Railworks America

I've read several comments praising the scenery of the new Feather River Route and I agree with them. This "Flat car with trailer load", however, is a visual embarrassment, especially the trailer load itself: generic off-white, no logo of any kind, tires apparently made out of old bedspreads. Although I didn't make a screenshot of it, the route's US30B looks more like a cardboard box than a diesel engine. Why should scenery top rolling stock as a visual priority?

It is designed to give you something to bitch about.

It is a compromise. HD rolling stock like what Larry Goss makes looks gorgeous, but does take a bigger toll on the GPU than older low definition cars like on Cajon Pass. This is especially true the longer the train and/or the fuller the yards.
As far as logos, that costs money to license and is never a sure thing, as BNSF has shown.

I do agree that the textures on the trailers look 'off' (too shiny? low res?) but at least the models are the correct scale, unlike the first many iterations of Railworks TOFC. I can't imagine DTG paying for the licensing rights to a bunch of real world trucking/freight companies, so this is an opportunity for somebody in the community to use their artistic talent to improve on the textures, or replace the trailer loads with some from RCAP or a different source.

BoostedFridge wrote:I do agree that the textures on the trailers look 'off' (too shiny? low res?) but at least the models are the correct scale, unlike the first many iterations of Railworks TOFC. I can't imagine DTG paying for the licensing rights to a bunch of real world trucking/freight companies, so this is an opportunity for somebody in the community to use their artistic talent to improve on the textures, or replace the trailer loads with some from RCAP or a different source.

+1

buzz456 wrote:It is designed to give you something to bitch about.

+1; look at the wealth of content the 3DTrains rendition for MSTS provides in the base package. It had a variety of Western Pacific liveried boxcars and reefers, plus the California Zephyr trainset. Lumber cars were also included, in which I would be fine with them in unbranded form.

Ericmopar wrote:It is a compromise. HD rolling stock like what Larry Goss makes looks gorgeous, but does take a bigger toll on the GPU than older low definition cars like on Cajon Pass. This is especially true the longer the train and/or the fuller the yards.
As far as logos, that costs money to license and is never a sure thing, as BNSF has shown.

The BNSF Chicago Racetrack is a notable example where lower polygon cars are used are yard fillers, which still look good but do not use up as much GPU.

OpenRailer90 wrote:......

Ericmopar wrote:I..........
As far as logos, that costs money to license and is never a sure thing, as BNSF has shown.

The BNSF Chicago Racetrack is a notable example where lower polygon cars are used are yard fillers, which still look good but do not use up as much GPU.

Let's not forget that the route is dated in 1970. At that time very few vans and containers were painted with logos and large lettering. Most trailer boxes were white.

Portland Terminal is also a very good example of cars with low count of polygons which allows very crowded yards as well.

Your way off on trailers not being lettered. Many talented sign painters (pre-decal) were employed hand lettering very colorful tractors and trailers in every major city across the USA. Clear markings were very common. Containers were a mere dream yet to be the most common freight commodity.

Having just driven from Florida on the tortuously boring interstate system my bride and I were commenting on two notable things, the number of plain white trailers and the number of red tractors.

jalsina wrote:Let's not forget that the route is dated in 1970. At that time very few vans and containers were painted with logos and large lettering. Most trailer boxes were white.

The exact opposite was true for that period. Most companies plastered their moniker on trailers to keep the company in the customer's view. Today it's mostly generic, with the exception of large companies or leasing enterprises.

In any event we all know why this came out this way and it's the hassles of licensing rearing it's head again. It won't be long before some enterprising soul whips up a whole add on set of textures so your trailers will have names on them.

buzz456 wrote:In any event we all know why this came out this way and it's the hassles of licensing rearing it's head again. It won't be long before some enterprising soul whips up a whole add on set of textures so your trailers will have names on them.

Once again, I'll suggest that many copyright problems -- but not BNSF's temper tantrums, of course -- could be solved by using "nearlies", already found on businesses on some DLC routes. That is, names similar to the copyrighted ones but just enough different to avoid legal hassles. It certainly would not be too mentally stressful for DTG and other DLC makers to think up some of these and the artwork to go with them. Or they could just farm out the task to a few clever 6-year-olds.

Despite all of the opinions presented so far, I still maintain that better looking trailers already exist within available DLC, such as those included with the CN Widenose SD-40, the BNSF SD75, or Marias Pass (which do carry recognizable, presumably copyrighted logos without any evident opposition), among others. In the latter, there's a USF CO1 flatcar with a trailer load that would have been ideal for this route, had anyone at DTG bothered to do a bit of looking). And that's just to mention a few of the many possibilities.

"And that's just to mention a few of the many possibilities."
I agree. These are but a few of the many possibilities.
http://golden-age-rails.com/packslegacy/tofc.html

OldProf wrote:Despite all of the opinions presented so far, I still maintain that better looking trailers already exist within available DLC, such as those included with the CN Widenose SD-40, the BNSF SD75, or Marias Pass (which do carry recognizable, presumably copyrighted logos without any evident opposition), among others. In the latter, there's a USF CO1 flatcar with a trailer load that would have been ideal for this route, had anyone at DTG bothered to do a bit of looking).

The pre-existing TOFC equipment you reference as being "better" are based on contemporary (modern)-era intermodal equipment that:

- Feature 45-foot trailers (and are containers on wheels) rather than the standard 40-foot true trailers of the 1960s/70s
- Flatcars that include neither the circus loading end-ramps or "same direction" hitch placements of TOFC cars of the 1960s/1970s
- Trailer heights that were inaccurate

Each of these issues was in fact addressed in the TOFC equipment included with the FRC route to make it appropriate to the 1960s/1970s, while the equipment you suggest reusing would have been fundamentally inaccurate to the era.

The SD75 and Marias Pass DLC's don't have trailers with any copy righted logos.
the SD75 has a choice of colors for the trailers and cars and Marias Pass has fictitious shipping names on the containers.
The fictitious names on the containers refer to things in TS as a hidden joke.
One of them as an example is "QD" for Quike Drive.
Another one is RS for Rail Simulator.