Tips and Tricks-Surveyor

titaniclover

TS2010EE SP3; Build 49933
Tips & Tricks: Surveyor

There's a lot of Tips and Tricks I have learned about Surveyor in Trainz since I arrived here. There is so many threads with stuff like this in them its hard to find exactly the right tip or trick you need for your job.:D

So post your Tips & Trick for Surveyor here! You can always learn something new and this is the right place.:cool: :wave:

I hope with the start of this thread you will all use these tips and/or tricks to create more realistic and entertaining routes for the community, not as there is enough already!;)

Please, dont ask where you get this or that here. Please contact the Tip/Trick poster by PM to solve your issues or problems/questions. It makes this thread a bit neater and easier to find the Tip/Trick you really want. Also, no comments on stupid stuff!! This is an information thread not a "Hi, whats the weather in your area today?" thread. All off-topic posts like this will be deleted.

I would also like to thank AJ_Fox for stickying this thread for us so its easy to find.:) Thanks AJ.

Many Tips/Tricks can be found on the Trainz Wiki as well. A lot will come from here. When posting here please make a note if you do/dont want your tip/trick in the Wiki. (Link to Wiki Thread: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=22690)

I might as well start with two good tips.
1) Rotate you textures in big areas not small for realisitc looks.
2) When creating water with different heights close together make sure the water doesnt touch otherwise it will act as one big water mass.

Now lets see some Tip & Tricks!!:)

Cheers,
Adam
 
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Ok a few from me:

- Don't use the undo button to delete a spline, chances are TRS will crash :D

- Where possible, lay your track in the direction the trains will be travelling. This helps the AI as it "prefers" track which is laid in the direction of travel. For the same reason, do not use double track as a) it makes the AI think it's travelling the wrong way and b) it makes curves very difficult to build (and for certain countries it's the wrong spacing anyway)

- Leave the signalling till last, as laying a signal and then laying more track ahead of it can cause problems with the AI.

- Trackmarks. If you have a long stretch of track or you find the AI constantly takes the wrong route at a certain location, lay a trackmark down on the path you want the AI to take and then tell your trains to "Drive Via". I find that placing a trackmark a full braking distance before a signal and telling a train to "Drive Via" prevents the AI from trying to take control of points which are beyond the signal and it will instead wait for the signal to clear.

- Choice of track. Experiment! There are thousands of different types of track available in TRS and on the DLS. It's sad to always see people putting so much effort into the rolling stock, scenery and buildings used on a route and then to have the visual effect of all that ruined by using the default tracks which were built-in to the original Trainz and have been available for six or seven years now. Surely I'm not the only one who thinks this?

There are plenty more but I'll leave that to the others :D

Cheers,

JB
 
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Combine multiple buildings together to make them fit the situation :)

Always lay a base texture (I use green) incase you miss an area of the main textures.

Copy/Cut/Paste. Period!

Before you release a route try to run most common scenarios to make sure the AI/signalling actually work and check for any trackwork that isn't right.

Use as many photo's as you can to see how things are really done to make routes more prototypical.

Try to add one unique area to your route, ie. a different sort of factory or industry that you haven't seen in another map.

Try to look at routes from different geographic areas for inspiration, for example if you model USA then look at Euro/UK routes and vice-versa.
 
Tips 'n Tricks

I was sent to the tutorial referenced below and it has become my bible. I didn't know track had direction. Download & read it. It's clear and concise. Written in people language not techie stuff.

Tom
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Here's a tutorial for those new to the TRS2004/2006 Surveyor module. It deals with many aspects of getting your new route off to a good start. It covers such things as:

Working with track and switches
Making your turnouts look nice
Controlling train speed through a switch
An introduction to signalling
Working with signals
Installing bridges
An introduction to portals
Case studies in AI train operations

We'll go into considerable detail on these issues, and most of the tutorials are now available as downloadable .pdf files you can print out at home.

You can find the tutorial here: http://trains.0catch.com/tutorial.html
 
Here is a tip for moving Track marks.
If you want to move track marks beyond spline points, use the move function for track objects (i.e. signals etc.) it works on track marks of all kinds.
cheers,
andyz
 
When you make Bridges note that grass does not grow under a bridge so use a dark colour such as "Dock Surface" or Ballast if its trackside.When you are making Fields note that a field is rarely ploughed right up to the fence.Try to orientate you fields so you can paint a rough grass texture to follow the line of the fence and paint the rest of the field your required colour.Always include a "Farm Gate" or "Open Farm Gate" in your field and paint a Mud texture round it , suggestive of Tractors or animals going through it.
 
