I want to try my hand

Discussion about RailWorks route design.

I want to try my hand

Unread postby Mark » Tue Mar 08, 2011 9:39 pm

I want to try my hand at route building, the problem I have is getting inclines into the tracks, is there another program I should be using at the same times as Railworks to make hills appear on my terrain as its just a flat green landscape I have.

I was thinking about doing a route very close to my heart as it was my local route to and from the main city closest to me before I moved home ( Uk route for those interested) but for the life of me I just can't seem to get it to work, its all flat, I cant even get platforms to sit next to a track if I have the track curving, it appears a distance away that you would need a gangplank if it was a real life station. I know I am doing something wrong somewhere, and know that a lot fo peopl ehave vast experience with what I have seen loaded here.

I want to be able to add buildings and roads beside the track, and lines branching off in 4 or 5 different places along the way . Although most of the route is in countryside there is a lot of residential areas all along the length of the route ( well the 5 routes in one if you want to get technical ) but I am focussing on 2 of the routes as they use the same stretch of line and seperate for the last 10 miles or so .

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys

Regards

Mark
My scenarios are short, but they leave plenty of room for scope. Time to stretch to other routes I think
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Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby Trainguy76 » Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:44 pm

Hiya Mark, this should touch on the offset issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsW8LWOMz84

You can create a real world route with RailWorks alone if you want. I would recommend having Google Earth, RW-Tools and RWDecal as well.

Here's a tutorial on creating a Route Template, the base for the location and other good stuff. http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1211104

Use google earth to create a path, and export it as a .kml file for RW-Tools to place it into RailWorks. (This is one of the things you need the location set up)

You can download DEM in .hgt format and place it into your railworks\srtm\dem\ folder for the terrain to be real world terrain. (This also requires your route to be in the correct location.
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Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby Mark » Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:06 pm

Hi Alex thanks for the reply couple of questions relating to it

Trainguy76 wrote:

Use google earth to create a path, and export it as a .kml file for RW-Tools to place it into RailWorks. (This is one of the things you need the location set up)


How do I create a path with Google Earth? Any time I have used it for anythign when I click on something all it ever does is zoom into it. I can't seem to figure out much more of it that to go into street views of places :(

You can download DEM in .hgt format and place it into your railworks\srtm\dem\ folder for the terrain to be real world terrain. (This also requires your route to be in the correct location.

No idea what any of that means except for the folder part, and I am guessing I have to create that folder as I can't see it anywhere in the root .

I downloaded RWDecal took a quick snapshot of a station I want to start at , but when it is zooming aroudn capturing everything it takes me to the next town and I have it set at the highest zoom out possible (1km as I am using the free version just now) how do I get the images that it has taken into Railworks so they appear and I can work around them?

Does it let you post the pictures so you can edit over the top of them sort of like tracing paper or are the snapshots just for general reference??

I clicked the link you posted above, but like most things it is too technical for me to understand it , I just can't seem to get my head around some of the jargon that people use about stuff

Sorry for being a nuisance but I would really like to get my own route and help the community out with more choices as they have done for myself

Mark
My scenarios are short, but they leave plenty of room for scope. Time to stretch to other routes I think
Mark
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:24 am
Location: Burntisland ,Fife, Scotland

Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby PapaXpress » Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:44 pm

I would suggest reviewing the short set of tutorials that RWDecal provides. They cover how to mark a route in Google Earth and then import it into RWDecal to create a batch of decals for the entire route (WARNING! you may need to leave your computer on all night like I did (800+ decals)).

To answer you other question, you can use it like a template so you know where to lay down your track, trees, and structures. Its also quiet an eye opener as you start to learn new things about the area you work on.
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Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby Mark » Mon Mar 14, 2011 7:14 am

I had a look through the tutorials that came with it, still to no avail .For instance,I can't plan a path for the full route, my decals are larger than they should be and then they just look like black boxes with no detail in them when I load them into railworks, its as if they zoom in as far as it can go before hitting street view. I just know that there is one simple thing I am doing wrong and for the life of me I can not figure it out. When I get this sorted I am pretty sure I can get going with the route quickly as there is'nt much in the way of houses etc that need to be laid down, mainly countryside with a few roads running next to it for short times.If I was to compare it to any route detail wise I would have to say it is similar to The Port Road that was available a while back ( not sure if it is still there as free dlc or not ) but mainly flat with very little climbs if any
My scenarios are short, but they leave plenty of room for scope. Time to stretch to other routes I think
Mark
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:24 am
Location: Burntisland ,Fife, Scotland

Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby PapaXpress » Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:40 am

Are you changing the default values of RWDecal? I started doing that and later found that the defaults really do a great job.
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Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby Mark » Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:24 am

Stupid question, but what reccomendations do you suggest so that they fit better ?
My scenarios are short, but they leave plenty of room for scope. Time to stretch to other routes I think
Mark
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:24 am
Location: Burntisland ,Fife, Scotland

Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby PapaXpress » Tue Mar 15, 2011 12:08 pm

Not sure how to answer that. I ended up using the defaults, setting the orientation fix, and to use center positioning (just like the YouTube tutorials describe). Then its a matter of laying them down which is a breeze when using center positioning. I have only run into a handful of mis-orientated decals which I simply twisted into place.

When I started my route my biggest log jam was that I didn't know how to create my route template.
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"When all else fails, read the instructions... if that doesn't work either, try following them." ~ Old Prof
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Re: I want to try my hand

Unread postby Mark » Tue Mar 15, 2011 7:19 pm

havign spent the best part of 10 hours trying to figure it out I have decided to forget the route building I was planning on doing and stick to scenario creations.

I just can't get my head around anything, and the instructions that come with RWDecal don't make sense to me, all I see in the manual is the layout of the program and what you can change. I can't make a path in google earth, so with my 10 hours today and the time I have spent over the past week I have gotten absoloutely no where fast, I am still looking at a green field , not even got a tree put down as I was planning to get the route layout sorted before filling with scenery.
Alas it wasn't to be

Scenarios here i come
My scenarios are short, but they leave plenty of room for scope. Time to stretch to other routes I think
Mark
 
Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:24 am
Location: Burntisland ,Fife, Scotland


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