Surveyor 2.0 feedback thread

philskene said:

Just a few quick words about Surveyor 2 after using for for a couple of days.

Maybe I'm getting too old for change, but I have really struggled with Surveyor 2. And by "really" struggled I do mean really struggled.

Everything I do in Surveyor 2 seems to have become much more complicated, requiring many more mouse clicks and the selection of an option from various menus. What was intuitive is not so now. What was easy is now more complex. It makes me wonder if those who redesigned the interface have actually done any route construction.

I think the rot started to set in with one of the TRS19 Service Patches that removed the buttons at the top of the screen for undo / redo. Anybody who has made a route knows that undoing and redoing are all part of the process. And used very frequently. Yes, I know that there are shortcut keys, but a simple mouse click is (or was) far simpler.

I'll continue with Trainz as long as I have access to Surveyor Classic. Tony -- please hasten to reassure me that this will always be an option in future releases.

Phil

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Fully agree with you on this. Although I've been playing Trainz since the first retail release in 2001, I have not shy ed away from learning S2 and it's options. In fact, I've come to appreciate it's many new features most notably the scrapbook and ability to mass place baseboards and edit terrain on a grand scale. But alas, I still prefer to use S1 for other tasks. Hence, it's a matter of keeping all your tools in your tool box, rather than removing some just because they are old.


Here is another way to look at it. From my standpoint, I use S2 for certain tasks including but not limited to: Mass baseboard placement, convenient terrain editing up to 1km radius (you can go bigger, but 1km is generally the best max for performance reasons), or texture editing. The scrapbook feature is also useful for placing mass forests (which was time consuming in the past unless you used tree splines). As well as rocks, texture patterns and so on.

On the other hand, I like S1 for laying track, placing catenaries, roads, and other splines. Also, when compared to S2 for me at least, S1 is best for placing down and building train sets. The bottom line is that the two tools are not competing with each other as to which one is better. On the contrary, S1 and S2 complement each other very, very well. If you want a simple, common editing tool for basic tasks, S1 is for you. If you want more fine details or have a need for additional resources for your tasks, then S2 is for you too. And if your like me, you might use S1 for some tasks, and S2 for other tasks. Hence, I certainly hope S1 will stay with Trainz for years to come. Just to re-cap, S1 and S2 are complements to each other, not competitors.

My first attempts at using S20 were a complete failure. Different tools require a change in process, and until you know the new shortcuts as well as the old, then of course things will be both different and slower. Yes, some things are still better done in Classic, but we're not done with S20 yet.

Placing, raising, lowering and moving track for example, the actual placing of track is almost identical. The vertex points are immediately obvious when the track is selected, but of course this is a learned behaviour in S20 since "selection" is not a thing in Classic. They also show up as you mouseover.

Classic gives you the power to do one thing over and over again for each item while S20 gives you the power to do one thing to the entire selection at once.

Classic
- Click Track Tab
- Select a track
- Click twice to place one segment
- Hold ctrl to continue placing more segments
- Click Advanced
- Click Adjust Spline Height
- Grab the track vertex, move the mouse
- Hold ctrl for fine adjustment
- Repeat for each vertex
- Click on the Move tool
- Click on each track vertex to move them one at a time
- Click on Smooth Spline Height to raise the terrain for each track segment

S20
- Click Track in Asset Palette
- Select a track
- Click twice to place one segment
- Hold ctrl to continue placing more segments
- Click on Fine Adjustment Tool
- Click to select a track segment
- Drag on one of the 3 gizmos to raise the whole track segment or one end only
- Double click to select the entire track junction to junction (or shift-click to add one segment at a time)
- Select the middle gismo to raise the entire selection by a certain amount
- Click Info > Pos to expand the x,y,z co-ords
- Mouseover the arrows to fine adjust up or down
- Drag the gismo to move all the selected track segments
- Click on the Contextual menu > Smooth ground under selected to raise the terrain under all selected segments at once

I'd love to spend some time on Discord going through the process in MPS with a few of you if we can find a good time to get together during Aussie hours. People can even watch on Discord if they don't have S20.

Name some dates and times 8am-6pm AEST that might suit and I'll arrange to spend an hour going through the tools.

