Notice to all visitors and members of the Train-Sim.Com message forums: If you plan on using a signature banner in your posts, we would like to remind you that there is a maximum size for banners. That maximum is 450 pixels wide by 120 pixels high, and not to exceed 25k. Your compliance is appreciated. FORUM RULES Problems? There are two common reasons for problems with logging in and posting messages. The first is that you are running a firewall that prevents your messages from being sent to the server. The other is that you have cookies disabled; the DCForum software requires cookies to work properly.
Colleagues,I am not a very good artist, but I am trying to capture the flavor of the Milwaukee Road line over St.Paul Pass (and similarly the NP over Lookout Pass). Somehow the US2Forest texture just doesn't quite cut it, so I searched through a large collection of images which I have found on "alt.binaries.pictures.scenery" over the past couple of years and came up with this creek running through a conifer forest. I used the entire image, clipped square, and set to 512x512 to make a transfer with the creek down the middle. Then using a patch of the forest, I pasted together another 512x512 terrain (terrtex) patch. I need to improve on this slightly to eliminate a thin white line on the edge, but I think I can do that, and of course the slopes will be heavily forested.The attachment is Turkey CReek Trestle as seen from across Loop Creek, near Kelly Creek trestle.What do you fellows think?Jerry
Jerry - from that distance I think it looks quite good. I've recently been infected with the attitude that custom terrain textures are the only way to go, and have developed several that are (or I think are) appropriate for northern New Mexico and southern Colorado:I think a bit of customization of the textures gives a route a much more unique look and can really create a very nice setting.I also like the use of terrain textures for rivers. I used this approach for the Los Pinos River on the Cumbres Pass route, and I think it worked very well. Unfortunately, there are a lot more river tiles on my current route (Chama to Durango), and I've resigned myself to having to use the water "feature" and cutting rivers along quite a bit of the route. It's not quite the effect I'm looking to get for the smaller mountain rivers and streams, but the number of additional textures that would be required is a bit much, even using Mosaic.So clearly, I'm all in favor of custom textures! It makes the route quite a bit larger, though, but I think it's worth it.Andy
I agree with your view on that, but I don't use the water feature in MSTS at all (on this sim, I did on the RMD-2). Sometime ago, a fellow from Australia put some water panels in the library, and after I got the hang of it (I did a creek in Erwin, TN on the BR Sub. with them), I thought, these are great, but they are not big enough, so I fiddled around until I produced a 4 point polygon, one sided, about 300M square. Then I converted his texture to a tga, so I could texture my creation in TSM. I thought it looked fine, perhaps a little too much in the way of rapids, but okay for this mountain area. So then I came across a image of some real wicked water in the news group: alt.binaries.pictures.scenery (where I also got the photo for the textures you see here), and I applied it to this polygon. As a result, all of my rivers are a series of polygons. It does inflate the part count a bit, and some of my tiles have 175 pieces so far, with just track and water, but none should top out higher than around 600, most of that being catenary supports. The creek in the floor of the valley is done entirely with this wicked water (Stan Johnson, who has helped me with this alot, says I have way too much water, says I have enough for the N. Fork of the St.Joe, but then he hasn't seen my N.Fork yet.), and it is laid about 1M below the surface on average, and then the cover is removed, using a 50M piece of double track, with cutting set to 60 degrees. Naturally there will be forest items in here - a lot. This stretch of about 35 miles from Haugan to Avery will be heavily detailed, as well Haugan to Alberton on the Milwaukee side, less so on the NP. I am considering doing these textures again, and reducing the saturation a bit (I use Photoshop Elements) to lighten the colors. But then images I have, including the Pentrex set, of this line, show it as being kind of dark and forbidding.J. H. Sullivan
From this distance it looks good, but up close, I think the dark patches might become very large and distracting. You will either have a lot of cover up to do right near the track (with trees or something), or you'll have to do something about the size of the dark patches.Shawn
Jerry, The biggest problem I've found, is most of these terrain patches look very good from a distance. But when you get close to them, they no longer look like anything from this planet. The worst part, I'm not an artist and have no idea how to fix this problem. Have you tired Mosaic yet? I've not tried this program, but it maybe the answer we are looking for???Take care, Rich S.
I don't think Mosaic would help out a huge amount. While it definitely helps with creating custom textures, it really won't do much for the up close vs. distance appearance problem.It's more an issue of balancing the close up and distance views, and you're right - a texture that looks great across the canyon doesn't always look very good close up. So far, I haven't noticed anything that really bothers me in my textures (except for some edge issues that need to be ironed out), but it's definitely something to keep an eye out for.Andy
I think a bit of customization of the textures gives a route a much more unique look and can really create a very nice setting.I also like the use of terrain textures for rivers. I used this approach for the Los Pinos River on the Cumbres Pass route, and I think it worked very well. Unfortunately, there are a lot more river tiles on my current route (Chama to Durango), and I've resigned myself to having to use the water "feature" and cutting rivers along quite a bit of the route. It's not quite the effect I'm looking to get for the smaller mountain rivers and streams, but the number of additional textures that would be required is a bit much, even using Mosaic.So clearly, I'm all in favor of custom textures! It makes the route quite a bit larger, though, but I think it's worth it.Andy