The greatest pain of all: floating assets

If there was one thing that NV3 could do to make route making easier, it would be to include a tool that allows one to select multiple assets and move them down under or to ground level. it is so time wasting having to move vegetation. rocks, buildings, roads etc down to below or to ground level so they are not floating , is there any good reason why things float ? No doubt we will be told that there are insurmountable tech problems involved in a fix.

I feel your pain! I think I already know the answer.

Trouble is, not everything floats at the same altitude, so one adjustment likely won't work for a random collection. Blame the asset creators if blame is to be blamed. They should all work to the same standard -- mine, of course.

Why not just move the ground up?

:B~)

RHKluckhohn said:

Trouble is, not everything floats at the same altitude, so one adjustment likely won't work for a random collection. Blame the asset creators if blame is to be blamed. They should all work to the same standard -- mine, of course.

Why not just move the ground up?

:B~)

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its more an issue on rough ground, any variation can mean an item is raised, for instance, bushes on a slope, if the foliage touches the ground the rest of the item is raised. This means thousands of items lining the route that all have to be moved down , as its a prototypical I cant just flatten the surroundings to fit.

It certainly would be good if Trainz allowed batch selection of Kind:Scenery assets within a marked-out area of the ground, or for more careful work, by Ctrl-clicking multiple objects. Even better if the selected objects would brighten to indicate they have been selected.

The problem with most assets is that when created they were all built from 0 upwards. Nobody extended the assets below 0 to allow for slopes. Houses show this a lot as no one extends the walls to below 0 to hide any gap. The axis is the point which is at ground level.

I feel your pain as well. I've suggested a lasso or a selection type too many times in the past.

Now as far as floating assets go, is this on a route import, merger, or opening?
I reported this as a bug a few betas ago in both TRS2019 and TRS2019 Plus. Tony even took up an interest in it, but nothing ever happened with the results. The problem is this error occurs randomly and without warning of anything amiss, and the problem is it can be in a remote location on a larger route that's been imported so you won't notice it until much, much later after merging, which makes this annoying at the least.

I have, however, found a workaround for this.

Open the topology panel.
Get the height of the landscape under the spot where the objects are floating or have buried themselves into the terrain.
Apply the height and the floating or buried objects will drop or rise out of the ground.

You can either choose a new height for a new location, or repeat using the same height you just got and used. If you've created a divot or rise in the wrong place, hit CTRL-Z to undo. This will reset the terrain back to the correct height and the assets will remain planted where they're supposed to be.

holy crap yes, i deal with this all the time, id recommend using grass splines, far easier to use but sometimes dont look the best

JCitron said:

I feel your pain as well. I've suggested a lasso or a selection type too many times in the past.

Now as far as floating assets go, is this on a route import, merger, or opening?
I reported this as a bug a few betas ago in both TRS2019 and TRS2019 Plus. Tony even took up an interest in it, but nothing ever happened with the results. The problem is this error occurs randomly and without warning of anything amiss, and the problem is it can be in a remote location on a larger route that's been imported so you won't notice it until much, much later after merging, which makes this annoying at the least.

I have, however, found a workaround for this.

Open the topology panel.
Get the height of the landscape under the spot where the objects are floating or have buried themselves into the terrain.
Apply the height and the floating or buried objects will drop or rise out of the ground.

You can either choose a new height for a new location, or repeat using the same height you just got and used. If you've created a divot or rise in the wrong place, hit CTRL-Z to undo. This will reset the terrain back to the correct height and the assets will remain planted where they're supposed to be.

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No this is in tane sp3, The very hilly Unitah Rwy , lots of very steep banks, narrow ledges, uneven ground.

In reality, none of the scenery assets float. Their origin point (the X,Y,Z=0 point in 3D creation space) always sits on the ground regardless of slope, unless you have adjusted the asset’s height.

Dinorius_Redundicus said:

In reality, none of the scenery assets float. Their origin point (the X,Y,Z=0 point in 3D creation space) always sits on the ground regardless of slope, unless you have adjusted the asset’s height.

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Not the case in clams tn bushes, if any bit of the foliage touches ground, the trunk is suspended in the air . I've not modified the origin point .

I think everything was made on the Flat Earth Theory
Just a roll feature on all scenery items would be great
you cant even place a car/truck facing up/down a hill without one end being up in the air
pity they cant just run a program to add roll to scenery items

It's up to the content creator to add the rolling feature to scenery assets.

big_b said:

pity they cant just run a program to add roll to scenery items

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gawpo50 said:

It's up to the content creator to add the rolling feature to scenery assets.

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One problem is that rolling, AFAIK, is only allowed on a single axis so which axis should that hypothetical program select? And again, the rolling axis that a creator selects may not suit the needed solution in every layout problem.

dangavel said:

Not the case in clams tn bushes, if any bit of the foliage touches ground, the trunk is suspended in the air . I've not modified the origin point .

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Sorry Dan, I don't doubt your observations, but what I said about the origin point is true.

Clam1952's bushes and trees are not exceptions to the rule. The ones that have a single trunk, and an origin at or near its base (which is usually the case), do not "float" on sloping ground.

Those that are a group of bushes will, by definition, have multiple trunks. As such, the origin point cannot coincide with all the trunks at once, so when placed on sloping ground, some trunks will be buried and others will hang in mid air. The origin, wherever it is in the object, will still be at ground level. That was my point.

