Tips and Tricks-Surveyor

Martinvk , you"ve caught me making a howler! What I meant was to build up a Yard of the ones you actually want to use.You don"t need to label them since the idea is to have them there so you can click "Get Object" so you can get them repeatedly without having to Search.Anyways heres another Tip:- When you want to use AI to couple a Locomotive to a Train/Consist in a Siding the Locomotive will drive at Line Speed as far as the points for the siding and then at 1 MPH until it reaches the Train.This can be tiresome if the siding is very long , SO what you do is 1) decide on a place (call it the Coupling Point) where the last vehicle in the Train/Consist will stand, this being the vehicle the Loco will couple to.About 5 yards from the Coupling Point pace a Signal Invisible on the track so that the AI Driver can see it as he approaches the Train.Then place an Invisible 5 0r 10 MPH Speed Limit on the entry to the siding , and (leaving the Siding )a Speed Limit for whatever your Line Speed is.Now when the Loco enters the Siding it will drive at 5 or 10 MPH till it reaches the Signal Invisible (a few yards from the Train) and slow down to 1 MPH before coupling.This works like a charm for me.:)
 
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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.

Good point about having a limited selection. Much easier to manage and use when looking for something special.

Thanks for the laurel. :cool: I really don't have zillions. In fact, it was only during the first year after I got Trainz that I would download many objects, few of which ever really got used, I might add. Then I started making things with GMax. Now whenever I need a new object, I generally make it myself. One it's fun to do and second, it will be exactly as I want it. Thus, finding it is not an issue since, I named it and I don't have zillions of similar objects cluttering the selection list.

By now most of the unused downloads have been removed and I've disabled many of the built-in objects too, so I don't have to wade through a load of unwanted names to find the ones I want.
 
One of everything, never enough!

I took different stuctures and combined them to make different buildings, sometimes mulipules of the same, or combinations of seperate items; try it!
 
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Here's one I used today:

What if you are laying the track for a prototypical yard and the track is at an angle to the gridlines, there is large spaces between each set of tracks, making it very hard to get the track straight across the yard (assuming the track splines are not located near each other)?

Solution: Pick a large building from the objects menu that is rectangular and use the edge of the building as a "ruler" to keep each track straight in relation to the others.:)
 
Here's one I used today:

What if you are laying the track for a prototypical yard and the track is at an angle to the gridlines, there is large spaces between each set of tracks, making it very hard to get the track straight across the yard (assuming the track splines are not located near each other)?

Solution: Pick a large building from the objects menu that is rectangular and use the edge of the building as a "ruler" to keep each track straight in relation to the others.:)
Or you could use something like an Angle Guide 70337:23019
The two side bars (green and red) are 4m apart. The end is somewhere past 10km
10km.jpg
and it can be rotated to any angle.
 
hmmm all i use is a ruler...that works...
heres a tip
name juctions to tell what track it is.
Ex: a run through track going from East to West. the west junction to the run trough track can be called WRT and the East ERT.
oh and i noticed a pattern in classification yards
most think it is a single sper going off into all the tracks. its real much different. they are cluster of 5 or more tracks.
this i have noticed while lokking at plans of a yard.
also yards major on e consist of 5 things.
-Receiving yard
-Classification Yard
-depature Yard
-local yard
-service tracks
these all help the yard function.
cars go to the recieving yard to the classification to the depature yard. the first yard ever to have this was Dewitt Yard in East Syracuse follow the tracks from old plans you sac easily run from one end to the other in this manner.
service track is where bad cars and locos are fixed.
local yard holds car used for local service at industries.
another good thing to have is a storge area to store extra cars.
this is all i got. for now.....
now anymore? i havent seen many of the good creators out there post here.
 
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COOL!!

If you do that and lay them on the gridlines hold shift then the splines won't click together and track can be layed anywhere using the shift trick.
 
double and quad tracks

You have double and even quad tracks in your route but don't like to use the double track splines. Then when you use two or more single tracks, it's hard to keep them parallel and aligned.

Try using a pair of my track guides. Here is an example using 70337:23083
Place two guides facing each other. place one single track from one guide toward the other (first pair on the left) Place a second single track from the second back towards the first (second pair fro the left). Now you have a double track made of two single tracks (third pair from the left). As you move the guides, the track bends and stretches between them (fourth and fifth pair from the left) Pull them 12m, 120m even 1200m apart and the two tracks stay parallel and aligned. You can do the same thing with three and even four tracks (last pair on the right) using other guides. There are guides for 3.5m, 4m and 5m spacing too.
tg1.jpg


And here is what it looks like in Driver. Note that the pushpins are only visible in Surveyer to make them easier to find and move / rotate.
tg2.jpg


A closeup of the guide in Driver
tg3.jpg

If you have placed and set the World Origin, the coordinates of the center between the two concrete blocks (where the pushpin is in Surveyor) is shown on the board.

