New Route WIP

Best of luck with the project, Matt. My take is that fictional routes are less problematic, if only to silence the nit-pickers who might crawl out of the woodwork to moan about inaccuracies or whatever. You can base your route on real examples, without making it absolutely true.
Incidentally, I'm working on a real (albeit long-closed) route right now, and it's definitely harder than making it up!

Good to see another Aussie here. I'm creating a route from Sydney NSW.

Best of luck

Thanks for the replies.

graymac thanks for your opinion with fictional routes. I hadn't thought of the nit-pickers which I hope there are not too many with the very few developers we have here. As I mentioned before I was thinking as I not fully familiar with our network I was thinking to base it on the real route and but not to every little detail. So track distances, station names, curves would be non fictional while buildings, terrain and so on will be not true based on what textures I can get as most textures will be derived from online images. I not sure if I am up to making it 100 per cent fictional and with thinking of all the ideas needed to make it look realistic and also thinking of station names. With my route I am up to the point of adding details like fences, buildings and so on and I will need to decide between doing it as a fictional and non fictional route.

Well, that's a, hum, what's the English idiom for that...? You'd say "double-edged sword" in e.g. German or Polish. Well: On one hand, real routes bring the risk of nitpickers. On the other hand however, you need way more (and more profound) knowledge about railway rules, laws and regulations, and also about the "logistics" of railways. While the latter is no big deal to people, who have played "Railroad Tycoon" and the likes, the former thing requires much reading and discussing. I don't know virtually anything about Australian railways, so I can't tell you how good or bad access is to official regulations. In Europe, due to EU rules forcing the market to be open for private railways, regulations usually are widely accessible (you can find in-depth information e.g. on the websites of British Network Rail or German DB Netz). Abroad, especially in not very democratic countries, railway regulations are often considered military grade information and thus kept away from the general public...

In this state of Australia, there is very little official publically available rules and regulations. There is regularly updated track maps showing station, bridge and level crossing distances and track layouts and also some general other details. So this route will based on what I have seen but using the railways here as a guide and making the rest up as I see fit would be (as I see this) easier than thinking it all up and making it completely fictional.  This is my first serious route I am building so I am certainty not an expert on how this should be done.

Basing off existing layouts definitely is a good way. Good luck, Matt!

Hi Matt, as one that has only produced real routes, ( sort of) but do not have any problems with fictional routes, I make it clear from the start that my routes are produced for my enjoyment , i do not care what others think and neither should you, by all means revell in the pleasure you may give to others running your routes but leave it at that. If you need help or encouragement please feel free to ask me or my uncle graymac...

......... and I have noticed that uploading images are not an option here so does that means I need to use some external hosting.

I've generally linked to screenies posted on my celtictrainsim Facebook page, works for me.
As a general rule, I design a route to be about 25 mins duration minimum and have enough stops, speed limits and such to make a bit of work for the player. The excellent NWM routes set the standard for that, with diagrams for different length journeys, local or express.
I recommend scribbling a plan on paper before starting to commit anything to the routefile. Can save time and mistakes later! Obviously, building a "real" route I know the distances and curves from the map. With a "fictional" I need to create the map first. At least, that's how I approach it, though everyone has their own methods.
Again, good luck!

I not a fan of Facebook, but I'll use some image hosting for images which I have look into. With the route I made from my first attempt 2 years ago I already have a 12 km bare bone route which was all measured from Google Earth which was entered into excel. And so this route is being based on that attempt. The technical aspects of the route building is what I am good at. The route won't be boring with closely spaced stations, steep gradients, tight curves (remembering this is narrow gauge), frequent speed changes and several level crossings. It travels 12 km taking 24 minutes, then another 10 minutes through the busy central part of the network for a few more kilometres where it will end for the moment, a distance of 16km.

Here are some screenshots of what I have done so far. More pics can be seen at: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ppfulzarwp7hdwj/AACoAVFu9ncN-HO3WYsI814Sa?dl=0 The screenshots came out to 500kb each which I thought was too high. I did get that down to around 100kb each but they don't look quite as nice.

Excellent work there Matt ,
May I ask, are the signalling objects and buffer created entirely by hand?

Regards,

Thanks. Most objects have been done by hand by which I mean NotePad++ and Route Viewer or Object Viewer. Almost every texture I have created myself because I want this route to be unique and not just copy other routes. The Buffer is based off a few photos and is done by hand. The Signal heads are based off the NWM signals but heavily modified. The rest of the signals (post, ladder, mesh, frame) were created by hand myself based off images but with some measurements obtained from NWM signals. I have sorted out the issue with the images and I have uploaded new images.

Work continues on the route with the platform and ramps at the first station now complete. The next details to add is the station building over the end of the line and the large car park surrounding the station but most likely only with limited details.

Are there any screens to this project? I saw many projects promised and not finished...

If you mean screenshots, I have posted some screenshots in this thread. I not promising this route will be available or completed. This route is being developed without guarantees and the like and is being done for my enjoyment. I am showing what progress I am making and I will see how it goes in addition to what I have already said in this thread.

Sausage Muncher wrote:Are there any screens to this project? I saw many projects promised and not finished...

And your OpenBVE contribution references giving you the right to judge that are...?

Sausage Muncher wrote:Are there any screens to this project? I saw many projects promised and not finished...

There was a Dropbox link to some basic screen shots in an earlier posting - obviously with much still to do because building any half-decent route is quite a lot of work.

There ARE indeed many"projects" that have been "started and not finished", that much is true.
Of all these, thinking of the past 3 or 4 years as I remember (no names, no "pack drill" ), some people make a reasonable effort, some totally underestimate the time and skills needed before giving up and some are "all mouth and trousers" and haven't a clue how do do the job even before bragging about why their upcoming blockbuster is going to be the ultimate experience etc. etc.......
But I wouldn't want to put anyone off trying, as long as it's a genuine attempt, even though far too few seem to have succeeded in giving us something new to play with for quite a while. Everyone, give any "newbies" a fair chance, everyone deserves a crack at it.

The dropbox link should work and no one has said that the images can't be viewed. Unless you click on the "sign In" button at the top right corner you should see a gallery of images. But thanks for the interest.

The station building over the end of the line is now done which was made as a single object.

Holy cow, that's some great work!

Impressive. Looking a worthy addition to OpenBVE

Some more work has been done on the route at the first station with the car park on one side and a level crossing after the station platform finished. Thanks to Chris for the Cylinder generator for the poles used on the level crossing. Animation with flashing lights and lowering boom gates has been added to this crossing with the code adopted from graymac's crossings, if you don't mind.

It is not working prototypically in two ways but I not sure if the animation can made to work prototypically.

The lights should stop flashing once the barrier reaches the vertical after the train passes which didn't before I altered it. I have set the lights to stop flashing at a later distance than when the gates goes up. However at different line speeds that approach won't work, unless I can set a delay of x number of seconds.

The gates should go down just before departure time with the signal clearing after the gates go down. Currently I have set a distance which is more than the distance from the stop position of the first station to the crossing. If the signal is on red and it is time to depart the gates don't go down until the signal clears with the signal clearing after the boom gates of the crossing goes down. Similarly there will be some signals on the route just before a level crossing where you may be held by a red with the level crossing barrier not going down as the train approaches the crossing.

However I not sure if this is possible but I not knowledgeable enough about animated format to know if this is possible.