[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Just curious - anyone on the ORTS dev team looking at splines ?

Now - last post I saw this mentioned went off on the more complicated track systems debate - but - this is strictly from a scenery perspective... I'd certainly try and create whatever model was needed for testing - I think I recall a spline modeling tutorial video somewhere (probably for Trainz)... Having splines available would certainly improve the quality of scenery available and increase the speed at which we could create it... Anyone who ever tried to create a fence line over undulating terrain could certainly attest to that... Splines are sorely needed in ORTS...

Spline Work I'd like to see:

• Grass That Conforms To Terrain
  
• Telephone Poles With Wire
  
• Fence Lines
  
• Roads
  
• Water At Multiple Levels and Sloped

Regards,
Scott

[Genma Saotome]

Scott, help me out here: I have no idea how splines would assist in setting out Fences on rolling terrain, etc. Some of the things you mentioned sound like tessellation, some of it sounds like congruent curves offset from the path of the rails, some of it sounds like 3d modeling of shapes.

[scottb613]

Genma Saotome, on 26 September 2019 - 11:17 AM, said:

Scott, help me out here: I have no idea how splines would assist in setting out Fences on rolling terrain, etc. Some of the things you mentioned sound like tessellation, some of it sounds like congruent curves offset from the path of the rails, some of it sounds like 3d modeling of shapes.

Hi Dave,

Maybe I’m not calling them by the correct name - while I’m not a fan of Trainz due to the stutters, scenery popping, and complete and utter disregard for realistic physics - for scenery building - these folks have it all figured out and we’re the ones left stumbling around in the dark... While I couldn’t actually run Trainz for more than a brief look around - I found this guys development video series absolutely fascinating and watched almost all of it (many hours)... The whole time I watched the series I was amazed at all the great tools he had available to work with - to speed route building - wishing we had similar...

As I understand them - splines are some type of magical model - that has everything you need to quickly and rapidly place things like roads, power lines, fences, etc - - - it’s the same way they do track in Trainz... The guy simply selects the spline object - such a telephone pole - click on point A, B, and C on the terrain - and the poles appear with all the wires in place - all properly spaced no matter how long the distance is between points - and they follow terrain contours over hill and dale... I think there’s an option to be either curved or point to point as it follows user selected points on the terrain... All this by merely clicking on a couple of placement points... It seems they have grass mats that do the same thing - again magically following the contours it’s placed upon - without any of the shape issues we have while working with static vegetation models on sloping terrain... You can place massive amounts of vegetation where we couldn’t do the same with years of work...

I’ve seen them do this for power lines, telephone poles, fences, roads, track, white posts along roads - road guard rails - water - and vegetation... I think they even use them for painting parking spaces in a parking lot - just drag a strip and you instantly have X number of predefined parking spaces placed on any texture you want...

How they achieve this - I haven’t a clue...

Trainz DBEV
https://youtu.be/W5duEhtxU3U

The video is worth a look just to get an idea of how scenery design should be done...

Regard,
Scott

[wacampbell]

> ... splines ...

In DTG's Train Simulator they are called lofts, and have a similar function.

[Genma Saotome]

I watched 2 minutes of the the Build #2 episode and my take away is pretty simple: The route editor in Tranz appears have been built as an application-specific 3d modeling tool and not a world editor. That is a GOOD THING, something I've been advocating for our community for years.

the difference is how the breadth of the available functions are presented and used.

IMO something not far from the Sketchup UI would work very well -- toolbar function list, awareness of relative placement (Parallel offset, right angle, specific angle), simple move, rotate, snap-to functions with function specific cursor and so on (the Trainz example falls short on cursor purpose identification).

It all makes KUJU's RE look, well, as-if if it were designed almost 20 years ago.

I would also argue that a well designed UI is absolutely essential; Making a route is hard enough w/o also having to fight the editor. One should not need PhD to figure out how things are done or the memory of an elephant to recall numerable keystrokes -- select the function from menu or toolbar, have the cursor change to reflect the impending function, do it. Click a different function, get a different cursor, do that. Everything you need is at the spot where your eye is focused on.

Did you notice the terrain sculpting tool for a beveled descent? Sweet.

Also I am NOT a fan of laying track or roads on the basis of using a single point and pushing a shape forward... somewhere... hoping it will wind up about where you want it. Instead it must be a two point system (which the short amount of the Trainz video suggests) so there are two points you have selected BEFORE any shape goes down. My dream track and road laying process would be drawing a path on on a map, converted that to a lofted vertical plane in the editor and drawing the gradient from point to point on that plane.

[Coonskin]

Scott:

Are those videos real time?? (Hyper-sonic speeds!) OR, has he sped up the video to cover more info in an installment?

Andre

[scottb613]

wacampbell, on 26 September 2019 - 04:06 PM, said:

> ... splines ...

In DTG's Train Simulator they are called lofts, and have a similar function.

Hi Wayne,

Thanks - since you poked in here - could you shed a bit more light on this ?

• How are the models made to be used as splines/lofts - meaning - what's done differently from a static model ?
  
• Would something like this be possible in ORTS and with just how much of an effort from the programmers (providing we could find an interested party) would it take ?

