CPR Heron Bay/Nipigon Subs (in sections - Warning: Large pics [1600 x 1200 pixels])

Hi All,


I'll be using this thread to show screenshots of the next project I'll be working on (sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway's Heron Bay/Nipigon Subs along Lake Superior). Please feel free to give constructive criticism and tips. I think everyone is always learning and that there is more than one way to go about doing things. =) I'm not a pro but I'll do what I can to make this look good!

It took me longer than expected to get going but better to start properly than rush into a mess, right? I've got the map in surveyor and I have all the basic stuff I need right now (the DEM section, some UTM tiles for the town of Schreiber and the track, road, watercourse, powerlines, vectors roughly placed). The first section I plan to build is visible in the minimap (see screens below).

For more information about the route's location, etc...see this thread:
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=42395

The good news is that Titaniclover has generously offered to do the foliage/texturing once I've completed the basic stuff (roads, buildings, water, track, etc...). I may do my own foliage/texturing just for a different flavour, but Titaniclover has made some fantastic stuff and I look forward to his foliage/texturing! He's using '09, so 09 users won't have to directly import that map. I'm building in '04 though, so I think that covers all the bases for us trainzers (06/TC users can import from 04).

For anyone wanting to build terrain the easy way, I totally recommend Geophil's transDEM. This project is just starting but I would never attempt it without a DEM otherwise! Well worth the money spent...



My computer is somewhat older so the draw distance is down. I might tweak it up later: we'll see. I just took this shot to give a sense of the terrain...



The town (900 people) of Schreiber. I have a lot of work to do in fixing up the tracks obviously but at least they are placed. I could not find a track that was an exact match to the one I wanted to use, but the mp-wood track is great on framerates and does the job. I decided to go with maddy25's awesome roads (although the lines are yellow: not orange but that's a small price I'm willing to pay). They too have to be tweaked but at least they are placed in the general area.



I figured it would be wise to use google earth for UTM tiles in the town. I will try to make this as prototypical as possible but I suppose nothing can be 100% accurate.



Left section of the map (from the outskirts of Rossport to the outskirts of Schreiber)



Right section of the map (from the outskirts of Schreiber to the outskirts of Jackfish Bay).

I hope to someday build one more DEM section west of Rossport (towards the left) and a possibly 2 more to the right of Jackfish Bay. Baby steps for now...

I'm going to try to import one extra vector (trails) before I do work on this. The first step will be to delete the extra boards I won't need. I want this to be frame rate friendly so I wont be building out massively like in the last route I made. Then I'll toss in water, fix up the roads, tracks, etc...and go from there.

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Looking Good Gisa,I cant wait too see more mate please keep em coming.
Good luck with it.
Cheers Mick.:wave:

You have made excellent progress Gisa! :wave:

Cheers,
Adam

Thanks guys. I did about two hours of work last night lowering ground where water would be (I chose a depth of 5 meters near the shore line and then 10 meters for the rest of Lake Superior). Unfortunately, the DEM I used does not measure water depth (I suppose no sources of DEM data do that right?) but one can't see down deep in any lake so it won't be noticeable.

I deleted a few boards, but I like depth and am not sure how it will look from the cab of a train/photographer along the tracks, so I will leave most of the baseboards I am considering deleting for now and delete them later as I see fit. I'm pretty much finished lowering all the ground that needs to be lowered and will add water later today. Hopefully I'll have a few shots to show later...

There will be some great scenic spots that I can see already. Lake Superior is visible at some sections as well as smaller lakes that are very close to the tracks. The Trans-Canada runs very close to the line in sections so it'll be nice to see traffic running along the side as well.

Next will be fixing up the tracks. The thing is, the blue texture shades that indicate where the tracks should be is a bit different in most spots than where the vector data actually placed the tracks. I'll have to adjust things somewhat but it's still fairly accurate and it'll look good in the end when it's finished. This will be tricky because I'm not 100% sure where tunnels, cuts, embankments, etc...are and the data I have for gradients will help but only summarizes the gradients between sections. As I said before, nothing can be 100% prototypical, but I'll do my best and if it's fun to drive on/railfan in the end then I will have considered this a success.

