Fishing for comments & help for Newbies

By the way Ron, that is some bridge that the SRV bridgeworks is putting together - looks a lot like the AT&SF bridge at Ft. Madison, IA.I solicit comments from other Route designers on this issue, but I discovered something today that I thought about and believe I have a solution.In doing the KP sub., I was improving on Dante Yard, and I had laid the mainline and 3 of probably 6 yard tracks. These all run together like multiple tracks and to fit in the correct curves, I was using concentric curves of Dynamic track. When I ran a test train - the easiest way to find "bumps & grinds", I noted that there were 4 bumps where there should not be any. On close examination, I would that there was a slight variance between the inner and outer curves when they were then connected between multiple track pieces.This makes sense, because the inner curve is going to be slightly shorter than the outer and why I did not think of this sooner, I will charge off to "senility".I noted that the inner track was firmly (no gap, no blue pole) to the fixed pieces at the ends, but the outer track displayed a slight gap, but no blue pole at one end, and it was also slightly off vertically. As this was the main track, it was not acceptible. So the procedure I will follow to correct this, is as follows.1. Lay main track first, making sure that multiple track pieces are offset the correct direction and amount.
2. After laying several curves of main track, go back and fit the secondary track(s) to the multiples realizing that the slope may be slightly different.For example: Inner track with perfect connections is:
First Tangent, 2
Second Tangent, 2
Radius, 250M
Angle, .87
Gradient, -.8Outer track when laid to same values, except 255M radius, came out slightly higher at the joint. Fixed it by using -.82 for the gradient. Also smooth mainlines are more important than perfect sidings.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. (retired)

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RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, yellowdog, Oct-02-02, 11:09 PM, (1) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, Coonskin, Oct-02-02, 11:47 PM, (2) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, landnrailroader, Oct-03-02, 11:55 AM, (3) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, yellowdog, Oct-03-02, 12:24 PM, (4) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, Coonskin, Oct-03-02, 01:04 PM, (5) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, yellowdog, Oct-03-02, 05:46 PM, (7) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, rjdiii, Oct-03-02, 05:40 PM, (6) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, yellowdog, Oct-03-02, 05:52 PM, (8) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, Coonskin, Oct-03-02, 06:29 PM, (9) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, rjdiii, Oct-04-02, 05:01 PM, (10) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, Coonskin, Oct-04-02, 06:04 PM, (11) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, yellowdog, Oct-04-02, 06:19 PM, (12) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, Coonskin, Oct-04-02, 07:53 PM, (13) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies, davidbeach, Oct-05-02, 03:00 AM, (15) RE: Fishing for comments & help for Newbies-Distant Mou, landnrailroader, Oct-04-02, 09:25 PM, (14)

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Hmm- -kind of like the flex track used in model railroading.

Clayton

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YellowDog Clayton!!Where have you been, boy? Been missin' your posts.Andre

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LandNrailroader was keeping YellowDog busy watching unusual things out in Tennessee for a while there last Friday. Much appreciate his hospitality. He has quite a nice piece of paradise there next to the CSX mainline - wonder what Mrs. Yellowdog thinks of it -- my wife would rather be about 5 miles further from any track.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. aka landnrailroader

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How was the rest of your trip, Jerry? See anything good up at Copper Creek? Actually, Mrs. Yellowdog could do without the trains sometimes, but other than that she's pretty content. Heck, sometimes she even gives me a "railfan report" if she's seen anything unusual (read "something besides a AC44!) go by.I'm still around, Andre! I think the Clinchfield well may be drying up, but I've been working on a project for Kelley Ellison and haven't gotten to (and unfortunately may not GET to) a point where I can post screens. Your Fisco units are still looking good!

