Sunday, December 4, 2011

Slow But Steady Progress!

It has been a heck of a while since my last posting. Today I am continuing on the terminal. I did a little landscaping around the Adamo Drive crossing seen earlier and am now furnishing the I-4 overpass over the Neve Spur. Little by little I am delving around the heart of all the action, polishing little spots up. Definitely this can keep me from getting worn out as there are slightly different environments between 50th St, Adamo, and I-4.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Adamo Drive (Tampa Terminal)

Due to interests in the ample action in Tampa, I began work on the active Tampa Terminal and Palmetto Subs.

Here is a look at Adamo Drive, on the Tampa Terminal Sub, which I believe was originally ACL but not connected there any longer, due to a curve track to the S-line which looked like a diamond.


Saturday, October 8, 2011

Progress obviously delayed

I made a commitment map far before I got an offer for an arduous, lengthy project for a LEGO Store called the brand ribbon. The Brand Ribbon is the little displays inside the wall. That took about every chance away from Trainz progress, but since I hit and ease-up in the project, 2 weeks to complete 20 easy models, I can pretty much do some building again. I'll probably do the consistent progress going to the Winter Haven Portal then actually try to work back in the Tampa Terminal. By winter if $$$$$ permits a new graphics card/ram upgrade is also in the question, so I can have 12GB RAM and a 5770 Graphics Card. Here are Ryan Vince's videos with this card.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Special Op Session

Soon I will be posting a video of Q453 in Trainz with the exact power it has today: 8730 and HLCX 7190! I'm getting pumped for the real deal tonight.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Trainz on Hold a little bit!

Progress on the Tampa Terminal will be on hold until at least I finish some homework and this LEGO commission I have been charged with. I might sneak a TTUS video since I did a little last weekend but otherwise, things are on stun. I believe next Friday I might afford an hour to further develop the Lake Wales stretch.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

CSX Homestead Sub 05.09.2011 - Malfunctions and Manifest


Two things you don't see everyday: Crossing malfunctions and AC44s pulling 4 cars. ;)

I must say, this is one of my favorite day outings.

Coming Right Up...

Tampa Terminal Update Show Episode 2: Never before seen areas of Winter Haven and a couple of lakes. These lakes are huge and it's an aid to the need of getting your route done quickly.

This episode isn't narrated because yesterday I was feeling bad, but I did manage to record it.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Route Updating Schedule

Just wanted to showcase my plan layout for this route and when an area is completed. From the very beginning I set the mid 2013 window as when it should all be ready.

Friday, August 5, 2011

The Fun of Trainz

One sentence tonight; screw up your placement of the Winter Haven FMID transfer track, and you can retexture and relay it, no harm, no foul.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

[Requested] How to Set Up ATLS Crossings in Trainz (Part 1)

I am doing a two-part how to special series on how to program an ATLS crossing since it has been quite requested by many. I overlooked a stopper which is not complicated at all, but configured the channel to work. This is the LCM Tutorial which uses LCM Mode. As I get to doing the Traffic Light tutorial, which will be more complicated, I will apply the ATLS Traffic Stopper. I did this crossing up in a win-win situation; I win by progressing further in my Tampa Terminal route by making one of the crossings (Now guess which one!) and the viewer wins by learning how a crossing can actually work. The same will apply for US 92 in Park Spur.

The video is NOT titled How to.... (Part 1) because Part 2 is Apples to Oranges with this one. Part 2 we go for the complicated stuff. Look for that tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Trainz Tampa Terminal Update Show

It's a new endeavor I am taking on YouTube. I'm showcasing my updates of the route.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Auburndale Industrial track (WIP) SX821

Just a small spur south of Can Yard. IDK how active it is but I am still rendering it.


Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Auburndale

A morning shot of Q251 through there. The area is pretty much complete, except that I'm about to move on west towards 570, which is an easy task.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Oil Field

A true piece of work in Auburndale, the Oil field was a little simplified for placement in Trainz. Of course the delete button is there if I come to replace the components in the future with exact replicas of those structures but that'd keep me busy for a looong time.

More Auburndale

Auburndale in itself forms a huge industrial park. Here's more from the industry-laden Derby Av. and surrounding roads.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Can Yard, Y'er lookin good!