Now you have all the advantages of single track, direction, choice of rail, etc. in a multi-track environment.
 
"jrockey" I believe it is possible to overlay Google images onto a Trainz baseboard but so far that is rocket science as far as I am concerned.What I mean is that (mainly if you are doing a Proto route) if you download a Google image at the highest resolution and use it to Texture your fields the result is far more accurate than it would be if you went out and looked at the place from ground level.So, when you build it and then view it in Surveyor (3D) at ground level the result will be very accurate.Does that make sense?An aerial view of things is quite different from a ground view-you see the "bigger picture".

TransDEM offers semi-automatic functionality for Google Earth images and their placement in Trainz Surveyor.

geophil
 
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Martinvk,

Cool tool! I did as you described above and it works great. One question, once you move and place the track, can you delete the guides leaving the track in the correct orientation? When I deleted the guides after moving the track to where I wanted it, the track snapped back to being straight.

I am concerned about a framerate hit if I leave the guides in place.
 
Cool, how do i get that?
For the guides, on the DLS search by kuid
70337:23083:2 - 23091:2, 23094:2 and 23096:2
As for the track, in the example I used one of my own early creations that was never released but there are plenty of others on the DLS.
 
Martinvk,

Cool tool! I did as you described above and it works great. One question, once you move and place the track, can you delete the guides leaving the track in the correct orientation? When I deleted the guides after moving the track to where I wanted it, the track snapped back to being straight.

I am concerned about a framerate hit if I leave the guides in place.
The guides are active objects, keeping the track locked in a specific orientation. Removing them frees the track to change.

Since the only things that show in Driver are the two small concrete blocks, the mini tower and the sign, (and they are low poly) I never worried too much about frame rate issues. The rest are Surveyor only parts.

I could be wrong, feel free to correct me, but I always thought that if an object is declared Surveyor only, it would not impact the frame rate since Driver doesn't have to render it.
 
That's what I was afraid of. ...
That's OK. However, it's not as bad as you think. I like loooooong sweeping curves so those little items only appear every two or more km. There are enough trackside structures that can hide them if needed, even a small bush once in a while. :) But since I made them, I better like them. ;)
 
If your AI Drivers refuse to go into a siding or sidings try placing an Invisible Signal in front of the Bufferstop/Railend.I have a Goods Yard on my Route laid out exactly as it was in real life - you have to set back from the Main Line into the Headshunt then drive forward into the goods yard.The AI drivers wouldn"t do it, but when I added the Invisible Signal they drove in OK.Apparently the line was "unsignalled" and that was the cause of the problem.
 
If your IA trains refuse to load or unload at ProtoLars tracks try this.

When sending the AI to a ProtoLars track, I use the driver command "Stop Train" (131986:150150).
So issue the following driver commands:
-Drive to Tackmark-Stop Train-Wait for n minutes-etc.
or
-Drive to Tackmark-Stop Train-Wait for 10 seconds-Uncouples-etc.

This applies the airbrakes to the whole train and prevents any movement (the probable cause of not un/loading).
It works for me.
andyz
 
Another Tip from Google Earth! Where Power Lines cross your Fields make a small circle of Grass a1 round the base of each post or Pylon.Farm machines steer clear of power line bases so they are always surrounded by rough grass..:cool:
 
Searching for content when building

When building a route there is an endless seeking for content, tracks and textures that you know that you have somewhere but everything drowns in the huge amount of material. I know about filters etc. but find it a bit tricky to organize.

To find and place what you want to use later on an empty baseboard and then get it by the pick tool is no news either, but I have added a little extra routine there that works very good for me.

First I have to start with a timeconsuming and rather boring task, but it pays off very well in the long run. I start with an empty baseboard and then I fill it with all the content, textures etc. that I like and possibly want to use later. Yes, it takes a long time really to search trough everything and place it in proper order on the baseboard...

Then I save that single baseboard, by the name "toolbox". Whenever I want to build a new route or go on with an already started route I simply merge the toolbox-baseboard to the route and pick whatever I need from the toolbox, easy and fast without a lot of boring and endless searching.

When the route is ready, if that ever happens, I simply deleate the toolbox. No time saved really with one single route, but the point is that you can use that saved toolbox to all routes you ever wish to build as many times you wish. The boring task to search for material is only nessecary one time.

Cheers,
Håkan
 
Texturing tip

When you are texturing your layout, move the texture passes and detail level sliders to the right all the way, and you can avoid this type of problem:

missing.jpg


I found this out the hard way :)
 
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