Hello All I have been posting on UKTrainsim for many years now but the site is becoming a bit unstable so I thought I would continue updating progress on my Bluebell Railway route on this forum. I have a lot of screenshots to re-post here so I will be working on this over the next week or so. Back soon!
Hi All I am getting used to using a new forum and in particular the best way to post screen shots. I have been working up the route from Sheffield Park and I have reached Kingscote. This is one of the latest shots of the line arriving from the south towards Kingscote Station
Hi All As an inital introduction to the route, all assets used (apart from rolling stock) have either been created by me or are from the legacy assets that everyone already has in their copies of the now Classic Train Simulator.
Hi All This link will take you to the UKTrainsim thread for the story so far - https://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=363&t=140847 LATER EDIT : This link will take you to my UKTS topic on the Bluebell Railway but none of the screenshots can be seen now.
Hi All I am stlll working on the Bluebell Railway, but have been unable to post any progress shots on the UKTS Forum as the hundreds of screenshots I have posted there are not now showing up, which is a bit pointless for a topic that relies on screenshots to be seen. It seems that a Certificate has not been renewed warning people that it is dangerous to access the site which sadly seems to be the end of this once great Train Simulator site. I will start to post here shortly and will put up quite a few screen shots to start off with and then carry on with regular posts as I progress. I have arrived at Imberhorne Lane Bridge and will soon start working on the infamous cutting which means I am just a stones throw away from the East Grinstead Viaduct and Station. This will complete most of the track and near and far scenery leaving the four stations, yards and other buildings to do followed by sorting out the signalling. I am very pleased with progress so far and often take a train from one end to the other to see what it looks like from the driver and passenger perspective, and it is great experience. As a bit of trial for uploading images, this is a screenshot of the section I have just completed from the Eye Hospital to the Imberhorne Lane Bridge. Back soon.
Welcome aboard, AcornComputer. UKTS will be taken offline before long, so good that you have joined here. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/uk-train-sim-still-in-business.62665/
Hi All I am trying to upload some of the screenshots of the Bluebell Railway in progress, but it seems I can only load a maximum of 5 shots at a time, so it going to be a while before I can get up to the latest. These first few are general shots of the route up to about a mile away from the track. I have laid all of the track from one end of the line to the other with some extra track north from East Gristead to allow visting locos to join the route through a portal a mile or so from East Grinstead, and then join the Bluebell at the transfer gate at East Grinstead. At Sheffield Park I have created some (green) placeholder buildings which will eventually be replaced with the best models I can produce. Bear with me as I upload images 5 at a time !
I am leaving out some scenery and assets in the basic route so that they do not appear in every scenario which allows scope for using a different set of assets in each scenario. 5 more -
Since taking these early shots, I have worked on the track area so where you can see the Bridge and Gradient Markers, these have almost all been replaced with actual bridges, gradient posts and quarter mile posts. 5 More -
As well as using track that I have created for the route, the terrian textures set has been created by me (in UKTS Library) and the vast majority of houses have been created from my House Kit where a limited set of texuture sheets have been created with various sheets of doors, windows, curtains (that glow at night), bricks, etc, the idea being that dozens of dfferent types of houses can be created from just a few texture sheets that only have to be loaded by the computer once. Probably not so useful with todays modern computers, but still helpful to get the houses loading quicker into the route. 5 more -
The coloured boxes on the roads are placeholder cars that will eventually be modelled into proper cars. They are there mainly to test the vehicle spawning on the roads I created and do move along in a slightly eerie way a couple of feet off the ground. That will look a lot better when they have some wheels. The blue disc marker in the last shot is exactly located at the real world co-ordinates of the door to the Bessemer Arms, which is also the route origin. There can be no better way to start a journey than from the entrance to a Pub. 5 more -
There are dozens of other much earlier shots of the route in progress, but I cannot load them all, but here is a small selection, some with Google Earth overlays still in place -
Lovely scenes, but does having lots of scenery into the distance and not visible from the cab not risk hitting unduly on frames rates, though?
Hi inversneky There are some places where there is some jittering crossing tiles, but in general there is no problem with frame rates. Most of the scenery and assets I am using are economic with memory and although I am not that technically minded, I believe that using some of the 'newer' features of the program, such as the irregular block asset tool, means that many trees can be included in one asset which significantly reduces the resources that the program uses to render them. There are other 'tricks' such as using the scaling tool so that, for exampe, one type of tree or perhaps hedge, can be made small, large, wide or thin so instead of having to render four different trees, one tree is rendered and altered in size once in the scene. My lack of technical knowledge might be misleading me, but as far as I can see, using these and other tools means that a relatively small asset pool can be used to create almost limitless variations with relatively small memory usage. I do accept, however, that for most people there is no point in sceniking where you cannot see from the cab, and there is perfect logic to this, but my personal preference is that I like to feel I am in a world that extends beyond my sight.