The Industrial mecca of Can Yard in Auburndale is now almost fully done. All that is left is the spur to Amerigas (I think it's amerigas). It runs by very intricate oil pipelines so it'll be a haul to do.


Saturday, July 2, 2011

"I Learned From My Mistakes, Honey"

One of the biggest mistakes I made, which horribly affected the Auburndale area, was neglecting to save the game before exiting. I accidentally shut down without saving and lost the one hours' work. Not to say it didn't affect my trainzing for a solid week.... I didn't even bother to work on anything with the route until today, where I was less disenchanted by this loss.

When Auburndale gets its premier expect it to look a little different..... ;)

And not to forget; the big lesson and moral for the day, and especially on Windows 7 when the "Pin to Taskbar" is in use;  check if your Trainz Application is open before shutting down and Save FREQUENTLY.

My big problem is that the save takes 5 minutes each time, and I only save once, or when I am not to use the computer for a while, incognito to the fact that I lose time when I save. Autosave on my PC however does NOT work! It freezes for a minute to prompt you to save again when exiting.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Auburndale 2.0 (WIP)

This was one of the original areas from the route I did in 2010 that was abandoned in favor of this project. While much of the buildings were reused I managed to make some changes compared to that render, those being the track/the scenery around it and the texturing. That's why I did it from scratch, to texture and apply my new routebuilding standards by hand.

Friday, June 24, 2011

YouTube: Train R188

A show-off of the last two months of progress on this route. Boy have I done a lot, and this even doesn't have Valrico, I-4/SR39, nor Yeoman Yard. So there's been quite a bit of mileage done.

I am slowly working on Auburndale and eventually going to re-build the area west of it. I did the area between the 570 east side overpass and Auburndale in the old rendition so it's familiar terrain. I even recognized it when I drove that section on March 19 in real life. This then generates the Carters Subdivision. Meanwhile I did have Zephyrhills started and hope to complete that soon. The outlook is bright for this route, but it will all be done like others, over time.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Y121 &The New Jointed Rail Covered Hoppers

I am personally impressed with these realistic Jointed Rail CSX company predecessor hoppers. I think the attention to detail was spot on and looked just like the real thing.

So I took it for a spin in a Winston local, Y121, which Jared Davis, Thomas East, and two others caught in Winston one day.




Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Q604 Fights the Hill!

Another quality production showing off the Gay Rd. side. A few railfans did recently hit the spot so I thought it quite appropriate to model it.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Vitis Junction / US 98

Managed to complete and connect the two sub-areas in a eureka fashion. ;)


Vitis jct. converges the Vitis and Yeoman Subs into the Wildwood Sub. It also was plagued with the cruel head on between a Miami K train and a Q manifest. Nonetheless it is still a great place to railfan. The overpass provides for great shots of trains from above as usual. In real life one can chase trains on this stretch and enjoy such a pace.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

US 98 Overpass WIP

I have to admit it does get interesting when as I focus on one area, another just quickly gets my eye. Like the artistic rule of thirds, it's the stress points that score attention. This one is the US 98 overpass, an area north of Vitis not frequented but still with a share of coverage on YouTube. Hence it makes for some great overhead shots of trains from Winston, Miami, or Tampa. Maybe it's also that it's so easy to detail. But nonetheless my success story for this area will pretty much resemble the one for Winston Pass, where two close areas would be successfully detailed.

Vitis Junction

And the humble beginnings thereof in detailing it.

Eye-catchers

Sometimes to enrich the train driving experience it's nice to add things like car fires, standoffs, and other extraordinary scenes. In this example from Lakeland it's a horrid car crash along I-4. It was loosely based off of the Killian Parkway and US1 scene in the KWE Modern day, which that video made 40k+ hits in 2 years. Hence seeing such a peculiarity not only works on my routes but will work on any other routes too.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Complete with Winston Wye, Progress in General, and a Forecast

In a partially grueling process of working for a week or two on end with Winston Wye, I can finally say I'm done. This comes up with a well progressed four photogenic areas on the A-Line: Plant City, Clark Road, Gay/Galloway roads, and Lakeland Junction. On the S-Line there are four photogenic areas: Plant City, Yeoman Yard, I-4, and Valrico Jct. On the Vitis Sub I also touched up an angle north of Lakeland Junction and completed the I-4 overpass all the way to CR 582, two to three areas depending on who judges it. These eight areas, two of which converge the three evaluated rail lines, span up to about three miles of progress altogether. All of this was completed accordingly in about one month's time as the lag of getting Trainz 12 installed (2 weeks) and time to focus on school (2 weeks) shaved off the net time of two months given to this route. There is no rush and no deadline unless there really is one when route building. The net mileage on the whole route to come is about 150-200 miles.