Meanwhile, it would be good to hear a list of actual use cases where there are problems. Ctrl-mouse for fine adjustment vs mouse over z co-ord in the Info palette seems to me to be pretty much the same action, but if you don't know about that option, then clearly just dragging the z-axis on the gizmo is inferior.

Wow, I will actually signup for the discord to see this. I have tried to wrap my head around 2.0 but like many of the old-timers, I just can't seem to get comfortable with it and always go back to classic. Tony that is very kind of you to offer to take an hour to do this with your customers. I have never heard of the head of another software company offering something like this. I am available pretty much anytime. I will just watch for what hour works out the best for everyone and try to be there.

I have been using S20 almost exclusively since December to make myself learn it. I use classic occasional for things like water and replacing assets over the entire map. As time goes on i find myself using classic less and less. I do find that editing routes is faster in S20, once you figure out all the shortcuts.

I find laying new track is probably easier, for at least for me, since I used the big spline points as an aid in laying parallel track.

My one wish is that the grab points were larger. Trying to find them in dense vegetation and other ground texture sometimes feels like a scavenger hunt.

I am looking forward to see what additions/changes are made in S20. But for me I would give S20 a thumbs up, while hopping that classic remains with us for awhile. I too see classic as complimentary.

H222 said:

S2 may require as many (not more) clicks than S1

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S2 does require more clicks in some scenarios. For example consider changing the direction on 3 consectutive sets of points/switches/junctions.

S1 Classic
Switch 1
Select Tracks (F4) (1 click)
Select Trackside Mode (Y) (1 click)
Select Junction Direction (J) (1 click)

Switch 2
Hover over switch and click arrow (1 click)

Switch 3
Hover over switch and click arrow (1 click)

Total of 5 clicks for changing the direction on 3 consecutive sets of junctions.

S2.0
Switch 1
Select switch
Select contextual menu icon
Select change junction direction (3 clicks)

Switch 2 as above (3 clicks)

Switch 3 as above (3 clicks)

Total of 9 clicks for changing the direction on 3 consecutive sets of junctions. Not a huge amount agreed, but when working with complex yards it all adds up and slows you down. Is there another way of doing this in S2.0? Am I missing a technique? Really need a way to just click on the red/green arrows.

There are other examples I could give.

S2 good for some tasks, not good on others (as it currently stands).

You've totally lost me here. A simple mouse sweep is NOT far simpler than CRTL+Z. It just empirically is not.

From someone who jumps between both all the time.

Cheers
Jamie

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Assuming you have use of both hands of course. The effect of Rhumatoid Athritis has taken its toll on my left hand.

Classic is great at single tasks. After all it's been the backbone of Trainz for 20+ years, so it's got a LOT going for it.

Now try counting clicks to move track, move trackside object, move scenery object and let me know.

Or move an entire section of track and all surrounding objects a few meters (two clicks in S20).

Or my favourite, place a whole yard:
- Click Presets
- Search Yard
- Set radius to desired dimension
- Click

Or to rotate that whole yard a few degrees, then move it 5 meters south:
- Select the Fine Adjustment tool
- Marquee Select the yard
- Rotate the entire selection using one of the track gizmo handles
- Add 5 to the X value in the Info tool



I'll be on Discord 10am AEST tomorrow to do some demos - you can watch on a live stream, join in the voice chat, and/or log in to the KSC2 route.

Tried the shortcut keys and for some reason they are hard to remember for me
more of a mouse person anyway.


S2 Current shortcut defaults:
w Brush tool
e Placement tool
r Eyedropper tool
s Free Move tool
d Fine Adjustment tool (is there a Coarse Adjustment tool?)
f Marquee tool


t context menu (contextual menu, when selected and click the small icon)
Ctrl d, cancel selection (important function that needs 2 keys)


Easier to remember shortcuts (associations)
b Brush tool
p Placement tool
e Eyedropper tool
f Free Move tool
a Adjustment tool
m Marquee tool


c context menu
Esc cancel any selection, operation

The defaults are mapped to the keyboard in the same layout as the tool palette. Once you make that association, and remember W is the Brush tool, it's easy. So Fine Adj. is one key across and one down = D.

