Atomic Systems

On my route I find that I can get too "into" scenery. Some of the slog seems to come when I dwell on a particular area for too long fussing over a road being laid flat or the like.
Soemtimes it is better to set an object ( anythig at all ) about a mile along and use that as a marker to scenic to.
The other thing I try to discipline myself to do is to keep the big picture. Paint in huge chunks of fields etc with the paint tool first so that the mile gets gobbled up in scenery pretyy quickly. then go back to the start and get all the trackside fence/hedge in along with bridegs etc.
Then step back and add in distant woods, followed by walls and hedges.
Then do house plonking - again returning to the start each time. This layering approach seems to be a better way of evening out the scenery so I don't end up with clumps of interesting scenes lovingly created joined by a fence and two weeds in the boring bit.
Then I move back to the track and trackside vegetation.
I am quite careful to save stations as rewards.
I absolutely concur that urban areas are a nightmare - it took 3 complete rebuilds and months to get my small market town right. What I found helpful was to lay out the outskirts first by building plonks and then infill.

Hang on in there Chris,your not alone .

I usually create all infrastructure first so i have a working railway then add main textures and buildings etc to get a good feel for the area then go back and detail working on 2 mile stretches at a time.when i start to see double or everything goes blurred i down tool and go to the pub

joe whittaker

whittaker wrote:when i start to see double or everything goes blurred i down tool and go to the pub

joe whittaker

That is probably the most helpful peice of advice EVER pub?.....oh its only 8am, woops!

The DEM goes in first, then the markers, decals and all of the track gets laid and tested.

I then allocate about a mile of track and landscape and place scenery to about 90% completion in that mile including fields, stations, yards, sidings, etc. The very fine detail is left to the finishing stages but if I need to model anything then that gets done as I progress. When that mile is complete I allocate the next mile and do the same thing.

I am effectively creating a mini route in each mile using many skills of route building so that there is a great variety of things to do in each section. In addition, when each section is completed, there is a great sense of achievement as you have something that is just about finished and very usable.

I fill in key areas first when I'm working then fill outwards. There's nothing more annoying than working through 8 miles of countryside, doing the same things over and over again... I like to build a town, move to the next town/village and fill in the details. Then, when you've done the towns, the countryside can be tackled a mile at a time.

Aye, I enjoy seeing scenery sprout up, but I find without decals to provide a 'Hornby Trakmat' approach it's a head-scratching moment deciding what to put where. I've never got into decals or DEM though so I just go by Google Earth itself or picture reference. Then there's at least a feel for the area represented.

It's the gradients that need sourcing to provide a sense of depth in the landscape without the aid of DEM.

prairie4566 wrote:Aye, I enjoy seeing scenery sprout up, but I find without decals to provide a 'Hornby Trakmat' approach it's a head-scratching moment deciding what to put where. I've never got into decals or DEM though so I just go by Google Earth itself or picture reference. Then there's at least a feel for the area represented.

It's the gradients that need sourcing to provide a sense of depth in the landscape without the aid of DEM.

Thankfully BR main line gradient profiles are available in a fantastic (and not at all boring) book of the same name. Very useful though. I go on google maps for the landscape to the side of the tracks though. But the route I'm doing at the moment isn't particularly hilly so I've not had too much work to do.

I'm trying a new technique for my Irish route which is roughly 26 miles long (plus corners and endy bits, which always seem to bog you down). Splitting it into three roughly equal sections, have just finished laying track on the first. That then gives me a couple of days work in Google Earth to do markers for surrounding features (I don't use Decal) then probably just over two weeks to scenify that section. Rinse and repeat for the next third. The advantage also is if I run out of interest on the scenery, there's still potential to go and do some more pre-emptive GE'ing or perhaps extend track just a little bit.

Quite a variety of techniques there and although there are a few basic procedures to follow, there seems to be no 'correct' way to build a route. It really is down to the route builder's preference.

Some great advice here.

One thing I find good - and which has been mentioned - is getting out and doing research; whether it's at the library, in the field or whatever.

Can I plug the RW FAQ, here: http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewforum.php?f=339? There's some good advice there, and I've put in some thoughts about research in two topics there as well :-/

Best
Ruth