The Siskiyou Line

[BoostedFridge]

Not much of an update, just more of the same in the Sacramento River Canyon. Scenery is complete past the east switch at Small. The location was known for its cantilever signal, which stood at the location until recently. Just under a 1/2 mile of scenery to go before the next crossing of the river, and then 1/2 mile more to Cantara loop.

20170726015509_1.jpg

[buzz456]

[BoostedFridge]

High up above the east switch at Small, the track clings to the the near vertical rock walls at a location known as Eagle Cliff. Other than the retaining wall and rock faces, I haven't placed any scenery on this tier of the canyon. I did manage to smooth out almost all of the terrain between Cantara and here tonight, so this weekend I will hopefully be able to place scenery at a pretty rapid pace.

20170728005431_1.jpg

[georgian22]

OUTSTANDING!

O'brian

[BoostedFridge]

Quick update:

I've made lots of progress this week in several different parts of the route. In the Sacramento Canyon, I have scenery done up to the 'west' side of the bridge at MP327.23 on the lowest 'tier' of the canyon. Half a mile of scenery to go until I'm at Cantara Loop. I skipped ahead and took a few hours selecting and placing assets for the famous bridge itself.

20170804014209_1.jpg

I added several new textures, and tweaked some of my custom ones. I found a ballast texture from the Donner Pass DLC which blends in much better with the ScaleRail ballast, and will repaint over the old ballast as I go. (see below)

Old Ballast texture

20170729113221_1.jpg

New ballast texture

20170729113623_1.jpg

I think I've finally found a texture combination that I like for the arid foothills between Snowden and Hornbrook. I have done some test areas, with decent results. No screenshots yet, but I should have some for next week.

[ET44C4]

The texture painting is outstanding. I love the fact that everything blends in so well, from the assets to the terrain textures.

[Tomcat]

Donner Pass gravel texture is a much better fit. Your textures and how you place them are outstanding.

Keep up the great work! Everytime I look in this thread I am reminded of just how much is possible.

[JOHNtheREDNECK]

Too bad it couldn't have been the Suzie-Q.

...kidding, just kidding.

Outstanding work you got there. Keep it up.

[ebarruse]

When the time comes, are you going to do the Sacramento Valley Station?
If so, that would be AWESOME!

Keep up the inspiring work BoostedFridge!

[BoostedFridge]

Thank you for the kind words guys! I'm really happy about the way the textures are turning out too.

When the time comes, are you going to do the Sacramento Valley Station?

I think I have my hands full with the Siskiyou, without the extra 200+ miles of the Valley Sub too! Thanks for the vote of confidence though!


Update time! I have gone back to working on the Siskiyou line, and repainted a lot of the original ballast texture with the DP texture. In addition, I have knocked out another mile and a half east of Snowden. I'll have screenshots of that soon, as I have some more finishing details to do first. After the slow process of working in the curvaceous Sac River canyon, the Siskiyou is a cake walk!

Also, I have started testing out the seasonal changes on the route. In the winter and spring, some of the textures really didn't work together, so I tweaked some settings in the route bin file. I have the ground textures figured out, and will be messing with the fog settings for each season more next. Below is an example shot of Mt Shasta on the horizon in the fall. Lots to adjustment to do yet, but I'm glad you can actually see the textures on the mountain from distance now.

20170801154133_1.jpg

Another contrast between the Siskiyou in real life, and my rendition. This example is a fantastic photo by Greg Brown at the east switch of Gazelle Siding.

SP 8305 east Gazelle 4-12-1987 east of Gazelle siding.jpg

The sneaky star of my shot is the excellent SP crossbucks made by Zack at Pacific Coast Railworks! http://www.pacificcoastrailworks.com

20170731_164352.jpg

The crossbucks, as well as a few other SP scenery items will be available soon.

20170810214902_1.jpg

[ET44C4]

I can not describe in words how great this route looks. You have done an amazing job making this route look like such a great piece of art. Unbelievable

[ebarruse]

Not one word could sum up the effort, dedication, and inspiration that originates from this railworks route.
This route has built the strongest foundation for any freeware route since the Willamette Pass V1.1 Route.

Keep the Inspiration GOING!

[BNSF650]

Man this looks nice!!! Keep up the hard work

[ZekTheKid]

I regret not following this post sooner... I can see why you and Zack spend a lot of time on the discord.

[ebarruse]

This route is really inspiring and I can't wait to run some trains on it.
Btw, how far away is this route from being released (or at least a portion of it)?