Trees on track

[Stuz]

Hi,
I have been recently running activities on the Canton Route by Richard Garber and have driven through a number of trees which have been placed in the middle of the track. As a result of asking for help on the route design forum on how to go about removing these errant trees using the route editor it was suggested that this situation is a result of how OR renders forest objects differently to MSTS. Is this a known bug in OR or should I log it in the Bug Tracker?
Regards Stu

[eric]

It may not be a bug, at all depending on where the forest's placement is. Can you take a screenshot of where the red line from the forest boundary is in relation to the track?

The RE tends to show stuff where it will be generated by MSTS. OpenRails has a different random seeding algorithm, so the trees do end up in different positions. What looked like it was clear of the track in the RE isn't necessarily clear in OR. I also suspect that MSTS takes the width of the tree itself into account when deciding what fits in the forest boundary, and OpenRails is taking into account just the center axis of the cruciform.

Better yet, if you know which forest object is encroaching, you can go into the world file, and manually adjust the Area () parameter, which is the width and height of the boundary box. Tweak it by 5-10m, and I suspect your trees will move clear enough...

[Stuz]

Thanks for the info. I have never looked into the RE at all until trying to move the trees. The loco does not recognize them as an obstacle and drives right on through but it would be good to get it looking good. I will keep you posted as soon as I learn a bit more about working in the RE.
Regards Stu

[Stuz]

Hi,
I have followed the help posted in the "Articles" section on working with the RE and after identifying the errant forest placement have deleted them where necessary and repopulated with individual trees. Took some time in identifying the problem boundaries as there was lots of overlapping. Thanks for all the help.
Regards Stu.

[muskokaandtahoe]

It is not a bug. It is a consequence of the source code for MSTS not being available to the OR team and so it is impossible for OR to match the actual location of each tree as calculated by MSTS.

[dcarleton]

Would it be possible to add some logic to OR to keep it from displaying trees within a certain distance from the tracks?

[eric]

Interesting thought...

[seagoon]

Would it be possible to add some logic to OR to keep it from displaying trees within a certain distance from the tracks?

If so, don't push them too far back from the edge of the ballast because it may also affect shrubbery.
Nothing looks more un-lifelike than a pristine, straight-edged run of track through a forested or wooded area, particularly if it is an industrial shortline.

Bruce

[jjtang]

I have just committed a code which avoids placing trees on tracks. It involves testing every tree to see if it is close to a track

To use this feature, one has to turn it on in Menu->Option->Simulation.

I tested it on Bernina pass, a route heavy with forest, without noticeable impact on performance. It did successfully avoid the big tree placed on the track in front of the St. Moritz tunnel.

[eric]

I will *** GLADLY *** test this. My current route up in northern Wisconsin & Michigan is surrounded by forest for most of its length, and I already have a script written to create forest objects in the W files based on track object positions.

This change would allow me to create essentially *** ALL *** of the forestry for 200+ miles of mainline in about 10 minutes....

It's far easier to delete 100 or so objects for grade crossings, towns, etc. than it will to place 2000+ forest objects or 10,000+ tree clumps...

[Stuz]

I am pleased that jjtang has grabbed the ball on this one. I have spent a lot of time on Canton over the last couple of days finding and deleting and replacing trees close and on the track, bunches of weeds also. I did learn a lot about the RE though! Many thanks for your attention jjtang. OR is going ahead in leaps and bounds.
Regards Stu

[eric]

If so, don't push them too far back from the edge of the ballast because it may also affect shrubbery.
Nothing looks more un-lifelike than a pristine, straight-edged run of track through a forested or wooded area, particularly if it is an industrial shortline.

Bruce

Agree.

It would be ideal if there were the ability to add an object level permission/setting for this, but MSTS tends to blow up or delete properties it doesn't recognize. That said, there may still be a way to not blow up MSTS and still allow OR to apply some different processing, e.g. use of a texture naming convention of nnnn_nospill.ace to prevent spilling into the track vectors, or perhaps use of the static detail level (i.e. zero and all even-numbered = ignore track, odd-numbered = avoid track so that there's an equal number of levels available?).

JJ, will this be in an experimental release anytime soon?

[lindsayts]

I have just committed a code which avoids placing trees on tracks. It involves testing every tree to see if it is close to a track

To use this feature, one has to turn it on in Menu->Option->Simulation.

I tested it on Bernina pass, a route heavy with forest, without noticeable impact on performance. It did successfully avoid the big tree placed on the track in front of the St. Moritz tunnel.

I downloaded the latest SVN version and the parameter appears in the log file as false, but does not appear under
Menu->Option->Simulation how does one turn it on.

Lindsay

[csantucci]

In release 1485 you go under Options - Simulation and there you check the box "Avoid tree on track". And it works...

[nicober]

Hi!

This new option to remove trees on track called "Avoid Tree on Track" works fine OK, but all vegetation on track is clean up.
You lose the possibility to simulate the neglected maintenance of little vegetation and some brushs invade the tracks.

In this tutorial on Steam4me you can see an example of a placement of little vegetation on the track to give an effect of neglected tracks. Images 14th & 15th.
http://msts.steam4me.net/tutorials/forests.html

I posted a topic on Elvas Tower forum,when I realised a problen with the little vegetation about a part underground in Forest.dat .
http://www.elvastower.com/forums/ind...cts-and-trees/


In my opinion, this neglected aspect of vegetation on tracks, often in a yard or on siding tracks, is a touch of realistic aspect. If not, your route looks like more electric train.

I remember a russian little NG route with a lot of vegetation on the tracks, it's absolutly marvellous. if you remove this vegetation on the tracks you scrapt completly this route.

The best way is to pay a real attention when you place the tree in Forest.dat near the tracks. If your red lines are to close of the way you have some chances to see a tree on the tracks. Also this bounding box (red lines) are only rectangular and you must to pay attention near a curve. The manipulation of the green little box (handles) must be very smooth and careful, if not you can loose the control of the red box of the forest.dat..

Better yet, if you know which forest object is encroaching, you can go into the world file, and manually adjust the Area () parameter, which is the width and height of the boundary box. Tweak it by 5-10m, and I suspect your trees will move clear enough...

Or you can move a little bit the position of your Forest.dat to be not close to the tracks.

Fortunately in this new option you have the possibilty to enable it or disable it. I like when you stay the possbility of the choice for the usager, this is a good way to satisfy everyone.

Have a nice day.