[johnfrum]

Here are some screenshots of the line I've been puttering around with for the past few years.

I've based it (fairly loosely, to tell the truth) on the Middle Division of the Canada Atlantic Railway, which ran west from Ottawa into the forests of Central Ontario. The era is just prior to World War One.

At the moment it includes about 75 miles of main line plus two short logging branches -- one standard gauge, the other narrow gauge with some dual gauge interface. These shots are of the mainline -- I've previously posted a couple of logging shots in the MSTS forum here.

You'll likely recognize many of the scenery and rolling stock items that I've used. In fact, I've only ever built one structure: the station at Galetta. Everything else you see (with one exception) was part of the original MSTS package or freely available on the Web -- but I've done a lot of retexturing, resizing and "kitbashing" to get the look and feel I wanted.

The one exception is the great payware locomotive and rolling stock package built by Jon Davis for Andre Ming's St. Louis and North Arkansas. Obviously, I've relettered those models to fit.

Enough explanation. I invite you to take a trip back to a simpler, more innocent time:


















-JF-

[thegrindre]

Fantastic! Beautiful work! I'm impressed... :lol:

[revich]

Your Galetta station is superb. Great job on the other building textures, too! :lol:

Rich

[atsf37l]

Great looking route! You've captured the look of the era beautifully! I like your use of trees. Very well done.

[Coonskin]

Good stuff Maynard!! Got some questions... but just noticed this thread while snarfing down breakfast. Gotta' head off to work and play trains. (Anybody wanna' go with me and ride in an Alco??)

I'll bet I have lots of comments (good) and questions later tonight!!!

[timmuir]

I'll go with ya, Andre! :lol:

John, your route is a great looker! I must also say your photography of it is quite excellent. You've really captured the era very believably. I hope we get to see more!

[Coonskin]

Had a shorter day (10 hrs vs 12) than we've been having... so I'm home already! AND...

I don't have to run the psgr train tomorrow!!!

A Saturday OFF! Yippeeee! :rolleyes:

Tim:

Come on down from the Great North West and I'll hook you up for a cab ride. Be prepared for a looooooong day of gruntin' cars back and forth a lot... with some 20 MPH forays north/south on the mainline. However, you'll see lots of Alco's and other assorted trains.

John:

First off: WOW!!! That is REALLY some nice work. I especially like your terrtex texture work, your eye for object placement, and the little details that really "snap" the scene. Your city scape is especially nice. You've definitely captured the "look and feel" of the TOC19 era. (i.e. Turn Of the 19th Century.)

How heavy is (are) your city scene tile(s)? How hard does it hit your frame rates? Reason for asking: I'm looking at a TOC19 project that will have a nice-sized city in it, with quite a bit of track throughout it. Thus, wondering what's the count on your tiles and how it affects performance.

How much more mileage/etc are you going to attempt on your route?

Well... all for now.

Thanks for taking the time to post some pics. Hope to see more!

[johnfrum]

Thanks for your generous comments guys.

Andre: The biggest challenge for me on this route has been modeling a detailed city, especially because I'm running a 1.6 Gig Pentium 4 that sometimes seems as ancient as these TOC19 trains :rolleyes: .

I do a lot of running in the number 4 view, where frame rates are usually the poorest. I can live with anything above 8 FPS and I've found that a tile object level of 300 or less always ensures 8 FPS or better on this computer (except of course for when the consarn next tile is loading!). There's more to frame rates than mere object count, but it's the easiest thing to keep track of.

But in the city I haven't been able to keep the object count that low and still have it look acceptable to my eye. So I've got a tile with 600 objects bounded by two tiles with more than 400 each. I can still run single train operations there at 8 FPS, but adding AI trains or many additional cars on sidings turns in into a slideshow.

I've made use of building backdrops where possible, have used smaller textures on background structures, painted roads directly on terrtex to eliminate the use of road objects (which are a real frame rate killer) and used as many frame-rate friendly big city buildings as I've been able to find.

I'd love to run an intricate streetcar line using car spawners, have yards filled with freight and passenger cars, and bring the detail level up to what I have out in the boondocks, but I've resigned myself to the reality that it ain't gonna happen, even when I move to a faster processor. Compared with the fun and relaxation I get from this route, it's a irritation that doesn't really matter.

As far as the size of the route goes, I doubt that I'm going to extend the main line at all. Speeds of 15 - 20 mph look just about right for freights and not much faster than that for passenger trains, so an end-to-end run eats up several hours. And I've got wyes at each end, so it doesn't even need to end there.

Future trackwork may include as many as three additional wyes at the larger towns and two more logging branches, including another in narrow gauge. But I spend most of my development time refining what's already there. I like the countryside to look as realistic as the towns, so I'm continuously modifying terrain, planting vegetation and adding lakes and rivers. For example, when I look at the screenshots above I can see any number of things that don't look exactly right and want refining.

The route will never be finished and that's exactly the way I want it to be!

-JF-

[Coonskin]

John:

Thanks for the additional input.

You're certainly doing a fine job.

For my computer/video card, tiles in the 700-800 range begin to become a noticable burden. Balancing resource is a common problem in most graphical applications. Object textures are a major load on CPU resource.

I have also disproved to my satisfaction the common conception that you save CPU resource using forest objects.

Not so. I popluated a small area on a tile using four overlaying forest regions of different trees. The end result was a wonderful small mountainside of verdant Ozark-type forest. In the sim, the area went from 25 FPS (no AI) to 12. That did it for me. I went back in and killed the forest regions and my FPS returned to 25. Some things you have to live with.

Like you, I have found no significant additional CPU load to have custom terrtex. The "gotcha" on that is the disc size of the finished route. Can approach DVD medium in size if one wants to distribute.

However, for my "next project", I'm looking at a really neat project that will become like your endeavor: Likely never finished, but a lot of fun to build with loads of operational potential.

However, that should be a topic for another thread and not attached to this one.

Looking forward to periodic updates on your route!

[august1929]

John, those are beautiful screens of an excellent looking route - nothing I can add that hasn't been very well said before :rolleyes:

On your tile object count problems, may seem like a silly question, but are you using MSTSBin? my old computer was about the same specs as yours and I know that I seriously struggled at times with tiles that had a highish object count, but that on installing 'Bin the framerates improved enormously. 'Bin also allows you to substantially up the object count per tile.

Rod