Texturing track issue

I am having a real issue when texturing the ground in 2019. When texturing the track, as I texture it the track sleepers appear to go below the baseboard. Widen the radius and ensure double track is textured on both sides, the baseboard appears to descend so that the sleepers are now visible. The problem comes when I choose a different texture. Where the two textures meet, the track goes below the baseboard and sleepers again not visible. It's very difficult to use two different textures near or below the track. They seem to interfere with each other and where they join, the track sleepers are invisible. Is this a bug, a side effect of PBR lighting? Is there any way round this. It's getting very frustrating!

Yorkshire

Found the answer! Trawled through the the threads and discovered that if I set shaders to standard, it doesn't happen! new top spec machine means Trainz set everything to ultra and that has caused the issue for me. Seems like ultra brings a raft of problems!

Yorkshire

Yorkshire said:

Found the answer! Trawled through the the threads and discovered that if I set shaders to standard, it doesn't happen!

Click to expand...

That's not really a fix. If you distribute your route to anyone else, and they are running with shaders on, the sleepers will disappear again.

The actual fix is to either adjust the track height, adjust the ground height, don't use PBR textures under the track or (perhaps) wind the scale of the PBR textures back for the area under the track.

Thanks for the advice and explanation.

Yorkshire

I recommend Dan's last suggestion-- wind back the scale of the PBR textures.

PBR textures are certainly not the easiest to use, but one you master them the results are certainly worth while.

Two hints:
Don't mix and match PBR textures with non-PBR textures.
Don't rotate PBR textures.

If you want to see what can be achieved, several of us have uploaded fully PBR textured routes to the Download Station. This is one of mine:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...ilroad-layout-The-Mann-Phrom-Laramee-Railroad

Phil

Yorkshire said:

I am having a real issue when texturing the ground in 2019. When texturing the track, as I texture it the track sleepers appear to go below the baseboard. Widen the radius and ensure double track is textured on both sides, the baseboard appears to descend so that the sleepers are now visible. The problem comes when I choose a different texture. Where the two textures meet, the track goes below the baseboard and sleepers again not visible. It's very difficult to use two different textures near or below the track. They seem to interfere with each other and where they join, the track sleepers are invisible. Is this a bug, a side effect of PBR lighting? Is there any way round this. It's getting very frustrating! Yorkshire

Click to expand...

You might try using a different track such as my TRS19 SAP Track U.S. 132LB SG, FB, TP with Spikes, Shiny (KUID:439337:103196). When I was creating this TRS19 track I ran into the issue you mentioned, among several others, and it caused me a lot of problems in the design process.

The height of the ballast bed and the ties must be high enough so that a PBR parallax ground texture doesn't poke through, but not too high or the track won't match up with other tracks. Trying to balance ballast bed, ties and track height turned out to rather difficult but I got it in the end. Here is a screenshot showing my track in use with one of my PBR parallax ground textures.



I found that the the built-in TRS19 tracks had the ballast bed way to low and I was never satisfied with them, nor were they U.S. prototypical so I ended up designing my own which is very prototypical, at least for U.S. track. The track isn't perfect but it works very well with the new PBR parallax ground textures, which don't poke up through it, and doesn't have the problems you mentioned.

If you need European track you might try the TRS19 tracks from samplaire, who I believe has also dealt with these issues. He usually does very good track work.....

Bob

Thank you for all the advice and information gentlemen. A lot to take on board!

Yorkshire

philskene said:

I recommend Dan's last suggestion-- wind back the scale of the PBR textures.

PBR textures are certainly not the easiest to use, but one you master them the results are certainly worth while.

Two hints:
Don't mix and match PBR textures with non-PBR textures.
Don't rotate PBR textures.

If you want to see what can be achieved, several of us have uploaded fully PBR textured routes to the Download Station. This is one of mine:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...ilroad-layout-The-Mann-Phrom-Laramee-Railroad

Phil

Click to expand...

How do you wind back the PBR textures?

Dark_Stormyx said:

How do you wind back the PBR textures?

Click to expand...

Reduce the Scale, it will work with normal track as well as PBR but you need to make sure you are covering track by at least a grid square, you can use with non pbr textures if you again "wind back" where the two join or use boundaries such as roads an walls. I'm using non PBR textures with TurfFx IMO seems a pointless excersise to use both in the same place plus PBR is again pointless on distant terrain and doesn't look that good either! My opinion ;o)

This is a very basic question! In all the range of textures in TRS19, how do you know which are PBR textures in order to make a choice?

Yorkshire

clam1952 said:

Reduce the Scale, it will work with normal track as well as PBR but you need to make sure you are covering track by at least a grid square, you can use with non pbr textures if you again "wind back" where the two join or use boundaries such as roads an walls. I'm using non PBR textures with TurfFx IMO seems a pointless excersise to use both in the same place plus PBR is again pointless on distant terrain and doesn't look that good either! My opinion ;o)

Click to expand...

I know this sounds stupid but i'm very new to Trainz, how exactly do you reduce the scale? what am I reducing the scale of? and how do I do it?

sorry to ask so many questions. and thanks in advance for answering them.

Dark_Stormyx said:

I know this sounds stupid but i'm very new to Trainz, how exactly do you reduce the scale? what am I reducing the scale of? and how do I do it?

sorry to ask so many questions. and thanks in advance for answering them.

Click to expand...

Welcome fellow New Englander!

Go to the texture panel.

There are two dials.

The dial on the left is for the coverage area. The use is pretty obvious.

The dial on the right increases or decreases the scale of the texture (size). Adjust to suit. There are older textures that will end up with blocks that look like carpet if you reduce the scale down while others look better if you do.

Hope this helps.

JCitron said:

Welcome fellow New Englander!

Go to the texture panel.

There are two dials.

The dial on the left is for the coverage area. The use is pretty obvious.

The dial on the right increases or decreases the scale of the texture (size). Adjust to suit. There are older textures that will end up with blocks that look like carpet if you reduce the scale down while others look better if you do.

Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

OK I'll give it a try, thank you very much.

AHHHH!! I just tried it, I think I can safely say that I was completely wrong in what I thought that dial was for! Thanks again!

Are you mixing PBR and non-PBR textures in the vicinity of the track?
I've found that track (and TurfFX) don't play nice when PBR and non-PBR textures are mixed, but do much better (or even fine) when either one or the other is used.
Horace Fithers