Nice shots, and good to see your updates on here. I still think the 2d foliage assets are the most realistic, as you've used, just need to find a way to create decent shadows from them and those assets would be even better. I had a go at creating 3d trees in blender, got quite far with some reasonable results but then ran out of steam/time. Shame about UKTS but things move on I guess. UKTS used to be the place where I got all my info on upcoming stuff, but sadly no more it seems. All the info etc seems to be dotted around on different websites/facebook etc so it's harder to keep track of stuff. Anyway, keep up the good work!
Hi fakenham Most of the wooded areas have been created using the irregular block tool so that the area to be filled is marked out with 'blue pins' and when completed there is a wide choice of assets that can be placed into it which can range from trees to boulders, shrubs, grass and almost anything you like. One drawback is that you can only place only two different assets in one block, but that can still give a good effect if complimentary tress are chosen and if the height setting is increased, the trees will be rendered at many different and random heights. The density of the fill can be controlled as well and assets can be randomly auto rotated (does not work with 2D trees) to give a more natural effect. This is a really good tool and works particularly well with the 2D trees, and there is an added advantage in that the trees trunk bottoms all touch the terrian whatever the variation of height in the terrain and wherever the trees are located in the block. The set of assets I am using does not include the modern 3D trees but I quite like the more realistic look that the 2D foliage gives. I have created some foliage myself but there is not a great need for much more as it all looks very much the same, from even a short distance. I have been in contact with the organisers of the Bluebell Railway Model Railway weekend and they are trying to find me some space to exhibit. This is very popular event and is held at both Horsted Keynes and Sheffied Park with trains running between the two stations each day. The two day event will be held over the 1st and 2nd July 2023 and will include a lot more than just Model Railways. For those that have not been to the Bluebell Railway yet, there is much to see. https://www.bluebell-railway.com/model-railway-weekend/ My computer is backing up my trainsim work at the moment to an external source, but later on I will put up a few more recent screen shots.
You can place another asset block over an existing to allow up to 4 assets in an area. Just make sure the blue pins are not in the same place or it is difficult to differentiate between the “layers”.
I did try that, and it does work, but I found it a bit difficult to select the block I wanted to edit, but with a little more thought and creating the blocks with slightly different shapes as you suggest, this would be a good solution to create a more varied forest or wood effect. I will make a note to try this out in the last stages of the route and perhaps when I review the route as a whole.
This is first batch of screenshots showing detailing close to the track. I wokedup the track from Sheffield Park creating specific scenery as I went along which includes in excess 20 different bridges, quarter mile posts, gradient makers, Sharpthorne Tunnel and dozens of other smal, items such as stacks of bricks for the brick works (sadly now closed). 5 more then -
Note that the track I created for the route uses 3D sleepers which was a big decision to make bearing in mind the memory required to render them, but it all seems to work OK. More -
Ketches Halt has now been disman tled, so I will need to amend this part of the route before finalising. More -
It is important to think about the design of a route before starting ro create it. By this I mean that the route needs to have a consistent look throughout which means having a set of rules to follow from the start. All of my routes have a similar look and often this does not always reflect the real world, but it is very, very difficult to accurately model the real world and some 'tricks' are required. Placing very recognisable features here and there will keep the player's imagination in tune with the route, and always on the look out for the next familar landmark or feature. One of the design features that I had experimented with in The Big Layout (in UKTS Library) was to create a neater ballast base to sit underneath the track. This got around the rather difficult process of trying to neatly paint ballast underneath and to the sides of the track. The ballast base was a lofted item that was easily run under the track using the track as a guide and created a much neater ballast base whilst some ballast terrain texture could be added as well to blur the straight edges. The other problem with this simulation is that the terrian tiles are quite large and whilst it is possible to create fairly smooth slopes, it is practically impossible to create steep cuttings or embankments without the Dragons Tooth effect. I had noticed on the Bluebell Railway that the engineers who built it had effectively created very high embankments in places and some fairly steep sided cuttings and one feature along the whole route is that a ditch seems to run along side of the track on the east side so that the track seems to be elevated a little above the general ground level. To cut a long story short, I decided that a key design feature of this route would be that that the track sits upon an embankment loft. Only the top of the loft can be seen in more level terrain but where the track rises on an embankment the effect is very good as there is not a Dragons Tooth in sight with only the smooth side of the lofted embankment showing. The unexpected benefit is that the ditch along the side of the track almost creates itself where the loft meets the normal terrain. So this design feature does produce an effect that is perhaps too neat, but I much prefer this to the rather messy results of trying to manipulate the the large terrain tiles and the less than precise painting on of ballast. Other noticable design features are the liberal use of Oak Trees, which is very much how it is in Surrey & Sussex, quite a lot of foliage near to the track and a general clean look about everything. In real life, there is a lot of dirt, decay and wear & tear everywhere but it is really hard work and time consuming to get that effect in the route so a cleaner look is just part of the design rules.
Loking at that last screenshot, the gradients are correct throughout the route of course and there are some quite steep inclines to get up in places, which is something of a challenge for the little Terrriers and their drivers.
I have a lot of screenshots on my original UKTS 'Blog' which worked well in the UKTS forum format with explanatory text, but the DTG forum is different and looks as though it is designed more for phone users, but for the benefit of those that are interested in route building, I will persevere until I get to a stage where I am uploading current work.