I have started the rebuilding (new rendition of an area done in the obsolete V1 from scratch in this context) of Auburndale Connection, while commiting to the completion of Vitis Junction. However, Auburndale is closer to Lakeland Jct., the nearest area completed, than Vitis. I believe I will do Auburndale in three parts, one part for the interlock, and the other for the yard. Once a photogenic angle is generated at the overpass (US 92), I will breeze through the split-up at Vitis Junction, and return to Auburndale to finish the decent size, industrial dominant Can Yard.

What holds next? Intermediate areas, of course. I intend to work on Zephyrhills, between Vitis and Plant City, as well as the random brush north of Stokes, between Lakeland and Vitis. Then, Park Spur 2.0, Lake Parker Av, SR 570; all the areas from V1. As areas between the areas between the areas and so on, with respect to two endpoints, develop, a finished route is made. But what about west of Plant City? Those will be done... eventually. ;)

Video of Winston Wye Before Friday's Progress

Though I have progressed on Friday, here's a kinda up to date video. Now, everything east of Gay Road to the dry creek was done. Power moves are common from Tampa to Winston to allow trains to run out from there.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Winston Wye - WIP

The second part of Winston Pass I am focusing on at the moment is the dull but action centric Winston Wye. The track you will see on the photo facing down leads to the yard. Many Bone Valley Trains use this wye, though from the far right leg (not shown), to go in and out of the yard. Power moves, turnarounds, and locals, as well as reroutes of said BV trains fancy the left leg. Finally, the track in the background is, of course, the A-line.

A birds' eye view of Galloway Road, the west end crossing of Winston Wye. Signals protect the crossover and the west leg.

 Galloway Road from the North. I have a CSX crew featured for frills.
Galloway Road complete from the south. Expect this or a similar vantage when I am filming the TrainzWatching™ series.
This is an overview of today's progress. Note an abstractly detailed warehouse due to the distance from the track. This attributes to my levels of detail posting from way back when. Old Tampa Highway is the crossing in the Foreground. The old ACL cantilevers dated to the 70s are going to be eventually developed so it will require some patience to see those applied. A CDN signal is in place at the moment in the background.

The remaining input I am willing to commit to for this area is the NE quadrant of Galloway Road with the seemingly difficult neighborhood (hard to make out on Google Earth). A Drive In on the NW side of Gay Road will be a fun challenge, and the trailer park to the NE of that, which will be developed. I also intend to add ample brush to the fork in the west leg turnout. From then I will move on to another area, likely Vitis Junction, to mess around with then revisit Winston to finish it up in the days to come.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Q188 Down Home

It's the basics that are effective, too.















Be looking for this to surface on YouTube soon. I wanted to shoot this to run a traditional, common train down the A-Line since I didn't do much Trainzing in over a week.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

South Florida CSX Miami Sub & Miami Sub Layout: Lufthansa 462-10

South Florida CSX Miami Sub & Miami Sub Layout: Lufthansa 462-10: "On June 10th and from there LH's flight 462 from Frankfurt, Germany to Miami, FL will be chartered by an A380. Of course, this enhances film..."

On my HO Scale/Real Train blog for the area I made a heads up style announcement for the impending arrival of the A380-800. Note how I say that "definitely encouraging for the Trainz creation thereof" on the entry. As part of the Florida Business Unit as a whole in Trainz, I am trying to rig up a Miami/Homestead Subdivision which will include MIA when done. That would require one of these big birds to be made to enhance realism not only for FSX as pictured but for Trainz. A perfect combo for your 4:00 PM O721, which passes just before Lufthansa returns to Frankfurt.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Next Area after Winston Pass

Thinking about it and you guys will like this one, I think I will work on Vitis Jct which is the famed junction of the CSX Yeoman Sub and Vitis Sub.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Three Sources For Trainz Routebuilding