Hopefully some more shots later today (with water at least)

:wave:

Gisa ^^

You got alot further along with transdem then i have Gisa,Your doing a excellent job I've just subscribed to your thread so will be able to monitor your progress and hopefully learn how you achieved it.
Keep the screenies coming.
Cheers Mick.:wave:

That's alot of boards and alot of work; I'll be watching your progress as well.

I just sent you a PM Mick. Give 'er a read when you get the chance.

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Indeed it is! 100 + if I recall. I might leave all the boards as you see, but the detail going out will obviously be very little.

I will do what I can. Good news is that I have most of the terrain done, most of the tracks/roads laid in the rough area and a lot of momentum. I actually enjoyed going around the map last night and lowering some of the terrain.

Plus, I have lots of inspiration from other trainzers and all the time in the world (I won't pushing myself to finish this by such and such a date) so I won't get burnt out.

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Quick update: haven't gotten around to too much because I've been busy with work and helping a few other trainzers with other things. I did finish putting in Lake Superior/other lakes but it's just water so I didn't think it was worth showing in shots. The thing is, since Titaniclover said he's interested in doing the texturing/foliage, I won't have much that's really worthy of showing for a long time (until perhaps I do my own). Still, I'll make some updates here and show progess and what not as time goes on.

I also swapped in some decent looking rivers (I had used roads to mark the watercourses) but unfortunately, when transDEM (or the data I obtained) placed them, it placed them relative to an absolute value: not the terrain. That means that to adjust them to follow the contours of the land properly is impossible to do without moving them manually and forcing them to snap to the terrain. I spent the last hour doing that but it's pretty much done. This also means that I'll have to do the same thing with roads and tracks (although I was expecting to adjust the tracks and roads anyhow but this will make it take a bit longer I guess). It also means I'll have to play around with the splines to get the splines to look right (instead of cutting through terrain here and there and floating above in other places).

I've also put some thought into releasing a bare-bones DEM with all this stuff once I'm finished before I do my own texturing/foliage. That way, those people who don't like laying track, adding water, adding roads, etc...can just start with this and do whatever they see fit.

:wave:

Gisa ^^
p.s. my wife and I caved and bought an air-conditioner which is good news because without it, I'd probably build so slowly I'd be building backwards! :hehe:

Fixed up the track, some watercourses I missed and most of the roads (I hope). They can now be adjusted much easier than before.

I'm at a bit of a loss as I have a general grade chart between stations but I don't know the exact grades in between them (for example, one section between A and B might go up while the other might go down. I'll do my best to make it realistic from what I can see from the terrain and the data I do have.

I took a few WIP shots.



Schreiber yard. It was almost impossible to find out the number of the majority of the tracks near the station itself, but thankfully I found a few pictures that let me figure it out. Unfortunately the quality of the google earth images are poor so I had to be a bit creative in parts and this part cannot be 100% proto as a result. Regardless, I have the network set up (I have to insert some good looking switches and name them) but at least the tracks are attached and 85% where they should be.

Quick summary: 10 main tracks, 1 of which runs by a passenger platform (no longer used by travelling passengers I imagine). A minor yard above it, a runabout section (there is no turntable here) and the entrances are double or triple tracked to allow efficient sorting, etc...



Shot from the other side. This area is somewhat hilly/high in elevation with regards to the other areas so they had to be a bit creative with this yard as it carves into a valley of sorts. The only way they could fit it was to make it curve into the valley.



Roundabout? What is this formally called? Ignore the van in the ground: I had to raise the tiles up a bit so I could get the tracks mapped somewhat realistically. I was disappointed by what canvec provided but I can't complain as it's free and the google earth tiles really helped a lot.



Shot of the lakeshore.



One common feature for roads/rail is how there are mini "lakes"/"inlets" that run next to the lake. I suppose it was cheaper to fill in the two and put a road/rail through it. I always thought they looked beautiful.



This is actually one of many huge lakes in the area.



This is the power plant that Dleblanc mentioned. I may toss in a dam here depending on the distance from the tracks. We'll see...



Yes it's a roller coaster (for now) but the line also passes by small picturesque lakes and has some great bridges over some of the terrain as well. I haven't adjusted the land for the watercourses yet but I will do so when I feel it's time. As it is generally irreversable, I want to be sure it'll look alright when I do it. That also has to happen for the tracks...might as well take the plunge tomorrow I guess!