Thanks..Here are another two.1) Remember that real Train Drivers wll not allow their trains to actually make contact with the Bufferstops/Rail Ends.Thus, although your siding rails may be shiny , the last few yards and -certainly- any track beyond the Bufferstops should be rusty since no trains ever run over it! 2} Likewise , Trap Points and Catch Points should never have trains running over the "dead" track so that track should always be rusty.:cool:
 
I'd just like to reiterate not using undo at all, it can mess up splines and other things as well. I must say that the rusty track stuff is a good idea, but some tracks do not have a rusty rail version.

Another tip: Use the track straightening tool to make proper switches and don't make the diverge leave the mainline at too sharp of a curve.:)
 
Quick and Easy Mountains and Slopes

This is a two step process. Use the Fill area tool in the "Topology Menu" on an area I call the pallete, just some base boards that I add to the route to create items to be copied for pasting elsewhere. I select "Hill" and fill an area at least three to four grid squares inside one full base board. It does not have to be square nor a full baseboard, just leave enough room around the filled area so later you can place all the copy lines at 0 elevation . If I'm after really big hills I use 4 base boards but again only fill up to 3 or 4 squars from the edge to leave the 0 level edge.

Now the trick. In the "Tools" menu use copy and paste. Copy the "Hill" but be sure to have your copy lines just outside the raised area and at "0" elevation. This is important. Set the paste functions to heighth and RELATIVE. The relative is critical. This way you have no sharp edges on your pasted item and can overlap and compound with additional pastings to double the height of the new landform. By varying the original template from a gentle slope to sharp cone you can get almost any topography you wish. Also note that when you paste you can use half the hill by moving to the edge of a base board. That way your hills can start high at the edge of the route and slope down and in, acting as backdrops to the route. With a little bit of playing around you are just a few clicks away from mountains, hills, and slopes that cover entire base boards quickly and easily.

Rick
 
I"ve had to lay out a few small forests on my "Real Life" route so most of these have been learned the hard way - I have had to delete my original efforts! 1) When laying out large numbers of trees always use the "Randomly rotate new objects" function in Surveyor options AND vary the height of the trees by using the Height button.2) When laying out Tree Splines , don"t lay them in straight lines - lay short stretches in criss cross lines so as to make them look less uniform.3)Always paint the forest floor a darker colour (e.g. Ger Forest) than the surrounding area. 4) For good measure use a sound file such as "Crows".
 
For Prototypical Routes:

1) carefully look at the scale of the buildings your putting in your route. There are buildings on the DLS that are much too huge and way out of scale for modeling the real world. Rule of thumb- If a 200 ton diesel loco looks small next to a building in your route the building is probably too large and not to scale.

2) there is nothing worse then driving your train over "floating track" that has a space between the track and the ground. When you are done laying all the track for your route, use the ground elevation tool to bring the ground up to your track. Don't bring your track down to the ground or you will lose the gradient you set for the track. Select the "ground up" button in the topography menu and gently tap your left mouse button to bring the ground up to your track. Keep doing it until the ground just starts to cover the edge of the track, then hit the undo button once to lower the ground one "mouse tap". Do this for your entire route. It is time consuming but the result is no more ugly space between your track and the ground.

3) Iron and steel bridges should have abutments at each end. Iron bridges do not magically emerge from the ground. It looks very fake. Also, track does not hang in the air when connecting to a bridge. (Would you drive a locomotive over that in real life???) Place a stone or concrete abutment to give it that prototypical look. Or use a retaining wall spline to give the bridge an abutment.

4) Try to keep your industrial complexes a realistic size. Set surveyor to use "real scale" and measure the buildings from Sanborn maps. You will find that most factory complexes in the real world are actually much smaller then they appear.

5) In city areas, use textures that are kind of drab. Railroad yards and industrial sidings are very dirty, dark, unfriendly places. See the route "UK Somewhere" for an example of excellent example of texturing to give a route a "industrial look".

6) Don't use "black" textures for forests floors. (Yuck!)
 
For Prototypical Routes:

1) carefully look at the scale of the buildings your putting in your route. There are buildings on the DLS that are much too huge and way out of scale for modeling the real world. Rule of thumb- If a 200 ton diesel loco looks small next to a building in your route the building is probably too large and not to scale.
This is why ALL creations need to be made fiull scale, 1:1. That way they will fit in just fine.
2) there is nothing worse then driving your train over "floating track" that has a space between the track and the ground. When you are done laying all the track for your route, use the ground elevation tool to bring the ground up to your track. Don't bring your track down to the ground or you will lose the gradient you set for the track. Select the "ground up" button in the topography menu and gently tap your left mouse button to bring the ground up to your track. Keep doing it until the ground just starts to cover the edge of the track, then hit the undo button once to lower the ground one "mouse tap". Do this for your entire route. It is time consuming but the result is no more ugly space between your track and the ground.
If you still have gaps even after all that fiddlin', perhaps it is time to use track that has some below ground extension to fill in those remaining gaps.
spoordijk2.jpg

