[atsf37l]

Understood. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking about when I backdate the route to 1954 when there weren't buildings or Interstate highways anywhere near there. Lots less brush along the right of way too. Might need a culvert. :)

And Paul, your statement that the culvert looks like a tunnel portal turns on a lightbulb: There are several concrete tunnel portals out there in the shape files that could be shrunk just a bit with Shape File Manager and would work perfectly for concrete culverts. :bigboss:

[lateagain]

 atsf37l, on 06 February 2017 - 12:34 AM, said:

Understood. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking about when I backdate the route to 1954 when there weren't buildings or Interstate highways anywhere near there. Lots less brush along the right of way too. Might need a culvert. :)

Backdating gets my vote. I think a lot of route builders miss a trick with this. There are a few routes out there (payware included) that have done the same route for different era's. A good route is a good route and what many youngsters fail to realise is that the variation in traffic types, more local sidings etc. can add a whole lot more interest to them. Of course I may be preaching to the converted here on ET? ;-)

[paulytechnic]

The Miramar bridgectomy has been completed with success! Fortunately, Route Editor didn't put up much of a fight with generating the embankments under the tracks. Four bridges were removed, and in their stead are a few humble culverts. However, in a couple locations, with the terrain reshaped, a culvert (with it's attached berm as required by MSTS) would have stuck-out too much and was deemed unnecessary.

 atsf37l, on 06 February 2017 - 12:34 AM, said:

And Paul, your statement that the culvert looks like a tunnel portal turns on a lightbulb: There are several concrete tunnel portals out there in the shape files that could be shrunk just a bit with Shape File Manager and would work perfectly for concrete culverts.

Agreed! That was actually my first thought. However, I happened to have the one pictured below laying around (i.e., used elsewhere in the route, one of which Jeff already placed just up the hill from here), which seems to be a good match to the one in your photo, with no additional effort required. (I also just realized that a shrunken tunnel portal would still show the terrain through the opening, necessitating a way to either black-out or block the opening, or punch through the terrain with some sort of internal structure...more work than I would have preferred.)







As I mentioned earlier, these are all the upper (entry) culverts, but I didn't place any lower (exit) ones. My reasoning is that there's not much that was actually modeled on the bottom of the valley (particularly vegetation), so the other culverts would have probably drawn too much attention to themselves, and also may have ruined the forced-perspective of the valley not being terribly deep in MSTS. I think these upper culverts, however, add just enough visual interest to replace the removed bridges.

[SP 0-6-0]

So do the culverts show on both sides of the ROW? I am just a bit confused?

Robert

[paulytechnic]

 SP 0-6-0, on 06 February 2017 - 03:31 PM, said:

So do the culverts show on both sides of the ROW? I am just a bit confused?

No, they're just on the uphill side. However, on the other side (in the canyon), I'm just pretending they're hidden under vegetation (i.e., the objects aren't really there). Hope that explanation helps!

[atsf37l]

That looks fantastic! :bigboss:

[SP 0-6-0]

Paul, That makes sense.

Robert

[Jovet]

 paulytechnic, on 03 February 2017 - 10:21 AM, said:

(I just noticed I was dragging a shrub under that Coaster car, so I'm thinking a forest region tweak is in order!)

Refer to the Open Rails 1.2 manual on page 117, section 8.14.2. The ORTSUserPreferenceForestClearDistance block can be added to an OpenRails\.trk file to turn on "don't put forest items on tracks and roads." No need to tweak all of the forest regions.

[paulytechnic]

 Jovet, on 06 February 2017 - 10:24 PM, said:

Refer to the Open Rails 1.2 manual on page 117, section 8.14.2. The ORTSUserPreferenceForestClearDistance block can be added to an OpenRails\.trk file to turn on "don't put forest items on tracks and roads." No need to tweak all of the forest regions.

Good point...but unless I'm mistaken (I'm a wee bit out of the loop), doesn't that option cause a bit of a performance hit with OR calculating where not to put the forest objects within the region? I figure that, at least for this instance, since I already happened to be in RE, it was easy enough to shove the box over a bit and off the tracks. For other occurrences I may do the same, if its convenient to do so, since those regions shouldn't have been overlapping the tracks in the first place. Fortunately, Jeff did a fairly good job with keeping most (except for a few corners here and there) forest regions off the tracks. For any others I miss (and/or don't feel compelled to mess with in RE), I'll definitely consider enabling that feature, though.

[paulytechnic]

Here are three more shots from Miramar grade. These terrtex have been further updated after I realized my initial take looked much too stark & grassy when compared to the real location.