When building your route you must aggregate your details from either of four sources.
  1. Google Maps Aerial - Updated 2010 for the most part, it provides decent imagery to accurately locate objects and scenery. Sometimes you could see where trees are placed. But in swampy Florida a slash pine and a shrub can confuse you.Nonetheless you can see where much of the stuff is for quick and easy placement.
  2. Google Maps Street View - Slightly out of date, but for less volatile areas like Valrico or Homestead it can still help routebuilding. A grape to an apple versus Aerial, you act like you are there though the image is pixelated (in bigger computer monitors).
  3. Railfan Photos and Videos - The newer, the better. You get the best idea of what really goes where with a month old or newer video. Photos do the same work as S.V. but can come in better resolution and can be overall newer. You also get a feel for the area in audio, and places like Fort Lauderdale (on the CSX) can sound different ambiently than Hollywood on CSX.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Iconic Locations

The eyecatchers of anyone's trainz layout is simply the icons. Model a place like Rochelle, Folkston, or in my case, Plant City... They're hooked. People like to imagine the added possibility of running trains through these popular spots from the comfort of their home. While I am focusing on the dull spots, I mediate getting another popular spot done. Now I am working on Winston which is a little famous, but soon after I will land at famed Vitis Junction and detail the area up. The only reason I keep doing these less popular spots; Valrico, Park Road, east of Clark Road, etc., is so that I get more done without getting bored of simply doing the good spots.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Tampa Terminal Route

Is now featured on Skylar's AceTrainz site at:


http://acetrainz.yolasite.com/

There you will find some pictures. It should dwell into more of a photo album and repository while this blog remains a working journal. Forums are also being opened on that site.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Winston Pass

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
to catch a train as late as it could
In the A-line, in the A-line

With GEVOs and '60s and what have you
which had a schedule that it failed to do
Only on YouTube, Only on YouTube

Winston Pass Part 2

Continuing to detail the area. I should have a video tutorial up in the coming weeks in my "levels of detail" with Level 1 close to the tracks, Level 2 out another couple hundred feet, and Level 3 way out there. The giant warehouse doesn't look to be railserved though. The vantage is a realistic one from SR 570.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Winston Pass - WIP

My current area which is west of Lakeland, FL is Winston Pass, a passing siding between the 570 (Polk Pkwy) and S Lakeland. I believe this industry in the background is all but abandoned, just to put it out there. The passing siding houses trains and cars stored/tied down and also has industries spurring to the north (left). In the middle is famed Winston Wye into the yard.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Next Area...

My next area of work will be Winston Wye. It is the location that trains Q603, Q613, Q604, and Q604, the phosphate, sulfur, and numerous locals use to turn out into the yard. A wide open and rather rural area, the wye is a popular railfan spot for the ability to spot so many of these trains. Sometimes one can experience meets of trains yard bound and trains that fly on the A line. I may also delve into the industries like Publix (plastics section) to ascertain a switching experience (see one of the earlier posts).

Monday, May 9, 2011

Routebuilding Issues Part 1

It often happens that the route builder gets bored of doing the same area on and on. Happens to me a lot, nonetheless.

Here's my solution...

I was working on Valrico last weekend, having chunks of area done up in full detail. The pattern looked like a checkerboard by Monday when the north side of the mainline between two crossings, then the south, then the north were detailed, the flip sides neglected. Of course working three days straight on little more than a junction in the back woods is tiring and otherwise boring. Now, there's a bit of commitment the routebuilder needs to make. My and I'm sure a lot of others' fault on this is that areas are often left unfinished, yeah I'll go back to it later, later, later, and never do. But this time I was devoted to finish the area. So it takes some determination to finish an otherwise tedious area. But my interim solution - Working on County Road 582 and Kathleen Road. Picking a completely different landscape can be entertaining when considering boring areas like east of Valrico Junction. As aforementioned, the drive to return must be there. If not, you'll end up with a not so motivational, incomplete route. Even so, the routebuilding process can be made much more efficient as well as you do not waste time struggling to complete areas that burn you out. Enthusiasm and the lack thereof leads to vaporware. This is one of many ways to combat that.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Mojave Sub

This route IS fun! It is the best built-in ever!