In the above image, you can see the result. The fill under the two tracks in the backgound is part of the track and was not added after the fact. It bridges the dip in the ground very nicely. Search for "1t spoordijk grind MRT" or 70337:38035 to try it
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Microsoft Virtual Earth

Microsoft's Virtual Earth is sometimes a good alternative to Google Earth. In some places, its imagery is sharper and brighter than Google's and there is the added advantage of being able to see some locations (I'm assuming most are in the US) in bird's-eye view. It's good for visualising a situation in a way that you can't in Google Earth.

A disadvantage, though, is that in the overhead view, (as far as I'm aware) you can't get the coordinate of a location like you can in Google Earth.

A bird's eye view of an industrial area in West Sacramento, California:
west_sac01.jpg


...and this zooms in to:
west_sac02.jpg
 
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ohh very nice im going to get it.
i have google earth but the area where im making my route parts of it are totally messed up.
this will come in handy.

Edit: for some reason the area which i want to see will not show up weird....i cant get into birds eye view....
 
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Edit: for some reason the area which i want to see will not show up weird....i cant get into birds eye view....

Yeah, I probably should have made it clearer: the birds-eye view is only available for a bunch of cities, according to my understanding. If the area you're modelling isn't covered, then you won't be able to get it into the birds-eye view (and it gives you a message saying so, I think). Coverage isn't just restricted to the US, either: for example, here's a list of at least some of the locations covered in Europe.
 
Track Laying Tips for Yards.

I got a couple of ideas as I been fiddling around with Yards as of late.

First when Laying a Yard out, do each half of a double ended yard with Track running in one direction then do the same for the opposite end. so that the track will look like this

<---------------:-------------------->


That way your trackmarks will be facing in Opposite directions and will make it easier for AI Trains to move to the proper ends of the yard

Also as a Naming Convention, Try to use a Formate like this

N-S or E-W (Yard) Trk (#) NB-SB or EB-WB for your trackmarks that way you have things in nice and neat order when your want your AI Trains to Drive to or Drive Via a Certain Track mark.

Just an idea here..

Tucsoncoyote--
 
The most obvious reason why there are parts of poor coverage on Google and Microsoft Earth are of course...Clouds! That and Area 51 :cool: Anyway, another tip...If you have a large area such as a Town a Forest or a Major Road to build, make up a "Works Yard" on an empty baseboard.Go through EVERY type of House , Tree or Road Bridge and put one example of each in the Works Yard so that you can compare them all and use the best ones.You"ll often forget what Content you have available, and this is a good reminder.
 
... through EVERY type of House , Tree or Road Bridge and put one example of each ...

You actually go that working?:eek:

Once I tried something like that and
1) no room to put everything,
2) needed to label them all or I would never remember where I got them from
3) it took almost forever to load
 
Limited version of "Works Yard" tip worked well for me...

I'm very new to Trainz, and I tried my own version of lewisner's "Works Yard" tip a few weeks ago. I needed a certain type of trestle, and was having trouble visualizing the ones that came with the software (as well as a few I'd just downloaded). So, I made two separate baseboard routes, and installed half of my bridges on each. That gave me a way to look over my bridges, as well as understand the little quirks of each.

As for the downsides - yes, martinvk has some good points:
1) no room to put everything
My solution was not to try to put EVERYTHING into one route, but to make separate, categorized routes with only one type of objects, and no more than 100 or so of those per route. I named the routes according to the type of objects that are installed on each ("Bridges 01", "Bridges 02", etc.).

2) needed to label them all or I would never remember where I got them from
I just use the "Get Object" tool to click on the object I'm intrested in - I found no need for separate labels.

3) it took almost forever to load
Not a problem if you limit yourself to only one type of object per route (and limit the number) as listed above.

I suspect this tip is most useful for new users like me... it provided a great opportunity to become familiar with the limited number of assets that came built-in with Trainz (plus the hundred-odd ones I've downloaded so far). Someone with lot's more experience (like martinvk) must have zillions of assets by now, and probably knows all their quirks pretty well, so building a bunch of "Works Yard" routes wouldn't be worth the effort.
 
well i was thinking there are a lot of tips and trick using surveyor so i decided to start this thread.:)
here post you tips and Tricks you use to create layout in surveyor.
and can be abotu terrain, textures anything!:D
i would hope that this help new layout creators to create faboluos routes using the technices.:cool:
ill start.
a simple tip use the rotation tool for textures in big areas not small.
A very useful service:)
 
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