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RealRailway (RRW) - Development and Support

Started by Swordmaster, June 14, 2013, 08:42:19 AM

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Simcoug

Each time I see new updates, I get more excited.  Great work!
And the fact that we can MMP close to the FARR pieces is a real game changer.  Great work!

Gugu3


Aaron Graham

I will be downloading these rails when there finished, Keep up the great work guys!!! :D
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Bipin

Quote from: Aaron Graham on June 30, 2013, 11:13:46 AM
I will be downloading these rails when there finished, Keep up the great work guys!!! :D

I hope that's soon!  :D Great work thus far!

agunter999

I would have thought that the underlay of the track would have been grey as most places use grey underlays.
UK

German

Russia

China

US

Brazil

South Africa


Just saying
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art128

You can clearly see on your German example that there are maroonish ballast as well.
The newer ballast are grey/white, the older it gets maroon.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

Props & Texture Catalog

cogeo

#166
I understand that the texturing work required is substantial, but I believe that the all-maroonish/rusty track won't be very much popular with the players (esp since it will finally be an all-or-nothing mod), if the current colour scheme is kept. Sorry, but it doesn't look very nice, it rather looks like a simple "Colorization" process was applied. No offence, just fair and I believe constructive criticism.

A more elaborate design would be to keep the top surface of the tracks as they are now in the Maxis (or SFBT) textures (the mod currently makes track looking somehow abandoned, rather than with some rust spilled around the rails), and to use an opacity/alpha mask for the maroonish/rusty layer (superimposed over the original one). That is, the "rust" effect would be attenuating as you move away from the rails. This is not hard, it can be done using the Spray tool to make the alphas (requires a stable hand though). It's quite easy to do, for showcasing it with the straight texture, for example, but Ihave no idea how much work it would be to make the whole rail texture set.

agunter999

My point is that Your textures look like dirt not gravel underlay
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Simcoug

My eyes are probably getting old, but it looks like a weathered grey ballast to me.  The tracks especially are much more realistic looking than the shiny maxis textures - From the height and angle of SC4, very little is going to appear shiny.

Swordmaster

I can just as easily post random pictures.



Hey, my textures look more like rails than the actual rails here! As I've explained before, it's a compromise between how I see rails ten hours a day and how the game handles the pixels. It's not perfect, but then, I don't pretend it is.


Quote from: cogeo on July 01, 2013, 11:04:23 AMNo offence, just fair and I believe constructive criticism.

Actually Cogeo, constructive criticism as I see it would entail making your own texture suggestion and posting it. I've gotten suggestions and pointers from Ron (rivit), but unlike you he's actually done substantial efforts making his own textures and making it a team effort. Despite your access to the NAM private boards, you've never posted anything substantial there despite six months worth of me inviting discussion.


Cheers
Willy

noahclem

Anyone who doesn't like the textures is more than welcome to create their own retexture mod, as has already been said. These textures look quite a bit different from maxis and maxis looks quite a bit different from RL.

RepublicMaster

I think that these rails look 100x better than the Maxis ones. Just be thankful that Willy is spending the time to create these for us. As this is his mod, he can chose the texturing on the tracks. You don't have to use it, no one is forcing you.

I think you are doing a great job and I think the texture look great and a realistic compromise to bring them into the game, keep up the great progress! :D

Kuewr665

Are those S-switches (as I do not know the official term) split for each straight track or is it all one piece?

FrankU

OK, guys, don't get too upset please!

There are several things to say on the subject of reality and SC4.

First: photo's and colours are not that easy as they seem. When you take the same photo on another moment of the day or with another type of weather the colours can look very different. So the determination of the correct colour for the tracks and the ballast can not be done by simply looking at photo's.

Second: the German image shows dark and light ballast. It also shows white lines where the tracks are: the shine of used rails. But Willy had made several prototypes of track colours and ballast colours and most of us agreed that the now used variant is the best for the game.
And of course, everyone can make their own decision and may disagree on this, but it's Willy's project and he is doing it his way.

