Back Into Trainz (A Slight Return)

tbob

Analog Kid
Hey Everyone,

I don't even know who's still here since I've last been on. I lurk here and there, usually seeing what content Pweiser's (Hi Paul!) got out or if JointedRail has new screenies of the LIRR content that shows up here and there. Considering I first joined the forum when I was fifteen and now I'm pushing thirty (with silver hair popping up, joy), I've seen some pretty substantial changes over the years, in both myself and in Trainz and the other train simulators.

I recently picked up T:ANE on Steam for $5 and figured I'd make some baby steps to get back into Trainz again. I've been pretty big into DTG's Train Simulator (and Train Sim World on the Xbox), so I'm basically learning to ride a bike again. Those two are still going to be my main sims (in the little free time I have), but I am going to try to get back into route building now that I'm older and have a better comprehension of the tools within Surveyor.

I'm not going to be doing any more reskinning, but if anyone out there would like to update my reskinned content on the DLS to work in the current generation of Trainz, then please consider this my full blessing.

My Highland Valley re-works are dead. They did survive two PC crashes via backup, but I just don't have the heart or the patience to try again with them. I've seen some screen shots of beautiful work that those of you have done to it yourselves and after re-working it myself so many times I just don't have it in me anymore. I do still have all of the screenshots saved, I just need to transfer them from Photobucket to Google and will eventually have a gallery (minus the stories) for anyone who still has interest.

I've got a TON of my old content imported into T:ANE, but it's taking me awhile to go through and correct a bunch of the faulty content. I have content from magicland, conyxy, and lndrvr that I would especially like to fix due to its rarity. I have sniffed around the web and found some guides, and I need to download PEVTool tonight to see if I can fix some texture faults, but please be patient with me if I ask for help and there's already a forum post that I've overlooked. Back in my day we had CMP and it usually didn't care (when it worked, haha) what you were trying to import. I also preferred its GUI. And where did Railyard go?! The "test track" just isn't as fun.

I have started (like, literally started, like one baseboard, a piece of track, and two textures) a new fictional map called Abby Brook (named after my girlfriend, who I was showing off the Surveyor tools to when starting the map). I've got some plans for it, but nothing really set in stone yet. It will start off as a contemporary short line that runs light freight and short excursion trains, with a side business of repairing locomotives and rolling stock. I plan on having one end connected to a trolley museum with a really overgrown switch reached by some street running ala some of NYCTA's national connections and transfer routes, and the other end connected to a freight siding on a major passenger/commuter route ala the NEC, with possible Amtrak excursions. Picture the NEC, meets the Naugatuck Railroad, meets the CT Trolley Museum, with a Swanage vibe. It'll look good, I swear. I probably won't release it, but I would like to do my screen shot stories once again.

I hope to reconnect with some of my former Trainz friends, and maybe make some new ones.

- Jesse -
 
Welcome back, Bob! Don't get me going on the grey hairs. That's all I've got now where I do have hair!

It's been quite a ride here and T:ANE is a good kicking off point. Even with the new TRS2019 and all of its flavors being the latest, T:ANE is still quite viable and has many of the good features of TRS2019, and in many ways is much better being that it handles the billboard trees quite well along with the Speed Trees, among other things better.

If you need help with updating content, feel free to ask. PEV's Images2TGA will be your best friend here. For the most part, if your stuff works in TS12 there's a great chance it'll work quite fine in T:ANE.

Surveyor hasn't changed much since TS12. The replace assets tool now has additional features, and the pick-list search filter is the same as TS12. Copy and paste tool now has copy and keep as well as copy and replace function, depending upon which button. The layers is still confusing as ever, and merging is the more or less with the need to watch layers as in TS12.

One of the best changes in T:ANE is to jump back in and adjust a consist while in Driver. As you drive, you'll notice the consists pullout tab on the right side of the screen. Click on that, and you can then add consists, adjust commodities, and do other things like fix derailments on the fly.

So outside of these minor things, it's the same as usual.
 
Hi Bob,

Welcome back. In CM you can right click on most items like rolling stock, scenery, buildings, groundtextures and other items and choose Open...Preview asset to open a nice preview window showing the item in full 3D mode. Not quite railyard but a nice way to see what items look like.

William
 
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