MODELING BREAKTHROUGH

As attention turns to trackside models, it had always been my intent to increase and extend the realism. The dusty desert environment is a challenge in that nothing ever remains shiny and new for long. But most everything in nature does reflect some light, creating both ambiance and shine, even dulled by wind and grit.

So I turned to some new shaders -- those bits of software that interpret images for painting models in the simulation -- to help with the trackside look and feel. Retrofitting existing models has been a mixed bag, because they really needed to be designed from the beginning with these shaders in mind. So I was able to restrict that work pretty quickly, allowing me to address only the models that needed the touch-ups.

NAUER BOOM CRANE VARIANTS

ALKALI FLATS

As these models are strewn about the route, breaking the crane models into pieces allows for more flavors, including rusty bits to be used in the coming fields of detritus and decaying heaps. The basic body is used for boom cranes, excavators, and drilling rigs.When you need to pack it up, and move it around, Nauer Industries custom configures flatcars to accommodate any chassis.

NAUER FACILITY AND CRAWLER BOOM CRANE

ALKALI FLATS

The Nauer Industries Facility base model is now complete. We threw in a water tower, because why not? Nauer builds and maintains road vehicles of all types and sizes, the primary supplier of such goods and services for the route's many industries.

MOJAVE DESERT PAINTING

ALKALI FLATS

Alkali Flats is a small town sandwiched between the dry beds of Lake Panamint and the boundaries of Death Valley National Park In this sequence, we see the open Mojave Desert north and east of Alkali Flats taking shape, leveraging irregularly shaped asset blocks used to lay down the overlapping carpets of seasonal vegetation and default rocks. The zoom effect introduced with TrainSimulator 2014 allows users to peer deep into the terrain, so we filled in the region bounded by the hairpin curve in the main lines as they begin their long ascent.

MOJAVE DESERT PAINTING

PANAMINT LAKE WASH DELTAS

The rivers flow seldom in Panamint Valley, usually in the late winter and early spring, and only during the brief period in the aftermaths of rare rainstorms, coming and going within a few hours or days. Only then do they advance their carving journeys down to Panamint Lake, eroding the sediments of previous rivers, and exposing a wide range of minerals and rock.

Here is the basic plan of local terrain creation. The idea is to let water do the sculpting. We rely on local features, such as the ramps and hills around the immediate area, to guide some washes. Further away, we use satellite data to confirm the location, direction, and splitting/reconnection profiles the washes take as they proceed downhill. This particular area is about a mile from the lake's western edge, and the washes are beginning to spread out as the slope flattens.

The washes are flat-bottomed, so we use the terrain lifting tool to raise up anything that isn't a wash, creating islands, and giving the local desert a wild character, and a feel for some depth.

There are rocks everywhere, like some endless quarry, of every color and description. The default ground texture is an endless sheet of stones and pebbles. The wash bottoms came from pictures of washes from the area itself. As the route progresses, we use variations of color on these basic textures to capture the local geological feel. Each area is different, especially as height increases.

We then glaze the tops of each island with a mix of desert flat and more rocks. The desert flat is the tan stuff speckled with dots which came from a picture taken not far from this location.  There is a browner version of it in the extreme foreground. We're letting the terrain sculpting bury the highway because there is a special tool for making cuts relative to a flat surface.

Must be spring! The rocks and plants come from great sheets spread like carpets over the terrain. We tell it what plants and rocks we want, and the simulation creates a random arrangement across the entire sheet. We give it a density and, scaling and rotation and it does the job of placing the objects. We add a gravel bed for the highway, now cleared of debris.