UK narrow boats or barges what do we have?

Cheers John.
I know you have been beavering away on my boats, the available content is double what it was from January '18, I'm most grateful too.
Prior to your highly valued input into this subject there was very little. I sent Annie a link to a short video of Tay breaking ice, as there are some powerful side shots almost square on for which she expressed her delight.
I havn't seen her finished artwork as yet but the bits I have seen look good.
Have you set out anything on the gas boats yet?

Many thanks
JP.

It doesn't quite work that way. The first step is to get a working hull and get the loads and tarp sorted out and that takes time. Once we have a reasonable mesh for the cabin then we have something that can be reskinned and that means the available content goes up very quickly. In this case Anne was very kind and created some reskins which you have already seen and will add variety and those are the ones that should show in the next couple of hours. Her spelling is better than mine never mind her graphics.

The same texture files can be used on three different cabins but for the moment I'll just use them on the shorter cabins so hopefully they should be available in a day or two on Vulcan's hull.

Your gas boat is on the to do list but hasn't arrived at the top yet.

Cheerio John
 
Had a play around with the techniques this evening on a nice level stretch of "pound" and while there is room for refinement I grasped the basics of the relative dimensions fairly quickly. One thing I did learn is that it's better to make the cut with sections of 4 lane road than trying to use the terrain tool. My efforts with that looked more like the Panama Canal than the Kennett & Avon. I will probably need to go back and shallow the banks a little and currently contemplating how to represent the towpath. At the moment I'm coming down in favour of painted texture rather than using rather uniform looking splines. The FMA arch bridge splines also double nicely as road overbridges, if a little overscale.

The above of course, all in the interest of helping those wishing to add canals as scenic items to their Trainz railway routes. Any speculation I may be doing the process in reverse and adding a railway as scenery alongside the canal if I get to Pewsey, is exactly that!!
 
Sounds like you have it licked Vern. Good tip on cutting the canal.

I'm having a go myself and was wondering how best to carve the canal for a natural effect.

Cheers
 
One challenge to come is how to do tunnels, of which there are more than a few on the network. I have an idea how to and of course it helps most canal tunnels are, by definition, straight and level. Just mid your head on the roof!
 
Sink rail tunnels into the ground with boat track not attached to the tunnel spline.

That's what I did on my Glasgow Queen St. It had track attached so I used concrete slab spline to cover them. Worked well except it was a little too large.

Cheers
 
The latest addition to the fleet.



tanker.jpg


Two tanker tops to fit the 70 Vulcan barge hull.

narrow boat 4 70 Albion Coal KUID2:86627:101094:1

and

narrow boat 3 70 Fellows Morton & Clayton - Later KUID2:86627:101108:2

Have had their config.txt files edited so its an option. Typical loads would be tar and creosote but you'll need to add them to the queues. These work with the barges based on Vulcan's hull. One is set for the shorter cabin and one for the longer cabin. The longer cabin needs sorting out so the texture isn't so stretched.

KotangaGirl has been very nice and done a few reskins which add a bit of variety.

I think we have a very basic set of functional narrow boats now that can carry cargo. Over time hopefully the range will expand.

Can one set up a wharf with railway wagons on one side and narrow boats on the the other to transfer goods?

Thanks

Cheerio John
 
Narrow Boat on Rail Track is invisible, directional arrows only showing in Surveyor?

:wave: Good Morning Gentleman,

:D I came across this Thread, and really like your Narrow Boat discussion, so I downloaded your Narrow Boats, and went to test them on my Test Route one Tile with Circle of Track, when I put one on the Track, it is listed as a Train, no faults, and it installed fine. Am using TANE SP2..........

:eek: The problem is, it shows green and red Arrow for direction the Track, but the boat is invisible????? In fact all the Narrow Boats show invisible.............?

:( Am I doing something wrong, I understand it goes in the water on invisible Track of my choice etc, could you help me here.........Thanks
 
:wave: Good Morning Gentleman,

:D I came across this Thread, and really like your Narrow Boat discussion, so I downloaded your Narrow Boats, and went to test them on my Test Route one Tile with Circle of Track, when I put one on the Track, it is listed as a Train, no faults, and it installed fine. Am using TANE SP2..........


