The Siskiyou Line

[buzz456]

I think you need the terrain to be continuous for it to work in game. Like I said before I can see objects 40 miles away on the MRL and I haven't messed with the distant terrain thing unless Wally did it when he was laying the track.

[BoostedFridge]

A picture speaks a thousand words, so I'll start with this...

20170220191604_1.jpg

Thanks to Hack, and Buzz for the information and advice on getting the 'generate distant terrain' tool to work on my route! I have lots of fine tuning to do with the fog settings, but at last Mount Shasta has graced The Siskiyou Line with its presence.

20170220191740_1.jpg

I am going to revert to my backup of the route from yesterday, and do a better job of filling in more 1 arc-second DEM in the distant areas beside Mt. Shasta, now that I am seeing how 'distant' the mountains are that will show up. I have half a mind to chuck in the rest of the 1/3 terrain down to Mt. Shasta, or Dunsmuir while I'm at it, but thats another story...

The process ran for about an hour before it crashed my RW, and threw up some interesting error messages. As far as I can see, the process worked for about a 50 mile radius around my 0,0 tile. Does anyone know exactly how far of a radius of 'distant terrain' will be generated? Would it do all of the terrain along my entire route, or just a set distance around my 0,0 tile?

Below are the error messages that came up when RW crashed. Any thoughts, or significance to them?

Distant terrain crash.jpg

Distant terrain crash 2.jpg

[BoostedFridge]

Update Time:

This has been a 'terrain' week on the Siskiyou. I have played around with the 'distant terrain' tool quite a bit, and finally understand all that is required about using it. The thread below was absolutely invaluable to me, and I recommend it to anyone with thoughts of adding distant terrain to their route.

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9583&p=110089&hilit=distant+terrain#p110089

I am going to tweak my fog settings next to take full advantage of the distant terrain, and specifically Mt. Shasta.

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As a follow up to what Buzz mentioned earlier in this thread, you do need to ensure that your distant terrain is uninterrupted between it, and anywhere the player may be viewing it from. Some of the tallest mountains in the background would appear fine from one angle, but show flat faces, or gaps where I had not imported terrain from other angles. I went on a blitz, and filled in a huge amount of filler terrain along the length of my entire route. The route's terrain folder went from 400mb to almost 800mb.

The angle below is only possible in the editor due to the elevation required, but it demonstrates a few points. First, from the cameras position near Yreka you can clearly see the extent of the terrain I imported as far as Grant's Pass over 55 miles away. Second, you can get an idea of what the 'incomplete' mountains look like that a player would see if you have a break in the terrain, or did not import all of the terrain between the player and said mountain.

20170225112200_1.jpg

I was feeling good about all of this new terrain, and in a moment that I may later regret, decided to extend the 'mainline' portion of the route and terrain south from Black Butte, all of the way to just below Dunsmuir where my 1/3 arc-second BIL file for the area ended. This is only around 15 miles as the crow flies, but adds almost 23 miles of main track to the route, partially because of...

20170224000511_1.jpg

...this little piece of geography. If you can recognize the location from the picture above, then you are a true SP fan. Even after making it, I still needed the Google Earth overlay to fully appreciate the Cantara Loop.

RailWorks_2017_02_21_23_00_19_739.jpg

This little extension will undoubtedly add a few months to my completion of the release of the southern part of the Siskiyou route, but should add a lot more operational functionality to the line. Dunsmuir is home to a yard, roundhouse, and turntable which was used to fuel and maintain the helpers used on the line, as well as the power for the 'Weed Local' that serviced the interchange with the McCloud River Railway at Mt Shasta, and the mills and industries in Weed. The facilities there will be useful for those running the line with steam engines.

[Tomcat]

Thank you for this tutorial on distant terrain. I never really understood the requirements for this to work up to this point but now I think I have a handle on it and I'm anxious to give it a try on a clone of my route to see what happens. I'm also anxious to see your route when it is done, I have a soft spot for SP as well. Keep plugging away at it and I'll savor the anticipation along the way.

PS: The Cantara Loop would be an awesome addition if you decide to forge ahead with it!

[Ericmopar]

It looks good.

[GenericZack]

im loving it!

[minerman146]

BoostedFridge,

I wanted to reach out to you on your WIP page and let you know what I think of your scenery work. The sheer scale would be impressive enough, but all the detail, glorious detail for miles and miles. And you put in Mt. Shasta!

I want you also to know, though I may not be an SP man, that every Saturday I support consignees on your route! This photo below was taken BECAUSE I was thinking about you and this route at the time.

20170211_165618_resized.jpg

[GenericZack]

You gave me a good chuckle there!

[jpetersjr]

BoostedFridge,

I wanted to reach out to you on your WIP page and let you know what I think of your scenery work. The sheer scale would be impressive enough, but all the detail, glorious detail for miles and miles. And you put in Mt. Shasta!

I want you also to know, though I may not be an SP man, that every Saturday I support consignees on your route! This photo below was taken BECAUSE I was thinking about you and this route at the time.

20170211_165618_resized.jpg

We sell those everyday at DG, we carry it right in our store.

[BoostedFridge]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

I want you also to know, though I may not be an SP man, that every Saturday I support consignees on your route! This photo below was taken BECAUSE I was thinking about you and this route at the time.

Hahaha, I like it! Next box, you should get this version

20 Mule Train....jpeg

[minerman146]

"Scenery Booster" I just noticed that! Oh, you got the scenery booster all right !

[Ericmopar]

Hmmmmm. Mt Shasta. I'll have to figure out a way to install in game Seismometers in case of eruption.

[BoostedFridge]

Getting back to scenery...

I've finished mucking about with terrain & distant terrain for now. I will end up running the distant terrain tool again, after I finish all of the 'close up' scenery, and have time to put some details into the distant peaks and hills.

I did discover an unfortunate side effect of the DT tool though. Every ~40-45 miles north/south as the crow flies, there is a 'shadow line' running east/west that crosses the entire horizon. The line disappears as the player approaches it, so it wouldn't really be noticeable from in cab. If you are the type to just fly around in 'free look' at high altitude and check out scenery though, they would be very apparent. I've mucked about with the terrain texturing files, and bin files, and I can't get rid of them, so I suppose they are here to stay.

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In other news, I started using the 'RW Info' utility first to find terrain holes, but now also to chart progress of the scenery along the route. Below is a snapshot of the mixmap for the route showing the tiles that I have painted the terrain in. This is an easy way of answering all of the folks asking 'are we there yet?'

Siskiyou scenery progress 3-2-17.jpg

I'm planning on releasing the southern part of the route between Dunsmuir and Medford before I press on and complete the northern section.

Siskiyou Total Progress 3-1-17.jpg

...with that, its back to the world editor!

[buzz456]

Is there actually a mismatch there? Wally can jump in here if he wants but at some places we went from one resolution to another and the terrain didn't match up perfectly however running the smoothing tool over these spots where they were visible from track side made then go away. You could still see them until we fixed the textures on these spots or lines or whatever you want to call them.

[BoostedFridge]

Is there actually a mismatch there? Wally can jump in here if he wants but at some places we went from one resolution to another and the terrain didn't match up perfectly however running the smoothing tool over these spots where they were visible from track side made then go away. You could still see them until we fixed the textures on these spots or lines or whatever you want to call them.

The terrain itself is seamless here (and in the other locations where this happens). If I move or rename the textures folder for the distant terrain, or revert to an earlier save of the route, the lines vanish.