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Looking good Gisa,Ya making great progress.
Cheers Mick.:wave:

Mark!!! Well done! Looks really cool. Can't wait to see more pics. Keep up the great work.

n

Thanks gents!

Keep in mind that while I won't be able to show anything textured/with many objects/trees yet that once all this prep work is done, it'll be ready to do that in that sense (for titaniclover to have a go at it) as well as for my own shot. I am hoping that I'll have all this prep work done in a month's time but I make no promises!

To do: insert proper intersections, align the roads realistically, replace the default switches (maybe easier to just do this via trainz objectz and then replace exceptions here and there) and set up the grades/fill for the tracks.

I will try to get in touch with some groups on yahoo to see if someone can give me a more specific grade profile for the sections. If I can find this, it'll be very useful so I'll cross my fingers!

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Thanks Jim. =) Yeah the depth of this project sinks into me the more I work on it...that being said, there is plenty here to keep me busy for quite some time. I'd ideally like to add at least 2 other sections like this (one on each side) but first thing is first and that's to finish this one up.

I haven't tested it in driver yet (too many rollercoaster hills for now :hehe: ) and as I don't know the speed limits on these sections, I have no idea how long it will take (I will take a hunt for more info on this section soon and hopefully my luck will prevail in that I'll get some speeds and gradients which will let me finish up the tracks so at least I can drive on it).

Actually, it has been hot, but not too humid here lately (which is odd during the rainy season). August will be hell here of course but that's when she'll come in handy. Then it's a matter of convincing my wife that we need to run it (she's quite frugal and we need that, especially at this point in our lives)

I'm still not sure how far out to build (I like depth but I would like to finish this within my lifetime). I also deleted one board near the top that I didn't think I would need and am now regretting that somewhat (because I'd like to put down an invisible track for the trans Canada highway and I deleted a board that a part of it went through). That might be too much work anyhow and I can always set up portals along the sections I do have that are near the tracks). I don't know why but driving near water or traffic is always interesting to me.

One day at a time...

:wave:

Gisa ^^

I spent about half the day yesterday tweaking the traffic I want on the roads. There is a scary shortage of good looking modern North American cars to choose from (that would be suitable in my opinion). I'm still tweaking them here and there but the traffic looks better (even if most of the cars are hovering).

I just did a quick time run from the left of the map to Schreiber (in the middle). It took me 15 minutes at a steady 90 kph to go from the outskirts of Rossport (far left) to Schreiber yard (a bit left of the middle). I had a few *mishaps* c/o the roller coastery track but I estimate it is about 20-25 minutes max to the outskirts of Jackfish Bay on the right.

I'm a little scared to alter the terrain but I might as well take the plunge. I will continue to tweak vehicles I want on the roads as well as replacing no pass lanes with pass lanes in various sections (which means I'll start doing cuts and fills here and there). I also have to finish laying the roads/intersections in Schreiber and Terrace Bay (I'm trying hard to avoid this far out).

I have to go get dinner but hope to work more on this later tonight. ^^

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Wow!!!

Great start!!!

Ishie

Thanks Ishie, I started tinkering with this the other day. I will hopefully start placing buildings in the first town and then go from there (in showing some shots). Hopefully sometime soon (I'm really hoping to get some extra time off in the near future).

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Hi Gisa,

I know how it feel, time constraints or sometimes you just get bore and more on -- I"m working on two route simultaneously, and I got two done my tram and Claude's High Speed route he did for me last year -- I've updated with my night stuff ...

Well, actually, just leave room for the Gisa elementary school, Junior school, high school, and the Gisa International University ... :wave: :hehe:

Take care
Ishie

gisa said:

Thanks Ishie, I started tinkering with this the other day. I will hopefully start placing buildings in the first town and then go from there (in showing some shots). Hopefully sometime soon (I'm really hoping to get some extra time off in the near future).

:wave:

Gisa ^^

Click to expand...

Hi Gisa,

Have you modeled the train station in schreiber Ontario yet? I have found some online plans and will model it if you haven't already. I will first finish off my Koehring Excavator (posted in the 3d rendering thread under the Trainz screenshot forum).