The Revamped Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (for T:ANE-SP4)

You are not hanging around on this Graham! looks good to me.

Wonderful, Graham. The only thing missing (which we didn't put into the route) was the heavy, heavy undergrowth, tangled bushes, and crowded trees.

Bill

Malc, need to do the work before the monsoon season starts in Darjeeling :hehe:


Bill, glad you like it,

tangled undrgrowth will be done, but only within sight of the track and road, don't want to melt peoples GPU by going too far !
Frame rates are OK so far though.

Cheers,

Graham

We tried to add the 'tangled undergrowth" and our poor computers did just that. Turned the route into a slideshow. This is the same reason we didn't make the road traffic active, but just added static vehicles wherever we wanted. This route was begun in TS2004, so that meant the CPU was doing most of the work, not the GPU as in later versions. I suppose a new "region" could be created for the DHR, adding a LOT of vehicles and putting invisible roads along the Hill Cart Road for them to travel on. Might be interesting to do, considering all the foot traffic right on the roads. Couldn't have big trucks mowing down pedestrians.

Bill

Today I discovered that TRS19 breaks almost every embankment used for road and track after updating and reskinning them, my heart sank!
I don't want to abandon this project just because I don't have the skills to fix so many meshes (yet), and it is not a config issue, it is a mesh issue.

So I had a coffee, played a bit of solitaire (cards not Andy Williams song) while I got my imagineering head together to find a working solution.

Examples of faulty meshes in TRS 19..

Only certain parts of the mesh are faulty with gaps where mesh segments join.

Notice the track with guard rails, 3 out of four rails are broken!

These are all OK in TANE.




Anyway, the good news is I made a work-around as in this screenshot..

This is the revamped Agony Loop before I plant all the trees and shrubs.



The faulty assets are still there, but covered by another embankment mesh.

I am pretty pleased with the solution.

Cheers,

Graham

In TANE, the Agony Arms Hotel was rendered way too bright. I went into the item and reduced the brightness of all the colors by 50 to 60 percent. If they are still too bright when you place it back on the route, lower the brightness once more.

Peter had a tough time with the meshes for the track. Some of them still had little gaps, but they were mostly hidden by terrain when sunk far enough.

Looking good.

Bill

So this is not an new issue with the gaps? I was about to comment that when they fix the current issues with SP3, portals and who knows what else, can your fixes be easily undone? Perhaps by placing them in separate layer that can be removed or hidden if required.

I always admired all the work that went into researching and building this route and agree, if animation had been added in the beginning, it would have brought all but the most powerful computers of the day to their knees. Got to work with what you have and not with what you wish you have.

I started remaking the textures for some of the building a while back... although with '19 it might be a good idea to look at them again.



If all goes well I'll be going back to nearby Meghalaya in October next year (2022)... might be possible to add in a side trip either on the way over or way back.

Peter

Nicely redone, Peter. Could use some "shabbyness" though. Patched spots on wall, mis-matched paint, dirt spatters, etc.

Bill

martinvk said:

So this is not an new issue with the gaps? I was about to comment that when they fix the current issues with SP3, portals and who knows what else, can your fixes be easily undone? Perhaps by placing them in separate layer that can be removed or hidden if required.

I always admired all the work that went into researching and building this route and agree, if animation had been added in the beginning, it would have brought all but the most powerful computers of the day to their knees. Got to work with what you have and not with what you wish you have.

Click to expand...

There is no doubt that this route was a tremendous achievement back then, it is still an oustanding piece of work.

I have already put the aditional 'covers' in a separate layer so that they can easily be removed if necessary. I just need to keep checking that I am working in the correct layer, if only we had some visual reminder!

Something else I did was to convert all of the boards to 5m grid to enable better landscaping and texturing, that's why you can still see squares of ground texture for now.

Cheers,
Graham

Not sure if you know the whole backstory, Graham. Originally, there was a core of 8 route builders who were interested in the DHR. We allocated tasks to everyone and set up Peter (Narrowgauge) as the boss. I was assigned to the DEM creation. It was a real bear as all we had then was HOG, but it did get done. Then we were faced with how to pass the route around. Peter (I think) came up with the idea of breaking the route into manageable chunks called SCABS. (Not sure now what the acronym meant). This worked great and once I had the DEM done and the track roughly laid (took me 7 months), we broke the route up and passed them out to builders. Once they finished, they passed it back to me and I glued it onto a Master route.

This whole process was aided in a huge part by content builders, most notably DMDrake. His creations numbered well over 2500 for the route--all original designs. Quite a few others, some now not active, contributed as well. We even managed a freebie waterfall from Sir Gibby. All the while, we were chronicled online by John D'Angelo as he kept the external modeling world informed of our progress. We even mailed DVDs between us to get live perspective of scenic "hotspots" which we super-detailed (note the Kurseong station and market area and Darjeeling station).

Altogether, the project from beginning to first offering took three and a half years. I still have the original DEM with nothing but one single track from end to end stored away on a CD.

Bill

The 'breakage' of the embankment wall is a Trainz geometry problem. A track module is essentially a rectangle, so on a curve, the outer side needs to stretch and the inner side overlaps. Normally, this would not be visible but Agony Corner is an extreme example of this occurrence. The problem is that if that 'stretch' is built in to the mesh, it could show as a dark line at the join on straight track.

"cloaking the side wall" is an excellent idea but I will see if I can make a new track module with the 'stretch' built-in specifically for that particular situation. I think I still have the original mesh files so a conversion should be simple. 'should be simple', famous last words, is anything simple in Trainz.

Same applies to any other road or track problem. Tell me.

Peter

Peter, it's up to you if you want to do the fixes, I did not aim to give you more work that's why I 'covered up'.

I tried many roads and tracks that had the embankment below them and they all had the same problem with the gap.

I would have left them as they were but I needed to change the textures and of course they then have to be v3.5 or above to get the into the DLS.

You are so right about 'should be simple' that saying seems to be used a lot these days in the Trainz world.

Cheers,

Graham

Graham.

Having thought more about the problem, I think yours is by far the better solution so feel free to use your KUID for the upload. This applies to any other replacement you may find necessary. If you find a situation where this is difficult, give me a shout to see what we can come up with.

I thank you for getting involved. You are finding what we have found, the DHR is a challenge and an addiction.

Peter

Peter

Hi Peter,

I am enjoying this assignment, it's different to anything I've done before and is very challenging, but you know I like a challenge

I've done nothing to it today, I had to rest my mouse hand and wear my wrist brace for the day.

I'll be back to working on it in 9 hour's time.

DHR addictive? Oh yes, I've even ordered some Darjeeling tea to try :hehe:

Cheers,

Graham

euromodeller said:

.....

DHR addictive? Oh yes, I've even ordered some Darjeeling tea to try :hehe:

Cheers,

Graham

Click to expand...

I've been drinking it for years. Buy it in tins from Twinings, about a can a month.

Bill

I have been planting tea bushes along with shade trees in the lowlands tea gardens..




Cheers,
Graham

Wow. Just, wow. That many bushes would have made my original computer roll over and die.

Bill

I am still working away at the route and will get more screenshots up soon.

Cheers,

Graham

Take your time. We know you're busy, Graham.

Bill