The boat is made to float 7feet under the track. In surveyor if you activate the wireframe view(f9) you'll see the boat under ground.
boat track is laid 7' above the surface of the water.

Cheers

:eek: The problem is, it shows green and red Arrow for direction the Track, but the boat is invisible????? In fact all the Narrow Boats show invisible.............?

:( Am I doing something wrong, I understand it goes in the water on invisible Track of my choice etc, could you help me here.........Thanks

The boat is underground. Just activate the wireframe view (f9) and you'll see it.

Boat track is laid 7' above the surface of the water.


Cheers
 
Ahhhh..........Thank you Sir..............And now I remember the Track had to be above Ground level, invisible of course..........

:eek: You'll excuse me, while I go stand in the corner for while with a Dunce Cap on my head......:hehe:

:wave: Thanks for the quick reply...........Have a great weekend Sir.......
 
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It is easier to say water level plus 3m. As water can be on various levels with locks, ground may not be at the correct level to work out the track level. Original narrowboats on trainz were at -3m below water level and other boats at -7m. It was Vulcan that brought in the 3m above water to get a visible standard for laying the track.
 
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That's what I did on my Glasgow Queen St. It had track attached so I used concrete slab spline to cover them. Worked well except it was a little too large.

Cheers

There's also a 2T normal (not track) spline which emulates a complete UK tunnel including portals at either end (no track) and can be laid without angle restriction. Probably dwarf the average UK narrow boat, though, even if set low in the water.

Must say I am quite enjoying the experience and when I took a boat for a "drive" through the 2km I've done was pleased with the result even at Level One detail stage. I can honestly see my route building focus staying on this genre for some time - I've already short-listed the Oxford, Caldon, Crinan, Brecon & Monmouth plus the tunnel complex around Dudley as desirable further projects.
 
One tip I found useful was to use a river spline just below the water level. This hid track in tunnels and made the bottom of the canal less harsh when a dark blue texture was used. There are some river bank splines that are good for canal banks.
 
Yes there is a bit of an issue when using real water if the lock is at an angle to the tiling function. For now i have tried to find a stretch of river spline that will patch the gap. Not perfect but the only other option would be for the locks to extend a water "plane" at either end which still may not match the water texture chosen by the user.

I'm also considering how I might disguise the bright green grass texture used on some of the assets as it doesn't quite gell with more recent terrain textures, etc.

One other thing I have found on testing the lock functionality, it is very hard to find the sweet spot on the red arrows in order to activate the function. Clicking everywhere, after about 10 goes I managed to get a green to fill the lock for a craft going downhill but then couldn't activate the reverse function to lower the water level/boat in the lock. Can't see there is a keyboard command to work the turntable function either.
 
Yes there is a bit of an issue when using real water if the lock is at an angle to the tiling function. For now i have tried to find a stretch of river spline that will patch the gap. Not perfect but the only other option would be for the locks to extend a water "plane" at either end which still may not match the water texture chosen by the user.

I'm also considering how I might disguise the bright green grass texture used on some of the assets as it doesn't quite gell with more recent terrain textures, etc.

One other thing I have found on testing the lock functionality, it is very hard to find the sweet spot on the red arrows in order to activate the function. Clicking everywhere, after about 10 goes I managed to get a green to fill the lock for a craft going downhill but then couldn't activate the reverse function to lower the water level/boat in the lock. Can't see there is a keyboard command to work the turntable function either.

The sweet spot has always been a bit of an issue with turntables too. I find that moving the camera 90 degrees to the canal and about 30 degrees up gives the best results. As far as going up or down each arrow is unique. One is for down and one for up. Don't ask which.

Cheers
 
You can use AI to work the locks. You need the input rule and move turntable command. The screenshot shows 3 double locks and all work with AI.
18m-rise-with-canal-locks.jpg
 
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Hi Guys,

To operate the red and green arrows, your line of sight has to be through the arrows with part of the canal lock behind them. Sometimes for small transfer tables this is hard to do so for recent models I have added a large invisible square underground so the "footprint" of the asset is larger.

When Tane was released my invisible blue track was invisible, I did fix it but I was recently made aware that the update was not available on the DLS nor builtin. If you are having problems seeing the track download the update version 3 that I recently uploaded.

Ian
 
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