Yuma Subdivision

[tjm123]

Hi all, just letting you all know that I have a SP Yuma Subdivision route in progress. It's been over two years since my last update. Last year, having inspired by the Mullan Pass route, I decided to redo the tracks to Scale Rail with berm objects below the tracks. Currently, I laid the mainline from Yuma to Desert Camp on the north shore of the Salton Sea. I'm using Blender to make custom objects, but I have yet to complete one object and insert it to the route. I had used Sketchup but I ceased using it due to commercial license concerns. The route is set in 1995-1996, and I'm hoping to release it as payware.

One question I have is, can I use NewRoads with ScaleRail or should I stick with ScaleRoads?

(The poles in the picture are placement guides that will be removed from the finished route)

yumasub ferrum.jpg

[Orbita]

You can certainly use Newroads with Scalerail. There have been routes in the past that have done it. I recommend sticking with Scaleroads, since it looks better.

Good to see another SP route in the works too, with all the hype of the Shasta Route last month or so.

[crstagg]

Hi all, just letting you all know that I have a SP Yuma Subdivision route in progress. It's been over two years since my last update. Last year, having inspired by the Mullan Pass route, I decided to redo the tracks to Scale Rail with berm objects below the tracks. Currently, I laid the mainline from Yuma to Desert Camp on the north shore of the Salton Sea. I'm using Blender to make custom objects, but I have yet to complete one object and insert it to the route. I had used Sketchup but I ceased using it due to commercial license concerns. The route is set in 1995-1996, and I'm hoping to release it as payware.

One question I have is, can I use NewRoads with ScaleRail or should I stick with ScaleRoads?

Have you discussed this with 3DTrains?

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[tjm123]

Not yet, Charles. I wouldn't release the route as payware without an agreement beforehand.

[crstagg]

Not yet, Charles. I wouldn't release the route as payware without an agreement beforehand.

Don't wait till the last minute. They are not quick to reply even to customers.

[eric]

But he does respond.

I've been working on and off with the Gila again as well. How far past Yuma were you planning to go? I've got track from CP Colorado as far as esst Tucson, but wasn't planning to build west of that.

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[PerryPlatypus]

Great to hear! And it's actually nice to hear that my work on Mullan inspired you to pursue ScaleRail. ScaleRail has a few downsides (the main one for me personally has been lack of curved turnouts), but I still tend to use it.

On the topic of Newroads vs. ScaleRoads - Newroads has a lot more variety and flexibility in terms of number of lanes, offramps, intersections, etc. but the default textures in ScaleRoads look really nice, and I'm not sure whether Newroads can be used in a payware product anyways (I'd be curious to hear if it CAN be though)

Yes, you would need to make a deal with 3DT in order to make the route as payware, and in general they have been open to that (such an arrangement was necessary on Mullan). I think in general you have to pay an up-front fee. I would warn you that the path towards making a payware route is a difficult one - including having to make a HUGE quantity of new objects yourself - unless you are able to partner with an existing payware vendor and gain use of their assets.

If you are in need of SP-era grade profiles / track schematics, which show where all of the sidings were back in the 90's prior to all of UP's double tracking, and I think they may show signal locations as well, let me know... There are also publicly available track charts to help with curvature and grades, which perhaps you already have.

By the way I had once helped someone else who was attempting to make a SP era West Colton to Indio route, but I think that individual left the community years ago. I also have made an Eagle Mountain Railroad route, Ferrum to Eagle Mountain (not sure if it will ever be released, or remain as personal use), but the era of your route is more than a decade after the EMRR stopped operating.

[tjm123]

I emailed and received a reply. I'm going to pay the fee.

Sean, thank you for offering me assistance. I already have track chart PDFs that come in handy. I had realized it's not going to be easy to model countless objects in addition to laying all the tracks and roads. It may be trickier for a CPA candidate like me.

Eric, I'm expecting to have the eastern endpoint of the line to be somewhere between the Yuma East switch at MP 738 and the next passing siding to the east. I believe you made a set of 3D berms, which I had already purchased and will insert below the tracks one day. Are there any restrictions on the berms for commercial use?

[eric]

No restrictions on the berms. Let me know if you need others -- I've done a bunch more since that set was released.

If you ended about 300m east of SP738, we could have a planned one-track join between tiles 12707-13923 and 12706-13923, which makes for a very clean route merge. Or, continue around the curve and merge at 12706-13923 and 12705-13923.

[tjm123]

Tracks are currently between Coachella and Indio. Below are two structures I made.

coachellapower by Tyler McMillin, on Flickr

beaumontcarshop1 by Tyler McMillin, on Flickr

If I want to add shadows to textures, can I generate them through Blender instead of a photo editing tool?

Tyler

[scottb613]

Yuma Subdivision

Hi Tyler,

I’m pretty sure you can bake shadows in Blender - a simple search lands plenty of tutorials.

“blender baked shadows”

You’ll need photo editing software software to create the base textures before they are “applied/mapped” and then “baked” in Blender. The one requirement for successful baking is that all the faces need to be mapped to virgin texture real estate (ideally with a uniform pixel density) - so you can’t use the same piece of texture twice.

Regards,
Scott


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[tjm123]

Thanks Scott. Useful as I am learning to UV unwrap my models.

[tjm123]

Now that I recently completed an exam, I have spent more time on developing models for the route. I have tried UV unwrapping by inserting seams to the model rather than using Smart UV unwrapping. I made a UV wrap for a medium-sized building and the textures appear to be low-resolution (also, the size of the painted texture changes depending on my zoom level for the model). I thought of increasing of texture size for the final model to 4096 by 4096 to reduce the blurriness, though I wonder if that impairs rendering performance for the route. Should I give the model a massive texture or make more than one texture for the building (thus increasing the number of GPU draws)?

arazbuilding1 by Tyler McMillin, on Flickr