Clayton

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Well glad you are (still around). Clinchfield well goin' dry, eh? Problems with a repaint? Thanks for the kind words on the Frisco stuff.Quick question... When you successfully installed BR Sub V2 over V1, after unzipping to a temp folder, did you:Run the "Installme" batch OR...Copied to V1 telling Win to overwrite?I can't recall if there was a problem with the Installme batch file and it was best upgraded via copying or what. Got V2 on hand and waiting, but I'd appreicate your input first.Andre

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Re: Clinchfield stuff, I don't really have anything to repaint at this time. There aren't any models out there right now to paint, without a bunch of research. . . This is just my hobby. Besides, I'd still really like to get back to some CSX predecessor stuff, i.e. Family Lines and Seaboard locos. Right now I'm working on a Milwaukee Road MP15AC for Kelley Ellison, which is rather ironic since I know nothing about that road or that engine. Once Jens Chris does his SD series (i.e. Freeware SD40s), or finishes up the Challenger, I'll probably be back into the Clinch. Now that you mention it, I can't remember exactly how I installed v2. I know I copied stuff and over-wrote, but I can't remember if I ran the bat file after that or not.

Clayton

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Yeah, I noticed the 250M Radius tracks won't match up vertically and it didn't seem you could do anything about which one matched and which didn't. The world file entries seem to match but that is for a single entity (that contains two paths). At first I just thought it was textures problem but when you ride over the mismatch it bumps so it's got to be somewhere in the database descriptors for those track pieces. You could probably edit the .tdb file to correct the discrepancies but I'm not that bold and, if you rebuilt the .tdb it would probably undue whatever you have done.
Jerry,Is it OK to distribute distant mountains for the BR Sub?Richard

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Hey, Richard. Have you been the one doing the Terrtex stuff in the file library? Those look great! The thing about the MSTS BR sub is that the "distant mountains" are generated by the dem data and are therefore 3D. However, the texture is awful and I thought it might be cool to have a tree-like texture. This would (theoretically) improve the distant mountain look while reducing the amount of trees that Jerry had to place by hand subsequently reducing frame rate slow down, etc. I have no idea how to fool with the terrtex stuff, but if you do and would like some digital pics of good East Tennesse mountains, let me know. If so, I can obviously do the "summer" ones now, but give me a few months and I can also do the "Fall" and "winter" ones as well.

Clayton

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AND... if you're succesful at creating a terrex that looks like trees but takes less route time to plant and less CPU capacity... the ol' FS Sub could use it too. As for appearance: "Our" mountains look like "theirs"... 'ceptin' "their's" are bigger. Andre

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Not me, I don't understand those texture thingies at all yet. Currently, DEMEX only allows one texture for all distant mountains in a single route so I just picked the default terrain from the BR Sub when I created them. It does make a big difference however, particularly in places like Unicoi where most of the mountains around the valley are more than 2 klicks from the track in any direction. Richard

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Richard:Would you mind elaborating on how you find/download/install/whatever these "distant mountains" you're in reference too?Also, would it be possible to grab a sreen shot at, say Unicoi, so I can see what kind of impact they have on a scene?Not only would I be interested in doing this on the BR Sub, but there's a place or three on the FS Sub where the distant mountains SHOULD be there, but because of the 2 Km limitations of MSTS/DEM's, they aren't. (Like headed north through Mountainburg, for example.)Any additional input would be much appreciated.Andre "Coonskin" Ming

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Yep, I'd be interested in a screen, too, so I can compare it to what I'm seeing out the window. . .

Clayton

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You live in Unicoi Clayton?If so, I thought ol' Jerry was just "goin' on" in his Readme!!I'll be sure and wave at 'cha if'n I knew which cyber house you live in!BTW: It's pretty cool when an MSTS route is one that you're near/been on/etc... eh?Andre

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Richard,Not entirely true. The limitations are more MSTS than DEMEX, and it is possible for every DM tile to use its own texture file, see http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/5895.html (read the whole thing, best discussion of DM texturing yet, even if I say so myself). Biggest limitation at this point is that each tile will use the same texture 16 times, so blending from one tile to the next will get tricky as each texture will have to tile with itself and with its neighbors.David Beach.Palouse & Lewiston

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Richard,I have no problem with you posting distant mountains IF------1. Just Be Sure that you have no errors in the program as a result
and that you thoroughly test it etc. etc.2. Just footnote me as the original creator, yourself as the modifier.AND
3. Include your E-mail address in case there are problems with the Distant Mountains - which I will probably try myself.J. H. Sullivan, P.E.

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