BVE Cornwall: Current WIP

That's one mighty bridge, Chris.

It shouldn't have taken most of a month to finish this
Still, this is the complete article, together with the tidal inlet it crosses:

I still need to build a boat or two, add vegetation and do some considerable work on the scenics to the far side of the viaduct, but infinitely better!

(Anyone else think the water is too blue & clear? I'm considering darkening and adding a second semi-transparent layer a little further down, but this is the best I've managed so far)

Cheers

Chris Lees


http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Great bridgework!

So, it's been a little while since any screenshots were posted, but I've been hard at work
The approach into St. Budeaux is basically finished at this point, with vastly improved detail levels:


In general, the trackwork, gradients & most of the scenery is complete to this point, but signalling systems need to be installed, and detailing added to the stations.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Mmm, bridges:


This is the girder bridge where the Gunnislake (Ex SR Mainline to Tavistock) line passes underneath the single track section to the Royal Albert Bridge.
This one only took me a couple of hours to build, as I'd already done all the sums when building the very similar Weston Mill viaduct.

Not finished yet unfortunately- Needs the stone pillars adding to the bridge ends, some slightly longer track pieces generating for use with the Tavistock line plus general detailing, but getting there again

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

So, it wouldn't be Christmas without a screenshot, now would it?   


Things are starting to come together now- The trackwork for this update is 90% complete, and all that's missing is the elongated pieces for the Tavistock line visible in the foreground.
Scenery wise, there are some areas missing additional trees and vegetation, and a couple of housing chunks left to build.

When the update comes together, there will be a minor ramble about the history of this route- Over 12 years in the making so far........

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

I am getting curious about this... do you have any expected hardware requirements?

Interesting question
I *believe* this should run acceptably on most systems. In general, I'd recommend:
Core2Duo or better processor.
2gb RAM
Dedicated graphics card
600m viewing distance

Due to the sheer amount of terrain complexity between St. Budeaux and the Royal Albert bridge, this is where you'll find the framerate drops the most. As a rule of thumb, take 2/3 of your framerate in Plymouth Station as what you'll get in this section; The final figure *may* end up being closer to half, but I'm not sure yet!

Finally, for what it's worth, transparencies and large numbers of high pixel density textures are what kills FPS the quickest on OpenBVE-
If you rummage through the objects of the current version, you'll see that I use textures of primarily 256px or lower, with 512px as an absolute maximum on buildings, with a large pool of common textures.
You'll also find most stuff to be built in full 3D rather than using transparencies, which tends to help performance.
Furthermore, you have to remember that increasing the viewing distance exponentially increases the number of faces that OpenBVE has to render. Going above 600m will quickly bring most systems to their knees!


Further than that, it really depends on how much you wish to push the boundaries of screen resolution and AA/ AF. My main machine looks like this:
Core2Quad Q9250
4gb RAM
Radeon HD6850

I can quite happily run at 1920x1200 with everything maxed out including AA & AF, and will get ~50fps in Plymouth Station, and ~30fps on the runup to the Royal Albert Bridge.
I've also tested on the laptop, which is a Core2Duo & a Radeon X1400m- This runs acceptably if you back the resolution off to 1024x768 & turn AA & AF off, which is mostly a consequence of the graphics card being ancient

Edit: As another rough & ready comparison, I'm seeing 35fps at Brno on the FirstBrnoTrack, same train & settings. I haven't really tried FPS monitoring on your route, but that gives another point of comparison!


Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Things haven't been forgotten. I'm somewhere in the middle of the final tidying and improving stages before this release-
All the major trackwork and scenic work has been completed onto the Royal Albert Bridge, and I'm currently improving some pretty ancient older models you can see in this area. The best looking of these new models is the Union Inn, nearly directly below the bridge on the Saltash side:


This is mostly complete, just needing ridgetiles, drainpipes and a chinmey adding

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Cheers Chris,

speaking for myself, I am looking forward to this one. Been curious for a while. 

