I finally tried to make a route again. What do you all think?

K

ktain.ny

Active member
So approach medium sort of inspired me to try and create a route again. At this point there is so much payware on the route that releasing it is out of the question, but I just wanted to share my progress and see if people thought that it looked nice, as well as getting some advice from the pros.

Here are a few screenys with a freight train going through the first semi completed base board. Lots of super detailing everywhere.












Obviously its all a huge WIP and I'm learning by trial and error. I never make routes and this is like my 3rd real attempt.

Thanks,

Ktrain
 
Just a simple observation; your route will look more realistic if you were to use higher definition ground textures at the smallest scale. It's a time consuming task finding them, but the best way I found is to start a blank route and a blank picklist, apply each texture on your system one by one and if it looks HD (not blurry or blocky when zoomed right in to baseboard) drag it to your picklist.
cheers
Graeme
 
grazlash said:
Just a simple observation; your route will look more realistic if you were to use higher definition ground textures at the smallest scale. It's a time consuming task finding them, but the best way I found is to start a blank route and a blank picklist, apply each texture on your system one by one and if it looks HD (not blurry or blocky when zoomed right in to baseboard) drag it to your picklist.
cheers
Graeme
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip! Any suggestions?

wayneshorter1965 said:
ummm (10char)
Click to expand...
If you want to say something then say it -_-

Jayco-man said:
Looks pretty good so far to me, keep up the good work. It is a learning in process job.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I have been learning slowly, mostly through approach mediums's time lapse & commentary videos.
 
Update!

HD textures from Jointed Rail have been aquired, and here is how the route is looking with a few extra details and brand new textures everywhere except for the track ballast (which I'm looking for a hq texture to replace it).










I'm personally pretty happy with the way its turning out. I began a yard as well, will post screenys of it once a little more work on it has been completed.
 
First, I would suggest trying to find a certain region or locale you would like to base it on. Not necessarily meaning it needs to be 100% prototypical, just to have some real place that influences your route. Also, not saying it has to be strictly based on a specific region or area, but having a prototypical influence will help. Pick an area on google maps, zoom in to street view, and just "drive around" for a while, take in the scenery, or find a cab ride on a train in your specific locale.
Second, I would try using more region specific assets. The crossbuck you have seems to be a builtin UK crossbuck. JR has crossbucks as well as a set of modern Safetran flashers and gates. UP8328 has a set of payware US and CAN WC Hayes gates on his site, reggiestrainz i believe. Another thing you could do would be to download all of the JR route dependency packs, these have a lot of good scenery items that aren't otherwise available on JR. Scoure the DLS and 3rd party sites for content.
Third, try to find influence in other extremely talented trainzers route building, kimo505, felix_g, sp9813, modeltrains, ekankal, roonthe (i believe is his name) knifeswitch, grogstop, and mezzoprezzo to name a few. Put their usernames in the advanced search and poke around on their posts, some of these guys aren't on the forums anymore, but sometimes if you search their posts, you can find them answering questions you may already have i.e. where is this or that asset.
Fourth, Don't be afraid to use assets made by or for foreign trainzers. Lots of useful assets can be found on foreign sites, especially ones from eastern europe. Just be careful on these sites, some can have some shady popups. trainzpremiumroutes actually has a page listing links to dozens of trainz asset sites from around the world. Check out those sites and see if there's anything you can use.
Lastly, for now, try messing around with different surveyor tools. Click on the advanced tabs for all the different surveyor tools, theres bound to be some things there you didn't know of.

Please excuse my rambling, its late.
 
Looking good, we all have to make a start and learn from tips and tricks.

Tips from an Englishman :)

I use ballast textures that are on the DLC for free from Samplaire. He makes great viaducts too.
In content manager search just type in SAM and see what pops up!

More viaducts and bridges can be found by typing FMA into the search box.
Trees from authors pofig or rmm or clam1952 are good and sre not resource heavy.
In fact have a look at all of clam1952 stuff, he makes very useful assets.

That will keep you busy for now.

Enjoy your modelling :)

Graham
 
euromodeller said:
Looking good, we all have to make a start and learn from tips and tricks.

Tips from an Englishman :)

I use ballast textures that are on the DLC for free from Samplaire. He makes great viaducts too.
In content manager search just type in SAM and see what pops up!

More viaducts and bridges can be found by typing FMA into the search box.
Trees from authors pofig or rmm or clam1952 are good and sre not resource heavy.
In fact have a look at all of clam1952 stuff, he makes very useful assets.

That will keep you busy for now.

Enjoy your modelling :)

Graham
Click to expand...
Thanks, I've got to go grab those ballast textures now!

wayneshorter1965 said:
First, I would suggest trying to find a certain region or locale you would like to base it on. Not necessarily meaning it needs to be 100% prototypical, just to have some real place that influences your route. Also, not saying it has to be strictly based on a specific region or area, but having a prototypical influence will help. Pick an area on google maps, zoom in to street view, and just "drive around" for a while, take in the scenery, or find a cab ride on a train in your specific locale.
Second, I would try using more region specific assets. The crossbuck you have seems to be a builtin UK crossbuck. JR has crossbucks as well as a set of modern Safetran flashers and gates. UP8328 has a set of payware US and CAN WC Hayes gates on his site, reggiestrainz i believe. Another thing you could do would be to download all of the JR route dependency packs, these have a lot of good scenery items that aren't otherwise available on JR. Scoure the DLS and 3rd party sites for content.
Third, try to find influence in other extremely talented trainzers route building, kimo505, felix_g, sp9813, modeltrains, ekankal, roonthe (i believe is his name) knifeswitch, grogstop, and mezzoprezzo to name a few. Put their usernames in the advanced search and poke around on their posts, some of these guys aren't on the forums anymore, but sometimes if you search their posts, you can find them answering questions you may already have i.e. where is this or that asset.
Fourth, Don't be afraid to use assets made by or for foreign trainzers. Lots of useful assets can be found on foreign sites, especially ones from eastern europe. Just be careful on these sites, some can have some shady popups. trainzpremiumroutes actually has a page listing links to dozens of trainz asset sites from around the world. Check out those sites and see if there's anything you can use.
Lastly, for now, try messing around with different surveyor tools. Click on the advanced tabs for all the different surveyor tools, theres bound to be some things there you didn't know of.

Please excuse my rambling, its late.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tips. I'm off to download now!
 
ktain.ny said:
If you want to say something then say it -_-
Click to expand...
980x.gif
 
Hello,

good looking so far as we can see now.
You should look for some more special assets to meet your special requirements.
For instance there are special road objects available which fits to the yarn roads and provides side way turnouts - e.g. to connect to the car park you visible in your screens :)
But such details can always be improved at any time :)

Have fun working at your project :)
Your's TUME
 
Looking good, seems your going for a midwest type theme? And i'm happy to see that reskin of Ben Neal's mountain i made like 5 years ago get some use XD. I gotta find the time to work on redoing those scrap engines.
 
BNSF9812 said:
Looking good, seems your going for a midwest type theme? And i'm happy to see that reskin of Ben Neal's mountain i made like 5 years ago get some use XD. I gotta find the time to work on redoing those scrap engines.
Click to expand...
yeah man I love that reskin you did a great job
 
tume said:
Hello,

good looking so far as we can see now.
You should look for some more special assets to meet your special requirements.
For instance there are special road objects available which fits to the yarn roads and provides side way turnouts - e.g. to connect to the car park you visible in your screens :)
But such details can always be improved at any time :)

Have fun working at your project :)
Your's TUME
Click to expand...
Thank you TUME! I’ll have to look for those YARN roads.
 
Ok, here is another update. Added a yard, more detailing, and most importantly, 2 functioning ATLS crossings. Pretty cool stuff.

Here is the first one, where that weird diagonal road used to be. It comes in horizontaly now.



And here is the second one, off of a spur near the yard. Soon this area will be all warehouses and sort of urban-like. So I added these crossings from that big pack on JR.



And here is the yard, last but not least.





I only added a few other minor things, nothing to significant, except for the fact that I changed the region to the 1950s 'USA Glory Years' one. It has nice detailed car models and it fits in to the 1960s-70s post steam era thing.

 
Update again. I added a bunch of new details, and a passenger main that runs parralel to the main freight line. Also I added a bunch of new grade crossings, all ATLS enabled.

Here is the progress on the urban area that I was working on. I've layed out the road grid and now I have to fill it in with Buildings and scenery and stuff. Thats a project for later though.



Here is the Passenger mainline. The speed limit will be high, like 80 or 90 miles per hour. Triggers will be set pretty far from the grade crossing.



I may end up electrifing it. But I'm not to sure right now.

I added a bunch of JR buildings to, like this yard control tower. Pretty minor but it fleshes the route out nicely in my opinion.


Thats all. Getting these grade crossings working has been a pain in the ass and I haven't had time to do much else.
 
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