CNR Grande Cache Sub

[4DoorGTZ]

So the desired Real World route I want to recreate is 371km of linear track covering 203km x 103km. (any chance in hell to get this to work?)
I may have to narrow it down to one valley section that interests me most but that is still 37km x 41km. (seems smaller then some of the routes that come with RW2)
http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/219888/sltogp.kml <--Google Earth markers to see what/where I'm talking about.
And a pic if you click on the link.
This is a coal hauling service mostly, it was consructed by the Alberta gov't in the late 60's and "given" to CN to operate, CN has since purchsed the line, sold it and repurchased it back again. It starts outside Hinton, Alberta near Swan landing and goes north to service the Grande Cache Coal corp's mine, then continues up river valleys to the city of Grande Prairie and a few communities from there. The coal is shipped out to the west coast and off to Japan for use in the steel industry (metalurgical coal, not the stuff for power plants)


So far I'm a complete noob, I've had RW2 a couple weeks and played maybe 10 scenarious plus done a lot of free roam. What I really want to do is create the above route. Is it really THAT BIG in comparisson to most others people create? Is it outside the parameters of whats possible? I'm still messing around trying to get my terrain/decals the way I want them. Terrain seems ok, I have to do a more thourough fly around (with the marker file that outlines the track) to be sure because flying around now with just RWdecal markers gets me lost and disoriented, but I do believe ReDem did render just tiles within 2-3 (cant remember which one I set) of my route because I do fly off the terrain onto flat ground in certain places, for a while I thought something was wrong, until I realized thats probably for the best, I dont need terrain far from the tracks. (334 terrain files vs 1979 files if I let ReDem model the whole area)

My current dilema is in getting decals (so that I have some way to orient myself besides markers) RWdecal wont "get chunks" for the whole map, thats 20k+ files and it runs out of memory after a few hours. The most I was able to get it to process was 9700 when narrowing the route down to the single valley, still I dont need decals for the terrain not renereed by Redem away from the tracks. Is there any way to have RWdecal only process chunks within certain # of tiles of my route markers like ReDem did when rendering terrain?

For now I have to play with markers, reload my large marker file with the route-line drawn in GE to make sure I at least have terrain near my tracks, then I can play with the decals, maybe making just a few at a time in key areas to get me started.

[PapaXpress]

Have you tried to select 1000 decals for generation at a time?

[4DoorGTZ]

Duh, seems there IS a feature to only create decals along a path selected in GE, went to the RWdecal website and his Feb 11th tutorial is about exactly that.
I guess I get to re-do my path that I already did once in GE, seems I need to keep these points less then 800m apart, hmm guess thats about 800 points instead of what I have so far.


Now, who wants to develop a tool that automaticaly lays the decals in the correct spot on the landscape :)

[Trainguy76]

Before you change anything, did you trace your track fairly closely? If you did, you can use RWTools to create a path in RailWorks for you to follow track laying.

[PapaXpress]

Do tell. I wasn't aware of this.

[Trainguy76]

A very breif summary, In GE you create a path following your track. You then export it as a .kml, and have RWTools turn that KML into both a .csv (source folder) and a .dcsv (assets folder) and you will have a path in RailWorks. To see your path you must start RW and your route, then close it and start RW again. This is because of when RW updates it's markers.

Your result can look like this. Excuse the poor quality.






Regarding decals, unless you have a powerful computer, just keep decals to the area your working on.


When building your route, I have found that the best workflow is to lay some track, then place scenery, lay more track, place more scenery, and so on. When you lay all of your track (of lets say 80 miles) you then have the mind-numbing process of placing scenery where you can't tell your progress. You lay your track along with the scenery, you have a good gauge of where you are progress wise.

[PapaXpress]

Going to try this tonight.

Not to sway too far off topic (sorry 4DoorGTZ) in the right fly out I see a list of the San Bernardino place (I think there are 15 of them or so). How would I add my own markers?

Thanks!

[Trainguy76]

Here is a tutorial.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2061