Atomic Systems

To what distance should track side detail extend to?

I know there isnt an exact answer to this because generally we should build what the eye can see, but what kind of distance would people extend the following to ::

• Terrain
• Urban Areas
• Trees
• Other Tracks

I just build what the eye can see with everything...but you said that!

Mmm Funny question.

I agree with Rob.......a bit more detail please (excuse the pun)

Yes I don't understand that question either. You put in scenery either side of the track as far as the eye can see, especially terrain with hills and the curves of the land. Some scenery would be applied in the distance but it depends on what the area looks like or if you are trying to make a significant effect and overall look of the surroundings.

Well i guess u draw the Terrain shape as far as u can see, so fair enough.

However, what about the other areas?

I saw in one thread that a guy wanted to make an inner london route, but wasnt sure if this was a good idea, because of all the buildings he would need to have on the track side. How much of the surrounding urban area do we create to give a good enough impression that ur in a large city?

Its mainly a question about how we can be economical on building the route. A bad way to put it wud be :: where can we cut corners?

The review of the TGV pack said at one point that a town you pass thru on one route is a large urban area, but in the game it seemed like a small rural town. This is what i want to avoid. Build enough to convey the right atmosphere and location, but not to much that it overloads the game. Spending hours creating detailed constructions when at the flick of a graphical switch, the majority of that effort is blanked out.

Something like :: Heavy detail for about 1000m's either side, then after that a slow degradation for a further 2000m's. After which low detail can be implimented (like blank colours instead of textures, for buildings). That means u build roughly 3km's of detail either side of the track.

Is that more understandable?

Several ways to cut corners. One is to use backdrops behind buildings so you get more frame rates using less objects.
Another is using treelines. These are good to use like backdrops. If you look out of a carrage window I bet most of the time you will see treelines in real life and realistically trees are what cut off most long distance views anyway. As long as they are not too close to the track you can have a housing estate with say two or three rows parralelling the track then have a treeline behind them to hide what is behind which is flat terrain most of the time which I always try to hide. Even if there is a hill behind, a treeline will save you adding extra objects and simply just looks like a row of trees behind the houses or clump on the horizon. It saves you putting miles of buildings until you can't see what's behind!
In a heavily built up area this also is useful. Put treelines at the back, with single trees between buildings. The single trees are inportant so the area looks more cluttered and realistic. Also hides gapes between buildings.
Sometimes large buildings take up vauable space too. They look quite small away from the track but are really quite big.
Treelines put on top of hills also make the hill have more shape and are not just flat with no life up there!

Also a combination of industrial backdrop's and commercial backdrops at about 500M sometimes give a good effect, I've been doing dense forests at the moment, i've only used a few single trees, a few auto trees, a few lineside bushes and a few Treelines up some hillsides, I'll try and post Two screenshots, one showing the line of sight view, the other an arial view.

Alan Heath

Picture of the forest from lineside.

<IMG width="647" height="534" SRC="http://album.atomic-systems.com/showPic ... esteg1.JPG">

Picture from above.

<IMG width="648" height="534" SRC="http://album.atomic-systems.com/showPic ... esteg2.JPG">

This usually takes only a small framerate while driving.

Thats exactly what I did on Lake Milconsin. Use gaps to suggest distant areas in combination with ground textures.

The Highbridge wanderers are also experimenting with groups of objects that fit on a tile - this should increase the ability to add 'density' without hitting the object barrier... effects on framerate? Dunno.

Mike, its Highworth, not Highbridge

Lucazone, have you downloaded the backscene objects from this site - available in industrial, urban and suburban flavours they look a bit Victorian but then old buildings crop up in most ciies today so they'll work with any route.

There was a thread describing their use on here a couple of months back - try searching under 'backscene' or 'cityscape'.

Searching for Backdrop brings it up. Somehting about backdrop's used for a Manchester Route. Looks pretty cool, but yeah they look dated and not designed for a modern route.

Something was mentioned about tuts on holw to make them, so i will follow the guy up and see about getting some new ones made.

The maximum visibility from the train is 2km, so anything beyond that which would never come into view is a waste of time. The exception is if distant mountains are included but AFAIK you just get the outline "painted" with your basic terrain.ace colour no 3D objects.

As regards detail, again it's largely what's going to be visible from the cab, or maybe an external view. Around 200m either side of the track should suffice for really super detail, unless there's a particular landmark or feature. I'm sure all of us route builders can tell tales of spending hours setting up intricate dioramas only to find when we drive the route, the blooming scene is visible for about 3 seconds or not at all.

It *is* easy to get carried away and try and make a complete 3D model of the whole map area, when really you need to be focusing on that field of view from the cab.

Yup, I agree whole heartedly, I had a few problems with the likes of Retford, woksop and Lincoln basically because they are on triangular junctions so had to do the places in complete 3d!

An easy way with backdrops, and a suggestion to people making these would be to make them in cruciform rather than just flat for the distant objects.

Retford consists of actual modelled buildings from the real place stood by the track etc then the further awy layers I spread out some default buildings then used backdrops, a handfull of us decid clump 1 and 2's and you will get a fairly realistic looking town even with the high camera views (2 and 3)

I judge the camera viwe height now and build in the window, i only place distant objects if the tree line is sparse enough that you will see through them, east anglia and the fens is a typical example, small groups of trees- flat for miles so some objects were placed a long way off! achieves the effect though.

Trouble is the UK is all trees and you need to utilise the flat trees and maybe a combination of those and us decids to pad it out a bit.

Yeah i know from the train u aint gonna see much, so my concern is mainly when ur in an exterior view, maybe like a helicopter shot above the train. Thats really what im trying to cater for in this thread.