So, still not quite there yet

Keyham Station (1980s)


The line from RNAS Bullpoint joins the mainline just before St. Budeaux

I'm currently completing the 1960s era semaphore signalling on the rebuilt section, and *still* tidying things up.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

So, following on from the last image, this looks a little less bare:


The line into St. Budeaux station is now 100% complete, and I'm in the process of tweaking where the stuff worked on in this update joins the existing code at Saltash.
Nearly there.....

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

So, building new trackwork is much easier than refurbishment. After the release, with this in mind, I've been doing some construction on the approach to Laira over the last couple of days.


Nowhere near complete yet, but the basic trackwork has been completed for the depot entrance, retaining walls added on both sides, and a start made on the flyover bridge.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

So, this may not look like much, and is nowhere near finished, but the first phase of trackwork for Laira yard is in:


The track for the two sidings next to the running line (These were originally goods loops) is complete, as are all 5 of the general purpose sidings.

19 rails at the moment, so I'm just over halfway to completing the full spread of 32 tracks   
All made even more difficult by the running line being on a constant curve of 1500m (The running line is the second track from the right)

Haven't even thought about the sheds or any ancillary buildings yet, but those will come.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

So, work is progressing nicely on Laira Yard. This is three days worth of work:


The basic structure for the sheds is in and visible from this view from the mainline, although nowhere near complete (The skylights are missing from the first shed, and the second needs it's curved roof adding), and all the actual shed sidings are complete.
The stabling roads are next to build- Only 10 of those, of which 5 can be condensed into a single object. These 5 are effectively sidings terminating at the mainline end of the yard, and so can just be added as a single long straight object.

I think this is probably the most complex set of trackwork ever built for BVE now   
Anyone with something to rival it please do post!

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

That looks really impressive.  

So, all trackwork is complete at this end of the shed, and the shed object is complete:


Next step is to add some trees between the road and the start of the stabling lines, add some more minor buildings and generally tidy up a bit


From there, the next significant bit of work is to tweak the two tracks that join the mainline at the current start-point to head a bit further into the background.
The next release is starting to look dangerously soon-
Once again, building new stuff entirely from scratch is easier that refurbishment!

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Not strictly an update or WIP, but people may find this interesting:
http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk/wordpress/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything/

It's a short history of my site, BVE and the reasoning behind some of my current developmental directions
A little long to post here in it's entirety, so I'm linking.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Nice bit of background and history. I'm amazed at how long it's been since the start, being a latecomer a mere four years ago

Yeah, well I just missed this slightly earlier boat due to not having an Amiga:
http://www.transportsim.co.uk/td3.html

(This is for V3 from 1997. I don't have a date for the first versions of V1, but I suspect somewhere around 94- 95 off the top of my head, as 1.7 was in released in January 1996)

To the best of my knowledge, Train Driver is the first non-arcade simulator with full moving graphics developed for a home PC. There were a few earlier Spectrum & Amiga based sims which were basically just text, and of course Denshya De Go! in the Japanese arcardes.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

So, I was at the North Norfolk Railway spring Steam Gala on Friday & Saturday. The first product of this is another 16T steel mineral in bauxite (We've just finished a refurb on this one):

I went and built a ballast load in this one as opposed to the tarp covering my current wagons, looks better for it!

I'm working on some other stuff from pictures taken here, and will post more in due course
(This wagon and others will be additional Public Domain releases from this, once I've got everything complete)

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Very nicely done.  

Now, if there's one thing handy about wagons and vans, it's that they all have principally the same basic set of dimensions (Chassis width, bufferbeam height, roof height)
So, next on the list was a GWR Fruit D van:


It's been somewhere around an hour or so's work to edit images and tweak the length for each of these

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

An unloaded Conflat-A:


Building a container for this is next on the list

Edit:
And the loaded version:


Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Little bit of work on Laira today:


The depot is now complete, I just need to add some stock to the lines
I could have gone more complex, but it's getting too bad as it is......
Mildly regretting the trees at the far end of the depot, but they're there in real life, and I needed to hide the join.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk