Horsehoe Curve Upgrade

[rrdiesel87]

Some time ago I had started a major vegetation and texture upgrade to Austin Yoder's Horseshoe route that I have periodically worked on in between other projects. Scott's PolyVeg tool/TSRE Gen-X has proved to be an absolutely revolutionary tool here and has enabled realistic full coverage of trees and vegetation to be achieved much faster and tighter than the forest region method I had been using. In addition to the intended tree and brush coverage, I used PolyVeg to create a 63m x 17m randomized block of grasses, wildflowers, and small bushes that was "baked" and isolated separately so that it could be used for auto-placement along the tracks to create the transition between the bare tree trunks and textured ground that didn't look as repetitive like using single auto-placed shapes.



A HUGE thank you to Scott Brunner for his effort developing this feature.

90% of the route has been completed with new terrtex and trees/vegetation as well as some new shape swaps and additions using more recent assets. Pending proper permissions, file cleanup, compression, and shape management I intend to get this uploaded here along with the California Western upgrade.

Altoona Brickyard


Horseshoe Curve






Gallitzin








Cassandra


Portage


East Conemaugh

[Orbita]

You didn't get these shots from Railpictures.net, did ya?

In all seriousness, I'm glad to see Horseshoe Curve get a facelift. It was due for one after 15 years.

[frliss]

This will be a welcome improvement to an old route. I like your portrayal of CONRAIL in all its glory.

Fred

[trainlover2923]

I have always enjoyed running that route. I'm glad it has finally gotten the upgrade it deserves. We all appreciate the work you do Andrew........Thank You

[jbtower]

Spectacular!

[scottb613]

Hi Andrew,

🤩🤗🤩

Just WOW...

Unbelievable.

I have only a couple of freeware routes on my PC - this looks like a must. I never downloaded the original.

Another creative use I hadn't thought of - sweet...

LOL - this comes at a good time after reviewing my work and the dismal download counts TSRE GenX gets - and my internal debate justifying the countless hours I spend making it.

Much appreciated - I'm always open to suggestions - especially from someone who has used it to such great effect as yourself.

Truly incredible.

Although my thoughts - go to PRR:

• H6 – 2-8-0
• H8 – 2-8-0
• H9 – 2-8-0
• H10 – 2-8-0
• I1 – 2-10-0
• L1 – 2-8-2
• M1 – 4-8-2
• M1a – 4-8-2
• M1b – 4-8-2
• N1 – 2-10-2
• N2 – 2-10-2
• J1 – 2-10-4
• Q1 – 4-6-4-4
• Q2 – 4-4-6-4
• K2 – 4-6-2
• K3 – 4-6-2
• K4 – 4-6-2
• T1 – 4-4-4-4
• S1 – 6-4-4-6
• S2 – 6-8-6

Regards,
Scott

[wwhall]

Scott,

Don't be disappointed at the "dismal" download counts for TSRE Gen X. What you have developed is a a very sophisticated tool box (including TSRE GenX) that relatively few of us are likely to use. That said, the few that will use it will bless the rest of us with its capabilities and what it can produce. You have created tremendous new assets for the OpenRails simming community, even if the number of us who use them might be relatively small. I'm not a route builder, but I plan to download your "goodies" and "stick my toe in the water" to see what it can do.

And, while we are at, I would like to make a plea to the route creators, payware and freeware: I just did a count of routes that I have accumulated on my hard drive--it's over 60 routes. Of those, there are only about 20 that I've run in the last 2 years. Probably close to half or more of those 60+ routes I haven't run in over 5 years. Why? Because, frankly, their scenery and objects are just too cartoonish to take seriously, anymore. Now, one can't wholesale blame content creators for that. The fact is that, for about the first 15 years-plus of MSTS, then OpenRails, cartoonish scenery and objects were about all a lot of computers could run. My point here is this: there are lot of routes out there, just sitting there, that have "good bones", but they direly need updating with better scenery, objects, etc. Your TSRE GenX and your vegetations tools, Scott, could be great tools to do that. So, what is needed to make this happen? Well, I would hope that some of the route creators, payware especially, who built routes 10, 15, or 20 years ago might recognize that any commercial payware value of those routes is likely exhausted, and maybe those creators could release those routes to the public domain, where some dedicated users of TSRE GenX and the other "Scott tools" could bring them up to today's much higher standard of scenery realism. We see graphic evidence of what those tools can do to "freshen up" Horseshoe, which was already one of the flagship better routes, freeware or payware, out there.

[CSRX]

It doesn't even have to be route builders of those routes willing to update. With the new tools, it could be anyone. Some guys on here have done some massive improvements to routes prior to this new tool from Scott, so I can only imagine what they could do now, especially with polyveg.

[rrdiesel87]

Any discussion concerning downloads will be "dismal", especially for those of us who have been around long enough to remember the scene 15 years ago. Unfortunately, the user base just isn't nearly as big nor enthusiastic as it used to be, and the numbers will reflect that. We see this on the commercial side of thigs as well.
Negativity aside, the continuous improvement of both content and tools is the only way to move us forward. Personally, I feel like the quality of OR content now is the best it's ever been. Even if it's only coming from a handful or sources.

Scott,

Thanks, I will gather some notes to get over you

I'm not much of a steam guy but I would totally use a J1. They were an imposing brute!

[LuFeDuTi]

And that Route can be found on the Page? it looks Amazing

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for the kind words - staying motivated is sometimes difficult. Seeing Andrew’s marvel sure helps.

I don’t want to distract from this post - but - I’ll add Auto-place PolyVeg along track or roads - feature - to save the extra steps Andrew outlined in his first post - which will then leverage the terrain following capability of vegetation - per shape - along track and road vectors.

Andrew - what vegetation models are you using - initially - I thought they were the trainsimulations models but if you are distributing they must be someone else’s - no? I absolutely love the subtle wild flowers along the ROW.

Regards,
Scott

[rrdiesel87]

Scott,

I think if some options for randomization within the auto placement feature would be beneficial. Maybe a way to randomly raise/lower, rotate, shift right/left and cant within 2-3 meters similar to the “wobble” for poles but optionally more aggressive. That will help break up the repetitiveness of auto placed vegetation especially with smaller length shapes.

Also, the trees and vegetations are my own designs that I had developed for Sand Patch. Considering they are an improvement over many existing assets, I feel they will better serve the community as free use objects to be used in freeware projects that improve older routes and to create new ones that don’t look so dated.
I would add that the only commercial vendor that is permitted to use them is Trainsimulations.

[scottb613]

Scott,

I think if some options for randomization within the auto placement feature would be beneficial. Maybe a way to randomly raise/lower, rotate, shift right/left and cant within 2-3 meters similar to the “wobble” for poles but optionally more aggressive. That will help break up the repetitiveness of auto placed vegetation especially with smaller length shapes.

Also, the trees and vegetations are my own designs that I had developed for Sand Patch. Considering they are an improvement over many existing assets, I feel they will better serve the community as free use objects to be used in freeware projects that improve older routes and to create new ones that don’t look so dated.
I would add that the only commercial vendor that is permitted to use them is Trainsimulations.

Hi Andrew,

You definitely have skills - sir.

As someone who's spent years trying to perfect my own vegetation models - I salute you.

Yep - I'll give your recommendation some thought. I also thought of adding a clustering factor - many times in nature - you'll see a group conifers all grouped together in a predominately deciduous forest.

Regards,
Scott