simonjackson1964

I think that might be an idea, although I'm still not convinced that using brick pallets is the way I want to go. I'm just worried that I will want the layout to look like the previous one, and it won't, and I'll be disappointed and abandon it.

Hi Pete. Thanks for that. The terminus is one of my many failures. It never actually worked, because I was trying to be too complicated. Lots of lovely little details but, actually getting the trains to run? Forget it. I think the main reason I abandoned it was because I was trying to somehow put a "realistic" timetable in place, and worked out that if a vehicle is moving at 60Kmh for 1 minute, guess what, it's going to cover one Km, If the scale of the model is 1:1 then that will be a real kilometre. If the scale is 1:100, that will be 10m... so if you want realistic scale distances and speeds, your 24-hour timetable has to work over a real 24 hours. To get a workable layout, you either sacrifice the intervals between trains (becomes shorter), the speed of the trains (becomes faster), or the length of the trains (become shorter). The "Valley Road Station" doesn't work properly at v8 - it was built at v5, I think, and has a number of quirks that have been ironed out or superseded in later versions. 7C346FA4-A33E-4148-A0EE-3D0F790B8524 The above is a draft upload of the layout I was working on earlier this year. It's got water falls, a ford, an underground car park that actually works... extensive use of primitives to fill holes... But no EV and only the basic routes for trains. It's just too complicated. This is the sort of thing I'm capable of creating. If someone else wants to collaborate and get it working, please do...

Here's a thing: One of the part-built layouts that I honestly thought I had backed up to the cloud, but then couldn't find anywhere when I re-installed MBS on my stand-by laptop after my PC blew up..., was a brick factory. I had even "kit bashed" one of the standard hopper wagons to put a canopy on and make it into a clay wagon, I'd fiddled around with Lua code to make pallets of bricks appear in the outbound warehouse, I had a gas dank and a gas delivery lorry that I'd kit bashed, the factory itself was put together from existing buildings and "primitives", and there was a water tower, and all the signals and routes were working. I even had scenery all but complete. The last bit that I was still figuring out when I lost the lot was how to get the brick pallets into the outbound open wagons... Cranes are something of a weak-spot...! I have a desire to recreate that. But I know it won't be the same. Plus, I'm worried that I'll get to the same stage and realise that what I'm trying to do with the brick pallets won't work... I guess the obvious solution is to do that bit first...! But ... Maybe not bricks? But then what? This is why I'm frustrated!

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I think my biggest issue is, what do I want to put in that gap...? Industry, passenger station, goods yard, freight yard, some combination? I mean, I could easily scrap this and replace the fiddle yard with a V-Depot at either end, but I kind-of have a thing for the actual fiddle yard - I like to see the trains all lined up...! Plus it's a bit of a weird thing, but I also like to sit in the cab of a loco in the yard and watch the trains come in and leave, while waiting for the one I'm in to start moving...! I guess the most obvious would be a passenger station, possibly with a goods yard attached... I just need some inspiration on where to put everything... Probably what I should do is just put some tracks and platforms in and see where it goes... I'm just worried that I'll get so far and think, "Nah!" and just delete it... But again, thanks for the encouragement. Simon

Hi Guys (and possibly gals too? Let's not make sexist generalisations here!) I'm having what I can best describe as "Modellers block". I am reasonably certain that the issue has been caused by a number of computer crashes, where I thought I'd backed things up, but clearly had not, and have consequently lost all previously created layouts! This has resulted in a feeling of worthlessness. What is the point of making something good only to lose it again? I also haver another issue here, in that I have put a lot of effort into one particular layout (saved to current PC), only to realise that when I tried to make it run, it's just too complex! There re too many "routes", crossing over one another, too many junctions, too many possibilities. Also, using KS signalling may have been a mistake as each signal affects the one before it and potentially the one after it... So that layout had been abandoned. And while I'm happy to give something simpler a go, I have no idea what. Seriously, I'm tempted to just put an oval of track on a carpet and have a single train chasing its tail... But where's the challenge? I know I can do that but there's no point. I have a layout that I've started, that has a double oval and a traditional fiddle-yard on one side... And a massive gap on the other side. I keep coming back to it to try and put something in that gap - Station, freight yard, vehicle yard, junction, trans-shipping point... Anything! But I just don't have the inspiration. I want it to be simple enough that I can get it working, but complex enough to present a challenge. I've even tried searching on-line for track plans... I'm stumped. If anyone has an idea they think might work, please let me know? I'm desperate enough to ask! Cheers Simon.

Yep, I know. But if you leave the automatic height adjustment set to "Stack", then unless you very carefully place each tree, you can end up with them stacked one atop the other. It's much easier to set it to "Terrain", then they all land on the baseboard!

I hadn't noticed that, but I can confirm that it is the case... On a side note, If you're randomly rotating the threes through 360° in z, do you need to randomly angle them in both x and y? An angle in x, becomes y if the tree is rotated 90° in z? Also, a tip: set the automatic height adjustment to "terrain", not "stack". That way you don't get trees growing on top of one another!

It might also be worthwhile running a virus and malware scan on your computer, and checking to see what processes are running in the background. It doesn't matter how fast your graphics card is if 90% of your CPU time is taken running applications yu aren't using, or worse, don't want.

More details would be very helpful!

You might be able to get closer to the texture by adjusting the size of the texture and background colour of the primitive? I know I've done similar things... Have you considered using twin track tunnels to cut down the size of the holes? Or maybe use the "half twin tracks" to cover the junctions? I've never tried any of this, so I have no idea if it would work, but I've often wondered what the half-tunnels were for...!

All the same, it still leaves the option of changing the owner of a container, or changing the season of a tree - not sure why that might happen but it might... Changing the variation of people waiting on a platform or at a bus stop. Change the colour of a road vehicle that has left the baseboard and is about to re-enter. The same with the carriages of a passenger train, or any vehicle for that matter, so that what comes back onto the layout is different from what just left...

Wow, that's pretty cool, thanks. And customised textures to make it be anything else that might be loaded into an open wagon. A great addition to the catalogue, thank you!

Something that would be really handy would be the ability to change the variation of an object in an event. For example, Filling a wagon with coal. Sure, it's possible to put a coal textured primitive in the wagon and make it visible and invisible. Heck, I've even had it move up and down on a length of virtual track, as the wagon fills and empties, but that's complex and there are a lot of open wagons that have full and empty variants. it would be a lot easier to just switch between them But how about the 40' containers? Have a train go off the baseboard with a load of Hamburg Süd containers and have the same train come back on with a load of Maersk containers, just by changing the variation? I'm sure there would be other applications for this too

Automatic snapping is actually really irritating on a lot of objects. Some bridges, for example, always seem to want to snap the wrong way around. Fences too. This is a perennial issue that has now been extended to containers...

That's because the image is not in the catalogue. You will have to ask someone with upload privilege to add it, or ask to be given upload privilege. The same applies to sounds and textures.