 was the maximum achievable -- otherwise there was a gap between the bottom of the leg and the floor. Since then I've standardised on -55. That's also about all that can be achieved with the wooden fascia I now use.

Creative standpoint. Most of the ideas come from existing model railroad track plans.

The latest "Work In Progress", from the Screen Shot thread:

Oldphartz_04.jpg


This is based on "Thunder Mesa":

TMMC-plan-2-14.jpg


You might notice a vague similarity? The changes are because of the limitations of Trainz and to improve operations.

Technique. Very basic actually.

Track laying, all at ground level. Having some of the larger buildings / structures in place can sometimes help.

Set the correct elevations of the track, using the track gradient and height tools.

Then a combination of using the track smoothing tool that makes the terrain the same as the track, and the terra-forming tools to form the terrain. And, where necessary, modifying the track to better correspond with terrain.

Fit in the structures and buildings, modifying the track plan as necessary. Add all the small details.

When it all looks as it should, drop the floor and add the fascia.

Texturing -- using the minimum possible number.

Add tress and foliage.

Finally the wall splines and the door.

For best frame rates it is better to use a few objects many times than many objects a few times.

Now, if you follow these guidelines we should expect to see your first masterpiece when -- in two weeks?

Phil
 
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On my own YMRZ layouts I have used the dighole method with Mr C series at the default baseboard level '0'. I then set the floor splines at -60 and my YMRZ facias at -60. They were created to use this height. It makes it easier for moving around the layout in Drive mode as well as when moving around when making the scenery as you don't drop into the operating & viewing well. I found method 1 'Lowering the floor' very occasionally gave me problems with tracks near to the edge of the slope.


Yorkshire
 
In my model routes, I go for an "in between" solution.

I use 60m x 60m digholes.

That way you don't need a lot of digholes, so if you need to correct or move a section you don't need to move a dozen digholes.
The other advantage is that I can let the floor drop to -60m at 50m away from the edge. That way you don't "drop off the table" if your cursor goes slightly over the edge of the table.

I have put various sizes of digholes on the DLS for this purpose (so you are not stuck to 60m if you prefer a different size).
 
Phil - thank you for all of the advice, it's exactly what I was looking for. Setting a goal to have a small route done in a couple weeks sounds like a good idea, but it's not going to be a masterpiece :)

What's tripping me up the most is the analysis paralysis of having too many options. I start with "I want to do X", find there are a half dozen choices, then spend way too much time experimenting and researching each one. Perhaps that's a hold over from making an actual model RR, where the cost of changing your mind later is so much higher.

I also struggle with finding the right scenery/texture/rolling stock/whatever. Again, its the "too many choices" problem. I suspect after a while everyone gets better at searching and also curates their own pick lists.
 
The way I do digholes if I have enough room is to do them around the edge of the layout where it has to be exact, then lower the ground in the middle of the room. Sometimes I just use all digholes if the plan is small enough.
 
Dave --

Forgot to mention -- the one indispensable and invaluable asset for track laying is "90d_100-400m Template".

The minimum radius in this template is 100m. Many Trainz model railroad curves are less, 50m or so, but it's possible to still use the template as a guide.

Does anyone know of a 25, 50 or 75m template?

Phil
 
I use only the digholes by itareus and find them easy to use, move and delete if necessary. Look for C+MR Dighole. They come in two sizes and two orientations, 180 x 20 and 60 x 20 (if I remember correctly) and North-South or East-West. They can be overlapped to give other choices and have a surround in green (Surveyor only) which acts as a scenery object so they can be selected and manipulated. They can obviously only provide a straight edge, but I have made some triangular planes for my own use to make an angled edge possible - the difficulty with these is of course making the texture on the triangles match that of the adjoining baseboard surface, but some degree of mismatch can be concealed by judicious use of buildings, vegetation, etc.

I use these digholes in combination with the floor and baseboard edging by the same creator, together with my own MR backscenes, For variety, I use my cupboards to support the MR baseboard from time to time, also to create the illusion of a model railway room, my bookcases, table and chair - and coffee (or tea) mugs.

Whether to use digholes or a lowered baseboard is an individual choice - it doesn't take long to try both and decide which suits you best!

Ray
 
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