Genma Saotome, on 26 September 2019 - 07:05 PM, said:

I watched 2 minutes of the the Build #2 episode and my take away is pretty simple: The route editor in Tranz appears have been built as an application-specific 3d modeling tool and not a world editor. That is a GOOD THING, something I've been advocating for our community for years.

the difference is how the breadth of the available functions are presented and used.

IMO something not far from the Sketchup UI would work very well -- toolbar function list, awareness of relative placement (Parallel offset, right angle, specific angle), simple move, rotate, snap-to functions with function specific cursor and so on (the Trainz example falls short on cursor purpose identification).

It all makes KUJU's RE look, well, as-if if it were designed almost 20 years ago.

I would also argue that a well designed UI is absolutely essential; Making a route is hard enough w/o also having to fight the editor. One should not need PhD to figure out how things are done or the memory of an elephant to recall numerable keystrokes -- select the function from menu or toolbar, have the cursor change to reflect the impending function, do it. Click a different function, get a different cursor, do that. Everything you need is at the spot where your eye is focused on.

Did you notice the terrain sculpting tool for a beveled descent? Sweet.

Also I am NOT a fan of laying track or roads on the basis of using a single point and pushing a shape forward... somewhere... hoping it will wind up about where you want it. Instead it must be a two point system (which the short amount of the Trainz video suggests) so there are two points you have selected BEFORE any shape goes down. My dream track and road laying process would be drawing a path on on a map, converted that to a lofted vertical plane in the editor and drawing the gradient from point to point on that plane.

Hi Dave,

Yeah - I thought this topic was touched on in one of the ORTS track systems discussions on here...

There is so much in here we could take away for ORTS - providing we had interested programmers to make it happen...

Personally - if we could get Goku to work on the TERRTEX manipulation in TSRE - providing similar functions on display here - that function is half built and it's the foundation of what everything else is built off of...

Coonskin, on 26 September 2019 - 08:13 PM, said:

Scott:

Are those videos real time?? (Hyper-sonic speeds!) OR, has he sped up the video to cover more info in an installment?

Andre

Hi Andre,

Yes - I believe he records them - speeds them up while he does the voiceovers... Still this kid/guy has mad skills - it's hypnotic how fast he can turn piece of naked flat grid mesh - into an absolutely stunning scene... I believe all the work done in each video is done in a single work session (2 to 4 hours ?) - try to do a similar amount of work with ORTS in a single session - ROFL...

The other takeaway - is the VAST quantity of high quality public content they have at their disposal - he builds this entire thing without creating a single model himself... This is yet another area we seriously lack - I think there are just too few content creators left in ORTS - we could never make a dent in this vast hole we have - - - and NO - our 10 and 20 year old models in the lib really don't cut it anymore... Did you see all those beautiful urban buildings they have - to build out an urban area suitable for the transition era - that fast - OMG - I would kill for those models...

Just based on the quantity of ORTS content we see released - Indian modelers seem to be our largest group using the software today... While members here like Hazma build and showcase absolutely exquisite rolling stock models - the Indian routes I could find on YouTube can't even compare to the quality of Trainz or DTG routes - they suffer from the same issues we normally see here (and it's not due to the game engine) - mostly due to poor texture quality...

Regards,
Scott

[wacampbell]

scottb613, on 27 September 2019 - 03:08 AM, said:

• How are the models made to be used as splines/lofts - meaning - what's done differently from a static model ?
  
• Would something like this be possible in ORTS and with just how much of an effort from the programmers (providing we could find an interested party) would it take ?

1. How are the models made :

DTG Train Simulator ( Railworks ) uses a XML text file called a blueprint to describe each scenery object. Its like our .SD file. A loft blueprint contains entries where you can specify several mesh shapes ( like our .s files ).

- starting mesh ( appears at the start of the loft )
- ending mesh
- repeating mesh ( ie telephone poles that get placed along the length - you specify the spacing )
- loft mesh ( joined end to end to fill the spaces between the repeating mesh - eg the telephone wire )

Not every loft uses every type of geometry. Most lofts just use the loft mesh, eg a track berm.

2. Would something like this be possible in ORTS.

The sd file could be extended to accommodate these new elements.

The route editor is the more difficult bit. It would need to be extended with tools for loft placement. In Railworks there is an entire tool panel for this with such features as:

- stretch out a loft from one point to another
- pull a loft around a curve
- place a loft parallel to the track, or to a road, or to another loft
- join one loft to another
- split a loft
- move a loft
- extend a loft
- options to follow terrain or stretch straight
- options to adjust the loft vertically, in Railworks you add handles where you want vertical bends to occur

You would basically be building the cad system that Dave described earlier in the thread.

In addition to the editor tools, the .w world files would need to be extended with a new data structure type to describe the loft placement.

And finally Open Rails (Runactivity.exe) would need to be modified to render the loft 'in game' - relatively speaking, the easy bit.

[scottb613]

Hi Wayne,

Thanks so much for taking the time - hah - at least now I have some idea as to what's involved...

LOL - building a CAD system - sounds so easy...
:)

I don't know how active Goku is with his editor these days but almost all the suggestions on his website go unanswered - therefore - it doesn't seem likely we have any major update in the works...

Hope all is well with your route in the Pacific Northwest - the pix you posted were truly spectacular !!!

Regards,
Scott

[conductorchris]

It seems to me that if we are serious about advancing route building like this, we need to be thinking about fronting some cash to pay for the skill and time to get this done. A community fund-raising.