One of the things that has always been difficult is judging the vertical displacement of the terrain, especially when created by tools such as TransDEM since they tend to be very smooth displacements. In contrast, horizontal displacements are easy to see and adjust, just look down vertically and move the object. There are even many guides that will attract an object, making horizontal alignments a snap.
So I made another detour to GMax (I know it's old but for these kinds of objects, it's enough) and created a spline object, a vertical plane that extends from -50m to +50 m, plenty for most of the terrain I'm working with. At a distance, I see horizontal guide lines every 10m vertical. When I get closer, 1m bars appear every 100 meters horizontally. I just have to set the spline joints at 0 m elevation so the spline doesn't follow the ground elevation. The whole thing is semi-transparent so I can see what is behind it.
In this example, the grid lines make the ground obvious but when painted with a random ground texture, it is not so obvious any more.
At a distance
close up
It is still a work-in-progress subject to modifications as I use it and find improvements that need to be made. Once I'm satisfied, it will probably join the rest of my guides on the DLS.
This little detour has shown me once again why I like Trainz so much and why my projects always take so long to make. I can create all the routes I could never do if I was still back in the physical model world of my father. And every time I need something else, instead of going down to the model store and buying another thing, I just have to make it.
So I made another detour to GMax (I know it's old but for these kinds of objects, it's enough) and created a spline object, a vertical plane that extends from -50m to +50 m, plenty for most of the terrain I'm working with. At a distance, I see horizontal guide lines every 10m vertical. When I get closer, 1m bars appear every 100 meters horizontally. I just have to set the spline joints at 0 m elevation so the spline doesn't follow the ground elevation. The whole thing is semi-transparent so I can see what is behind it.
In this example, the grid lines make the ground obvious but when painted with a random ground texture, it is not so obvious any more.
At a distance
close up
It is still a work-in-progress subject to modifications as I use it and find improvements that need to be made. Once I'm satisfied, it will probably join the rest of my guides on the DLS.
This little detour has shown me once again why I like Trainz so much and why my projects always take so long to make. I can create all the routes I could never do if I was still back in the physical model world of my father. And every time I need something else, instead of going down to the model store and buying another thing, I just have to make it.