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RE: Just Like Flight sim, Poltergeist, Nov-06-03, 09:02 AM, (1) RE: Just Like Flight sim, Koziolean, Nov-06-03, 11:50 PM, (2) RE: Just Like Flight sim, Nhtrain2, Feb-14-04, 09:28 AM, (5) RE: Just Like Flight sim, gatewaycityca, Feb-13-04, 11:18 PM, (3) RE: Just Like Flight sim, OTTODAD, Feb-14-04, 08:02 AM, (4) RE: Just Like Flight sim, robertreedy, Feb-14-04, 10:40 AM, (6) RE: Just Like Flight sim, Silverliner, Feb-14-04, 12:00 PM, (7)
No it isn't.What you need to remember is that in Flight Simulator they can get away with simple scenery as you will only be seeing it from a long way up. To build a route of that distance it would take a colossal amount of effort just to make it look half decent. Then do that 6 times over.Dream on.Koz
>No it isn't. > >What you need to remember is that in Flight Simulator they >can get away with simple scenery as you will only be seeing >it from a long way up.Actually, the scenery in FS2004 looks a lot better from ground level than the MSTS buildings are, but thats my opinion.-Alexander NHtrain
A while back, there was some talk about that in the Route Builder's forum...but just as a joke really. One member was asking about the Transcontinental Railroad, and asking if anyone had ever thought about building a portion of it at the meeting point in Utah. But no one seriously suggested building the WHOLE thing! I thought it would be really cool to actually simulate a cross-country train trip...if it were possible and practical. I'd love to make an Amtrak run from Los Angeles to Chicago. But as Koz said, flying over a landscape at 30,000 feet in Flight Simulator is much different than actually passing through the countryside at ground level. The terrain and scenery has to be much better quality in Train Simulator, and this takes huge amounts of space already. To have have one continuous cross-country route, you would need to have a seperate hard drive just for MSTS. And there's no way MSTS or your system could load all the tile data into memory.Some day in the future, maybe even not too far off, I'm sure this will be possible. But not now.But what you probably could do is break a long route up into several smaller routes. Play the routes in order, and you'd essentially take a cross-country trip. In fact, I think someone did suggest that once.Chris T.
I have been thinking along these lines, making a Route to cover the whole of Switzerland, Standard as well a Metre Gauges, including Dual-Gauge and Metre Gauge tracks using the same Rail Profiles ! Getting to a Track end in one part of the Route, seamlessly load the next part, possibly already pre-loaded into RAM in the Background.But to do this we would need a vastly improved Graphics Engine for MSTS-2 and AMD 64-bit CPU machines with their superior RAM and IDE/ATA HYPER-TRANSPORT Interfacing. Making such a Route would probably take as long as the next version of MSTS itself ! O t t o
>the meeting point in Utah. But no one seriously suggested >building the WHOLE thing! I thought it would be really cool >to actually simulate a cross-country train trip...if it were >possible and practical. I'd love to make an Amtrak run from >Los Angeles to Chicago. But as Koz said, flying over a >Some day in the future, maybe even not too far off, I'm sure >this will be possible. But not now. >But what you probably could do is break a long route up into >several smaller routes. Play the routes in order, and you'd >essentially take a cross-country trip. In fact, I think >someone did suggest that once. Chris, something similar to this is being done on a daily basis involving 'many' routes with over 400+ activities (all checked and guaranteed to run). Very interesting to say the least http://www.vnerr.com/ . Not proselyting, but simply informing RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com
It should be possible to build an extremely long route. You just would not want to do it (entirely) by hand. There is also an upper limit to the number of terrain tiles MSTS could handle, plus the amount of time MSTS takes to load a long route could be unbearably long.I'm convinced that extensive research would really pay off big time in the context of automated route creation. To start off, you would need:* The GPS track of the route itself, 1 track, 2 tracks, etc. * Extensive location information of yards, sidings, switches, etc. * Wayside structures, stations, etc. (Objects + location) * Track structures and tunnels (Objects + location) * Terrain info + a good selection of trees * DEM + other geographic (rivers, lakes, etc.) info * Roads * Miscellaneous structures, period and area houses, and so on.A formidable undertaking, to compile a database of all this stuff. An understatement. Probably generic structures, houses and buildings and small town stations, would be the way to go, then to refine the database with more location-specific items. Also, once one were to research bridges and the like, it would probably break down into a manageable number of types of generic bridges used all over North America or specific European countries.