Tony_Hilliam said:

The defaults are mapped to the keyboard in the same layout as the tool palette. Once you make that association, and remember W is the Brush tool, it's easy. So Fine Adj. is one key across and one down = D.

Click to expand...

I agree. The keys are in the same order, horizontally and vertically, as the on screen icons. That makes them easy for me to remember.

In the past two months, I've been working on a route almost entirely with S20. Currently, I'm at the stage of laying desired track layouts for all stations. I'd like to say that S20 is a big step forward, and makes a lot of things a lot faster even in the current WIP state. Thanks to all the team who work on this project and keep doing the good job!

Things that are great:

- large sizes of brush tools: great for terrain height editing
- gizmo for precision moving
- ability to enter angles etc. from the keyboard
- small black dots marking the curve vertices

Generally I feel that making the complex track layout is a lot easier now than it used to be. All elements can be aligned with great precision. Making 8km straight track is also very easy. Basically, my route is partially fictional, that is: inspired by a real layout, but with many custom changes and additions. I started with measuring the lengths of tracks and angles/radii of curves in Google Earth Pro, and I could easily recreate them in S20. Then, I polished the terrain and started adding stations. Also, despite that all types of objects (scenery, splines, tracks, etc.) are now editable "together", I found the selection tool working surprisingly good. Also, I managed to move whole parts of the station thanks to the selection and gizmos.

At the beginning, I had no idea how to add new baseboards with S20. It took me a while, but once I found this option, it turned out to work well.

The one thing that I miss is the ability to switch the default behavior of laying splines and tracks between "settle on ground" and the current default. When I need to rework a small piece of the scenery (or add some details) on the already aligned terrain, and all new splines/tracks keep getting lost underground. I need to find their possible location and click "Settle on ground" to make them visible. Or firstly laying all of them on a flat patch of ground and then move everything to the intended position.

Comment to the italic text: and it looks that you're also very quick at applying feedback. I wrote this post while waiting for SP1 to install, and it looks like after the upgrade, "Settle on ground" is the default behavior! Thanks!

There is something I was used and now I cannot find anymore: the bookmarks. How does it work in S20 or what is usable instead of them?

I did not read those 16 sites but is there feedback about the water?

The new water is really complicated and me and some others did not yet find a way to remove water-effects...

sister said:

There is something I was used and now I cannot find anymore: the bookmarks. How does it work in S20 or what is usable instead of them?

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Bookmarks can be set (and found again) using hotkeys in S20:
* Use Ctrl + Alt + <number> to set
* Use Alt + >number> to go to bookmark (i.e. hold Alt and press a key to jump to the location)

The new water is really complicated and me and some others did not yet find a way to remove water-effects...​

Click to expand...

You remove the effect by lowering the water below the terrain. See https://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Water_Effect_Layer

Bookmarks are not working for me in S20. Trainz+ build 119450. Can someone test on their system please.

John

johnarran said:

Bookmarks are not working for me in S20. Trainz+ build 119450. Can someone test on their system please.

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Just tested it and I can confirm that setting and accessing bookmarks (using the keyboard) are NOT working in S20. They are working in S10.

Thank you pware.

I have submitted a bug report.

Is there a hot key or shortcut to switch to a pick list? It gets frustrating clicking back and forth from "Scenery Object" to "Picklist." Am I missing something?

Maybe I'm missing something - how would the hotkey decide which Picklist to select?

In S20, clicking on the Asset Palette dropdown list shows you a list of all your Picklists and it's one more click to load that list.

The main thing I miss most from Surveyor Classic that is not in S20 is the in-game filters - Ctrl + Shift + F
If I have installed a load of new content then I like to to set the Date installed to each day in turn to add stuff from that day. I also use the Category-Region and type for example to show Locomotives from Poland. I can go into Content Manager and set up a filter for this but it is cumbersome particularly if it is a temporary filter like the date installed one. For the moment, it is easy to go into Surveyor Classic but in the longer term it would be good to have some filters built in to S20.
That is pretty much the only thing I need to use classic for now as S20 is so much more intuitive, the transform 'gizmo' and bring able to type in rotation/height etc such a time saver.
The only other reason for using classic is consists and if I need to select a specific category - manipulating consists inside a station is easier in the trains tab as nothing else is movable then.