Atomic Systems

Whilst I like the S&D route I'm not keen on the freshly ballasted look . is there an easy way to change the ballast colour?

Thanks

Len

The rails and the shoulder ballast are all on piece - you can change the lot by replacing the track
Have a look at VP Track Pack - https://www.vulcanproductions.co.uk/rb.html

And a tutorial by Mike Simpson http://www.agenetools.com/tutorials/RepTrack.pdf

Peter

I'd say you have a different definition of "easy" Peter.

gptech wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 1:43 pm I'd say you have a different definition of "easy" Peter.

I wanted to change the track on a route I have so I used Mike's tutorial with RW Tools and that worked as expected.
It is easy for someone like me to follow and it did work

And the tutorial was done on the S&D Route which the OP asked about.

Peter

If you just want to change the ballast why not just replace the present textures with suitably renamed ones copied from a route you do like?
Robin

749006 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 5:00 pm I used Mike's tutorial with RW Tools and that worked as expected.
It is easy for someone like me to follow and it did work

It working as expected can only be...well, expected, but your idea of "easy" after all the time you've had the game and amount of tinkering you've done in that time, has you reasonably well versed in how things are done and the terminology we use. Don't forget that you're trying to help a fellow member who in March this year didn't know how to install/was having bother installing a reskin.
rkk is probably outlining the easier option, it's a fairly simple copy and paste operation then.

Signals, do you have another route that features *better* ballast colours?

rleirik wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 7:01 pm If you just want to change the ballast why not just replace the present textures with suitably renamed ones copied from a route you do like?
Robin

Can you change the Ballast that sits under the rails/sleepers?

I don't mean the ground texture

749006 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:57 am Can you change the Ballast that sits under the rails/sleepers?

Yeah, you could identify which textures are used by looking in the tracks .XSec file and edit those textures as you would any reskin. It just gets a bit tricky when you come to the combination of textures used when creating junctions, getting the colours to match can be time consuming.
Depending on the track types in question a simply copy of another texture will work, and allow you to use the original sleepers/rail. You just need to work out which textures are used, and how much of those textures is actually seen.

gptech wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 2:51 pm

749006 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:57 am Can you change the Ballast that sits under the rails/sleepers?

Yeah, you could identify which textures are used by looking in the tracks .XSec file and edit those textures as you would any reskin. It just gets a bit tricky when you come to the combination of textures used when creating junctions, getting the colours to match can be time consuming.
Depending on the track types in question a simply copy of another texture will work, and allow you to use the original sleepers/rail. You just need to work out which textures are used, and how much of those textures is actually seen.

If changing some track in TS Tools might be difficult for the OP then he might have problems with this

749006 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:02 pm If changing some track in TS Tools might be difficult for the OP then he might have problems with this

Definitely, but I was answering your question so used words I know you'd understand

The biggest problem with changing any tracks textures is that it immediately changes the appearance of every route using that track---think back to the biggest complaint about AP's track enhancement pack when it was first released. The way round that is to produce a new variant of the track using revised textures, but that takes us back to square 1 as the track in the route would need swapping out. I agree it's easy enough to do, once you've done it that is, but there's more to it than just following Mike's tutorial which is based upon a specific example.

Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

So which way are you going to go about doing it?