The exact same thing happens, must happen, with any extended scenery object, like a group of trees, a house or a slab of concrete. One side gets buried while the other extends in mid air, but the asset overall is not floating, at least as far as its origin point is concerned. So it's the position of the origin in relation to the visible parts of the asset that controls everything, not whether foliage is touching the ground.

In clam1952's bushes, I noticed that he has tried to alleviate this problem to some extent by making the origin 0.2-0.4m above the base of the trunk(s). This means that when you place a bush, 0.2-0.4m of the trunks (and possibly some of the foliage) will be underground and will not appear to "float" until the ground slope is enough to expose more than the lower 0.2-0.4m of the mesh.

For buildings, it's a lost cause to expect creators to make them all with extended basements. I think a more practical solution is to landscape the ground and make it flat or place a thick base of some sort or maybe one of those retaining walls with flat terrain attached to take care of the slope.

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Dinorius_Redundicus said:

Sorry Dan, I don't doubt your observations, but what I said about the origin point is true.

Clam1952's bushes and trees are not exceptions to the rule. The ones that have a single trunk, and an origin at or near its base (which is usually the case), do not "float" on sloping ground.

Those that are a group of bushes will, by definition, have multiple trunks. As such, the origin point cannot coincide with all the trunks at once, so when placed on sloping ground, some trunks will be buried and others will hang in mid air. The origin point, wherever it is in the object, will still be at ground level.

The exact same thing happens, must happen, with any extended scenery object, like a group of trees, a house or a slab of concrete. One side gets buried while the other extends in mid air, but the asset overall is not floating, at least as far as its origin point is concerned. So it's the position of the origin in relation to the visible parts of the asset that controls everything, not whether foliage is touching the ground.

In clam1952's bushes, I noticed that he has tried to alleviate this problem to some extent by making the origin 0.2-0.4m above the base of the trunk(s). This means that when you place a bush, 0.2-0.4m of the trunks (and possibly some of the foliage) will be underground and will not appear to "float" until the ground slope is enough to expose more than the lower 0.2-0.4m of the mesh.

For buildings, it's a lost cause to expect creators to make them all with extended basements. I think a more practical solution is to landscape the the ground and make it flat or place a thick base of concrete or maybe one of those retaining walls with flat terrain attached to take care of the slope.

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yes, you are correct, the ones I have largely been using are the ones with two trunks,bush 10g ,which I used as they take up more spaces,so have to plant fewer of them , Ive had to change them all anyway as they have become semi transparent at a distance and look very strange next to more solid objects, a great shame as they look very nice , didn't impact on frame rates too much and were ideal as scrub oaks.

dangavel said:

yes, you are correct, the ones I have largely been using are the ones with two trunks, bush 10g ,which I used as they take up more spaces, so have to plant fewer of them

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The great 3D god gives with one hand and takes with the other. The price you pay for planting less bushes is the possibility of floaty bits. If they happen to be linear groups (which they must be if they only have 2 bushes per group) you can always rotate them until both trunks sit nicely on the ground, not floating.

dangavel said:

I've had to change them all anyway as they have become semi transparent at a distance and look very strange next to more solid objects

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Really? I put some up against a white-walled building and they didn't fade out with distance no matter how far I went back. Wondering if it has something to do with the Surveyor settings. Mine have tree and scenery detail both set at "Ultra". You might check that. My graphics card is only a GTX 980Ti, so not the latest by any means.


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Dinorius_Redundicus said:

The great 3D god gives with one hand and takes with the other. The price you pay for planting less bushes is the possibility of floaty bits. If they happen to be linear groups (which they must be if they only have 2 bushes per group) you can always rotate them until both trunks sit nicely on the ground, not floating.





Really? I put some up against a white-walled building and they didn't fade out with distance no matter how far I went back. Wondering if it has something to do with the Surveyor settings. Mine have tree and scenery detail both set at "Ultra". You might check that. My graphics card is only a GTX 980Ti, so not the latest by any means.


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I only have an rx580 nitro on my Mac, 8gb, but as there's no direct x in Mac it's not so efficient as apple has not well supported open gl. Also, Baxter pass is a miles long vista from up top and it's absolutely covered in veg, i still have quite a few spots to fill too, as the line comes close to all of the canyon cliffs, in total it's almost a 360 degree curve over about 3 miles, I can't use textures instead of vegetation anywhere. I doubt my card will handle ultra settings here, it's on high tree detail, no stutter, but next to the kust series bushes I have recently used , the 10gs look very washed out , didn't used to do so, but in sp3 , they look very thin. I'll take a screenshot later on to illustrate.

Time to buy yourself a proper PC then. You're not spending money socialising or on travel at the moment, so it's the perfect time to treat yourself to something that will make your hobby life better.

I understand what you're talking about now. I did have the issue I mentioned occur in T:ANE as well but didn't know how to resolve it then.

Anyway. I've seen the issue you are talking about in other 3d environments such as Arma 3. There are grass clumps all over and grass clumps end up hanging out into space in some places because they don't conform to the terrain due to the reasons mentioned above.

Whenever I've run across floating bits, I'll squish the assets into the ground. I know it's a pain in the you-know-what when you've got a gazillion of them. For houses I do exactly as mentioned above. It's a bit time consuming, but it works quite well.