Third: in SC4 it is not possible to reproduce reality. Merely we can try to make things look realistic and convincing. This can be very different from realism.
Example form another realm: did you ever try to write down a list of random numbers between 1 and 6? Try it using a die, by throwing it and writing down the results. This list does not look random! Real randomness is something else than random looking. This also goes for the game: realistic is something else than realistic looking. Willy is trying to make a realistic looking kind of tracks and I think he is getting that together quite nicely.

But...
Let's not forget that Cogeo is a capable member of our community an I think it is completely OK if he gives criticism or advice without making his own examples. If that would be a requirement for everyone it would make me totally out of order in this respect, because I have never ever made one BAT or texture. Does that make me incapable of giving cirticisms?

Swordmaster

Quote from: FrankU on July 02, 2013, 01:16:44 AMBut...
Let's not forget that Cogeo is a capable member of our community an I think it is completely OK if he gives criticism or advice without making his own examples. If that would be a requirement for everyone it would make me totally out of order in this respect, because I have never ever made one BAT or texture. Does that make me incapable of giving cirticisms?

You're right Frank, and as you know I appreciate everyone's input in whichever way it's made. But what Cogeo said was bound to trigger a response. Even a quick glance at the work shows this was no "simple colorization process". You don't have to like it, but if you're gonna call it simplistic I expect you to back it up. If you can make a superior texture, then I'm perfectly fine with having my work called simplistic ;)


Quote from: Kuewr665 on July 02, 2013, 12:37:32 AMAre those S-switches (as I do not know the official term) split for each straight track or is it all one piece?

I haven't really found a proper name yet, but I call them "line crossovers" since basically that's what they are. They can only be dragged in one piece, so no, not split up per track.


Cheers
Willy

krashspeed

This is very interesting and when you complete it, I would imagine it will be a big hit. :)

The textures are beautiful and far more realistic looking than the maxis rails.

It seems the most obvious problem with this mod is the stations with a rail texture in the bat. I know this has already been discussed, I just thought I'd leave my two cents. I wouldn't let this problem bother me and hopefully BATers will create their stations without a rail texture from now on.


MTT9

Work here is awesome Willy (and company). I actually got used to the new colors rather quickly. Keep it up :)
You can call me Matt

Indiana Joe

I understand the plea for grey ballast.  And all I can say is: it's not worth complaining about.  While it can be a pain in the butt, texture modding is certainly possible to do yourself.   :thumbsup:



-Matt

agunter999

Now that is much better, could you eventually release that
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teddyrised

#179
After reading what has happened above, and being lurking around this thread of ages, I thought I could contribute my two cents.

Willy, you have done a tremendous amount of work — I can't imagine the amount of time and effort you have invested in creating textures for every permutations possible on a rail network tile. Personally I have felt that the new texture set you have worked on looked magnificent, and definitely a lot better than the ones we have right now. Of course, there tend to be a lot of debate over the appearance, shade, hue and saturation of the rail heads, beds and etc, mostly because people have different perceptions of colour, and that is further exaggerated depending on the lighting conditions (cloudy day, sunny day... different Kelvins, mostly).

What I felt was a little unjust, was the oversimplification of the process some might thought you have went through with making of the texture sets. I have never seen the mod as a simple hue shift of the default textures, for example. There is a lot of new details in your textures, and there is also a lot of attention paid to how close to real life it resembles.

I would like to politely point out that people have the luxury of choice not to install the mod if they cannot come to a consensus with the colors used by Willy. Members of the community would of course love to help Willy to make sure that his mod is at its best, but I would say quibbling over hues alone is impractical because of how people see colors differently. More effort can be spent on bigger issues (e.g. textures that do not tile properly, missing textures and etc), which so far I don't see any, as of yet.

For those who would love to have alternative texture sets, they are more than welcome to put some effort in making, and perhaps eventually releasing, their own. It would be a win-win situation, wouldn't it? Why should Willy shoulder the burden of pleasing everyone just on the topic of rail bed colours is completely beyond me. Take a step back, and look at the big picture ;)

Cosmetics are, well, cosmetics. One should take it as a pinch of salt :)