Laying a texture, such as track ballast, the texture takes the form of a rectangle parallel to the wire-frame. This is ok if the track is parallel to the wire-frame. But if it is at an angle you get some amount of a zig-zag pattern in the ballast. That very much out of character to reality. I have tried CTRL, SHIFT and ALT but there is no-way I have found to make laying ballast follow the track.???
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Drawing Ballast Parallel To Tracks?
- Thread starter boleyd
- Start date
This has always been the case. The way around this is to make the ballast wider than the track bed then work other textures back in over it.
Since you've upgraded to Plus, try the new spline to texture feature:
Open up the Bulk Update tool.
In the replace what area put in your track or other spline you want to put a texture under.
In the replace with spot, put in your texture of choice after adjusting the scaling.
Replace the asset and you'll have textures following your spline.
The area is wide and you'll have to then trim back and cover over what you don't want as ballast, but it'll save a lot of time.
Since you've upgraded to Plus, try the new spline to texture feature:
Open up the Bulk Update tool.
In the replace what area put in your track or other spline you want to put a texture under.
In the replace with spot, put in your texture of choice after adjusting the scaling.
Replace the asset and you'll have textures following your spline.
The area is wide and you'll have to then trim back and cover over what you don't want as ballast, but it'll save a lot of time.
stagecoach
75377
John you do know the size is controlled by the radius of your brush as in the placing of a texture.
First, the minimum size of the brush would be fine if it followed the track smoothly.
I went to Plus because of the "ballast under spline feature. Unfortunately, the same issue exists - automatically paints in blocks that follows the wireframe not the track. If there was a table of points created that defined the general path of the track then an angle could be computed to rotate the rectangle of ballast to follow the track. Another table and another sub-routine.
I went to Plus because of the "ballast under spline feature. Unfortunately, the same issue exists - automatically paints in blocks that follows the wireframe not the track. If there was a table of points created that defined the general path of the track then an angle could be computed to rotate the rectangle of ballast to follow the track. Another table and another sub-routine.
Christopher824
CDETrainz.com
Laying a texture, such as track ballast, the texture takes the form of a rectangle parallel to the wire-frame. This is ok if the track is parallel to the wire-frame. But if it is at an angle you get some amount of a zig-zag pattern in the ballast. That very much out of character to reality. I have tried CTRL, SHIFT and ALT but there is no-way I have found to make laying ballast follow the track.???
First I just paint it, you will get those jagged lines. Then I choose the smallest Radius and the smallest Scale, and feather it.
So what do I mean by feathering it? I use the 5m grid, each gridline intersection is a paint hotspot or max. The center of of the boxes of those intersections are the paint none or zero intersections. By clicking from the center of each box to the next corner will graduate the paint spray from almost 0% to almost 100% toward that corner. So hitting somewhere between, depending on how much spray you want, will effectively feather the jagged edges together.
John you do know the size is controlled by the radius of your brush as in the placing of a texture.
I tried that with the tool and it didn't appear to help. Maybe I did it wrong so will have to try it again. It's still useful though because things blend in better anyway with the ballast covering stuff underneath.
If I recall correctly the zipper effect was a new feature added in TRS 2004 or TRS2006. Prior to that the ground texture was applied to the center of the grid square fading out equally in all directions and just going slightly beyond each grid side. The result was a circle of texture. It was changed to having the ground texture applied to a grid intersection and the texture in one diagonal axis being strong and bold while the other diagonal axis fades out quickly barely reaching the corners of the grid square. Thus producing the zipper look. Many route builders complained but I don't remember if then Auran ever addressed the issue.
Useless bit of trivia: Originally the texture brush's minimum radius was 2 grid squares in Trainz 1.3 and UTC.
William
Useless bit of trivia: Originally the texture brush's minimum radius was 2 grid squares in Trainz 1.3 and UTC.
William
stagecoach
75377
Place the track in the bulk asset replace. Select the ballast and place in the right window and adjust the brush radius dial. Now click begin and the ballast is laid to the brush size.
euromodeller
Imagineer
Or you could try this...
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...Textures-dirt-roads-etc&p=1765897#post1765897
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...Textures-dirt-roads-etc&p=1765897#post1765897
Actually Graham I have used your blended textures to overcome this very problem. Works great on single track, but unfortunately you didn't add the green edge to the double track version so the cut off is stark and can't be blended in. Any reason for that, as I do love your work.
euromodeller
Imagineer
Actually Graham I have used your blended textures to overcome this very problem. Works great on single track, but unfortunately you didn't add the green edge to the double track version so the cut off is stark and can't be blended in. Any reason for that, as I do love your work.
For double tracks I use two single track splines side by side, why? the mesh simply is not wide enough to do add blended edges for double track use, I was using a mesh made by clam1952 that was readily available.
I will see what I can come up with to make a double track blended spline that does the job.
Just a note: I have used the CL ballast02 in all my routes with track that has self-ballast that matches that. A medium dark white limestone. I choose track to match that ballast. Now, should track be chosen based on "more important" criteria and are there any thoughts about track itself playing a role in the ragged ballast?
justinroth
Active member
I always use 5m grid and try to use ballast splines. I then blend the ground to the ballast splines other texture, usually something that looks good under weeds. I then cover any zipper with weeds and whatnot.
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