K820

Utilizing the versatility of UP power in Central Florida I bring K820 with two GEVOs. Surprisingly one alone stalled out on the hill track in Lakeland. Good game physics.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Florida - The Sunshine State

Trainz has a nifty feature for good weather fog. Now, Florida isn't reputable for fog in most cases except winter nights where if you drive an open top convertible, your seat will be moist, but the setting can forge the effects of high sun on a slash pine forest. I feel that I have made this scene near Valrico, Florida quite effective to show heat since the good weather fog whitens up the scape, making it look like the sun is harshly shining like a Pokémon uses Sunny Day... Meanwhile the area was just complete late this evening.


 Pine forest looking west







 Overlooking N Valrico Rd. The Valrico Sub deep to the Bone Valley splits here.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Industrial Districts In Trainz

The Vitis Sub is known by local railfans to pass by a rather fascinating industrial mini-park in Kathleen, FL. But that park can promote a huge challenge when switching.

CR582 north of I-4 is just north of the Superior Carriers transload and another warehouse. The warehouse takes roughly 5 to 6 spots, and I believe that number and the commodities vary so the train has to match up car with spot. Superior Carriers is like Transflo and takes a lot of corn.

This takes 4 tracks and 20 or so 16k tanks, and an occasional covered hopper.

And on top of that.... there's a gradient between the two. Get your dynamic brakes out.

Lance Mindheim covered switching by corn cars to be possibly difficult as the right grade of corn has to match in a blog entry about tight layouts. He is by the way in charge of a model railroad layout of Miami, basing off its eccentric qualities.

Now, CR582 is the newest area I began on in Trainz, to take a short break from Valrico which I worked on all weekend.



The fun part of Trainz is you can simulate anything for chump pennies and nickels per day, and all you pay for are a good computer, hardware, the game itself, and any payware of your desire.

I guess the argument here is that V-scale is an extremely effective means of model railroading and practicing the switching ops CSX does. You can still practice the same hurdles and obstacles a CSX crew goes through 5 days a week. That's what makes simulations fun.

Like the switching layout I intend to work on, Trainz can do the same work and will for Auburndale, Plant City (east of Park Rd.), Tampa (Transflo and Drew Park), and here.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

T080

The Madisonville, KY-Big Bend, FL train was mocked with RDVIs and EMD muscle, a little inaccurate but a make-do with what I have.

Here is the train through Plant City, Valrico, and Yeoman. Valrico since had a lot of progress on it after the production of the included video.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Plant City (Continued)

Now that it is semi-upgraded to 12 standards, Plant City now looks even more realistic... Though, the frame rates began to suffer a bit. The speedtrees are nice but not for medium end PCs. The video that was taken in this op. session does barely register as smooth, though. ;)

Here's Q188 with UP power, indirectly a pun on one recent Sunday where 187 had UP power that had to return north.

Progress....

Not on my routes though just yet!

It's been a frustrating two weeks. I order TS 12, yet it's corrupted. I royally screw up a file on my TS09 making me uninstall it. I miss a get-together with my friends. But it's all over. The game has come. Though it took a reinstall (content errata when importing)... it's all chill now.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Wait Is Over

The big routes are now making their final trip to my well-registered copy of TS 12. I am very pleased to have this as well as the complimentary payware courtesy of Jointed Rail as offered for the wait and the buy.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Hiatus and a lesson

When I got TS12 from my good friends at Jointed Rail I had a great prospect that the downloads would go smoothly. Unfortunately, they had overlooked N3V Games' own mistake of  providing corrupted files for dealing. Of course with a half-ass TS12, I had the greed to hack my TS09 copy to y'know, have doppler because there is a certain config that could simply provide it. Of course I hacked too much and the game [09] stopped working. Nonetheless I did the forseen a bit early and uninstalled the game; but of course did the smart thing and moved all 16.12 GB in my stash of content to a subfolder of Documents. So there's really no full Trainz version until the fix is done, presumably by Monday. This explains my lack of updating this fine blog in all these days.

I did manage, until Wednesday, to work a bit on the Park Road Industrial District (Plant City, Florida) which has a couple of industries, to which I believe are served by O711 (the Plant City local) No wonder they named it Park Road, because of the giant warehouses for General Chemical and another place I cannot name off the top of my head. The same road, CR 523, connects to the Plant City Sub so hell I wonder what creative railfanning can be simply done on that road.

