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"Water Problems, leaks, etc."

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landnrailroader (152 posts)
Feb-01-02, 03:28 PM (EST) "Water Problems, leaks, etc." I have reached the stage in construction of the CC&O north end (Kingsport Sub.) where it becomes desirable to add water. Since the CC&O was built at a late date railroad-wise (1905-1915), a lot of streams were followed to keep the grade reasonable. However, water flows downhill too, so this means that the bottoms of the streams (so far mostly green as those who have checked my progress reports have seen) slope also, in some cases about the same slope as the track, in other cases more or less.The problem is this. In setting the water level for a tile, we are referring to the whole tile, about 2km square. One has to determine in some what what the stream elevation is at the high end, and at the low end, and jiggle the numbers till it looks right. However, it is important to set the water level between tiles equal at the boundary, otherwise you may find that MSTS water flows uphill as well as down.Has anyone determined a good way to take care of this. I have considered, texturing the scenery (i.e. stream bottom) the color of water in some areas, so it looks consistent. At one point, there is a steep drop, of some 20 meters in 3 miles or so of river, but the railroad cuts across the bend through a tunnel, so at one point the water is many meters below the track, and on the other side of the tunnel, it is only 2 or 3 meters below.No matter how well I try, I also seem to have a green seam at the edges of the small quadrangles, within a tile.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. (retired) Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc. sniper297 Feb-01-02 1 RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc. landnrailroader Feb-01-02 3 RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc. SD80MAC Feb-01-02 2 RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc. sniper297 Feb-02-02 4 RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc. SD80MAC Feb-02-02 5

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sniper297 (1471 posts)
Feb-01-02, 07:04 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc." Worst trouble is it don't actually "flow" at all, even tilted it just sits there. With all the framerate problems this sim has already, it's probably just as well. Unfortunately, it strikes me that the still water next to the track at the same slope would create the illusion that there was no grade at all, and I've found that if grades aren't exaggerated they look flat anyway. As for the edge of tile problem, have you seen this?http://www.train-sim.com/cgi/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=2074&forum=DCForumID6&archive=yes
You mentioned green water, there are at least 3 different water colors I think, the greenish water that matches the wier color is from \template\envfiles\textures. Beyond putting in wiers and things, the only thing I could think of would be to use TGAtool2 to create a bunch of custom terrtex textures with water painted on them. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
landnrailroader (152 posts)
Feb-01-02, 09:29 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc." That was interesting. Thanks for the reference to the weir(d) things. I may try that. In the scenario that I am working with, which is real world stuff, there are no real dams, but there are beavers--------lol.Further down, about mile 47, the route comes into the valley of the Clinch River, which does have some weirs and old nav. locks on it, which were used many years ago, before Norris Dam was built by the TVA in the late 30s, early 40s. The area where the CC&O runs, is, perhaps, 100 river miles above the dam, so the stream is just a sluggish, slow flowing stream, that varies from inches deep, to a few feet, and up to perhaps 100 meters in width.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
SD80MAC (646 posts)
Feb-01-02, 08:34 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc." Mr.Sullivan.I have been messin' around with the water ref files(watertop & water mid ace files),and the editor.env file.Actually the water does move,unfortunately I 've only got it to move in one direction .I found that the watertop texture is made opaque(flat)for a reason(my opinion),is because of the seams,or appearance of the edges of the tile.I added a somewhat 3 dimensional texture effect to the water top ace file and you can see in the pic that the water has a wavy texture to it.I can assure you the water does move.Slowly and in a jerky like movement.Their are references in the editor.env file...wave speed which can change the motion of the water.Also is a reference to wind turbulance,and wind direction.I haven't edited these yet,but plan on it,to see if it effects ...anything?If you like i can send you the 2 water files to try out on your route so you can see that the water does move.Even with no modification to the original editor.env file ,the water does move.I think the original water in msts isn't visible because of the watertop file,not having a 3 dimensional effect added to it.If you want the muddy water files to test out on your route,just e-mail me at d.shriner@worldnet.att.net
route,just e-mail me at d.shriner@worldnet.att.net Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (1471 posts)
Feb-02-02, 02:30 AM (EST) 4. "RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc." Son of a gun, it works. I didn't mess with the env file at all, apparently they were planning to animate this all along. I added texture (Stolen from CFS2 scenery) to the watertop ace, and altho the motion is slow and jerky in the RE, it's definitely there. Hacking that env file might adjust the animation speed, but I still haven't looked at it in the sim yet. Adding the texture made the ace a lot bigger, but fortunately it was only 6kb to begin with. It went up to 117kb, and using the color depth reduction trick don't gain much, it only reduces to 96k. Testing for framerate impact is the next logical step, but it's a wierd new trick that shows serious promise, congratulations!
I tilted the water on this for -50 NW and SW, 125 NE and SE, added a few of the big wiers and a bunch of OEsnowsheds rotated and stacked for the Dam. The whole river is all on one quad, so there's no edge problems, the upper end is "the end of the world", and that's hidden by the wier, the lower end disappears around a bend. I probably shoulda done this at a tile edge, but the Dam was an afterthought, I have this still unnamed town in one of the new quads East of 77, and had to think up a reason for the existence of the town in the middle of nowhere. Adding yet another industrial or logging area seemed kind of lame, so, Northern States Power Company. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
SD80MAC (646 posts)
Feb-02-02, 10:00 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Water Problems, leaks, etc." Sniper!Cool isn't it?When you experiment some more,let me know in this post how ya did it.On the watertop .ace i used a "Glass" effect in PSP7,and then gave it some 3d effects like...twist,swirl,wave,motion blur etc.I forgot what effect i used to get the actual water ripple effect?I think i'm going experiment some more on this...It's getting quite interesting to say the least.I'd like to know how you got the tile not to show the "edges"? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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