In all this crap for three days I did learn a valuable lesson, patience pays. I will probably have (an albeit nonalcoholic) drink when it's all over and will be relieved after the tense waiting process. There is hope, and two to three YouTube videos that will follow suit when it is done. Another supposed reward is more coupons from JR for the 4 days of waiting.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Plant City

Train Q188 runs from the sun eastbound at dusk on a spring evening. Inspired by my March 19th catch of said train.


Despite the unavailability of GE AC6000CWs I use two JR GEVOs.

I was originally skeptical about applying the TC built in Lamp NY 07 asset but chose to as to give a nice light bloom effect at night. These are the closest to the lamppost style the town of Plant City uses.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Plant City

The heart of the small railroad town east of Tampa, FL looks pretty complete. I am at the point of expanding detail and installing ATLS on the crossings. For information on ATLS, go to this site: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCQQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boatztrainz.co.uk%2FATLS1.pdf&rct=j&q=advanced%20traffic%20light%20system&ei=kp-jTYaCIZGhOpHehOkJ&usg=AFQjCNGwlpep2CLrwJB9-nqn5FcPcXX0Cw&sig2=Pjt-rz6UxLoCTj6aw5Yb2A&cad=rja

For some added fun I have a pic at night (which is the time I was working with Trainz due to its automatic clock) and day. Taken east of the diamond to show the most of completed areas.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Lakeland Jct. Again

I made the most terrible mistake of putting the Vitis Sub stem at the wrong place... This cost me a few hours of useless work. I made such a big deal because I want as much of the terrain to be as correct as possible and when you do the George Jenkins bridge spline smoothing, your elevation changes soon become irreversible especially after you save it.

When I corrected it however, I felt that it looked a whole lot better.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Tampa's Yeoman and Uceta Yards

It always is encouraging to see a map of Yeoman and Uceta yards waiting to be textured and detailed on my screen... :)

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Lakeland v2.0: The Look South

When I caught Q453-19 last Saturday I noticed a very cool view. Going south on Kathleen as the road snakes next to the Vitis Sub, you're actually at the crest of the infamous hill that caused trains-a-many to stall. You could undoubtedly see past the US 92 overpass, especially how the tracks go low and low. I believe from my sources that this is a 0.9% gradient.

Trainz routebuilding does not start off with a DEM unless you choose. Allen helped me out by providing DEMs under a deal that I do the artwork on them. To make them you'd have to have a program, Ie. Microdem or TransDEM (better but 30 bones), and then you'll be able to do up a GND file with TOPO data using something like the HOG program.

The Miami Sub was converted to a Microdem DEM in December 10, which has me mixed due to the infamous problem of misalignment. However this is a straight up, perfect Transdem.

You will not be able to stall Q604, trust me, without this.


I wonder if the adventurous filmer will attempt to film a train from this angle. Note you can see my WIP George Jenkins Blvd. overpass in the distance. As posted I appreciate the google earth update for allowing the most accurate do possible of this bridge. The USGS data was entered well before this bridge came to exist.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Lakeland v.2.0: Getting Things Right

I know people like Allen were expecting me to simply add the DEM of the Tampa area to the one I already was working on, of Lakeland, B.V., and the New Wales area.

However when I reviewed the area, especially Lakeland Jct. for one, I accounted the improvisations and said, this ain't right.

When you are doing an observation painting for art, you have to look at the real thing. My goal is to create as close as humanly possible to 100% the railfanning experience of Lakeland, except that it would be in your computer screen.

I just estimated the mapping of the George Jenkins Blvd. overpass. Google Earth at that time didn't have that. Now they do (photo attached, reference purpose)

I even made the mistake of having the bridge bisect the tracks at once, 90º.

In this one I finally have a model to follow, the angle will be 45º ish, and trees will be plotted, "tree for tree".

This and other circumstances had me contemplate redoing the areas I did to refine them and to make them accurate; going over textures and edited land do not cut it as the atmosphere would not look right.


The Tampa Terminal rail network route for Trainz Simulator 2012 (coming April 21) will feature the Brooksville, Lakeland, Vitis, Yeoman, Carters, Plant City, Valrico, Bone Valley, north end of Auburndale, west end of Sanford, south end of Wildwood, Tampa Terminal, and Palmetto subdivisions for prototype-based runs ingame.