The Mojave & Panamint Railroad

[Kegg_Works]

WHOOOO!!!! I made it to Ballarat!!!! *does happy dance*

Although only just. Like I litterally brough the track in and slapped down the roundhouse, platform and depot. In short it's a mess, but I'm there! I don't have any screenshots yet, but I'll post some here once I do. Still need to refine the grade a bit and add mileposts.

Just a quick update, but stay tuned for more pics!

[NormHart]

I've run into a problem with the tender in TS12, locomotive looks ok but I have not run it yet.

My main focus has been to get them into tane and I have been pretty savage about it, slashing items in the config.txt that are creating errors without attempting to fix them. It has worked to a point, they are all in tane now but performance, smoke, steam, sound have all suffered.

I am continuing to try to figure out the tender issue.

[Kegg_Works]

Thanks for the updat, Norm! Not sure how I would re-skin that model yet anyway. I've also thougj about replacing the tender it anyway with one appropriate for an oil burner.

[Kegg_Works]

FINALLY! I have reached Ballarat, California!!



A more appropriately skinned depot is on the way, but for now this one will do. So yes, I've made it to Ballarat as my last message stated, but this time I have a few screens to show it off.



This is an overview of the yard and facilities in Ballarat. Not much yet and sadly I was unable to keep the overall mileage down to 34. I ended up at a hair over 37 miles of track. In fact you can see milepost 37 just over the sand house. Even so that's still not too bad if you ask me.



Here we have out train just a mile outside of Ballarat. It just past milepost 36 so this is a pretty accurate view of the town in the distance.



The train on the home stretch! Not far from town now.



With the way the M&P enters Ballarat it comes in from the northwest, so ironically northbound trains end up facing south when they stop at the depot. This looks further south to Ballarat's main industry. An ore bin/tipple that's served by an aerial tramway. And yes, that is a three-way switch.



This is a closer view of the tipple. I'm still working on it as I need to fabricate a receiving end for the aerial tramway. Sadly it is not functional, but so long as I can make it look good I don't mind. However trains can still load cars full of ore, so the bin itself is still industry active. Also, what do you think of the stone foundation? Some of the open areas will have space taken up with sheds, shacks, and other mine related structures for the industry.

Well, it's not a whole lot but it's an update non the less!! Let me know what you think so far and if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.

[PacificCoastBorax99]

Beautiful job! The railyard looks well laid out and the route to Ballarat looks magnificent, not to mention the aerial tramway! The stone foundation was a nice addition too, I could imagine how it'd look in real life.

[Kegg_Works]

Much Obliged!! I'm still playing around with town structures and all. That's actually pretty challenging since many of the buildings were adobe, mud, or brick. And historic photos are pretty much non-existant. So I'm heavily relying on Craig's rendition on his model railroad as a guide. I also need to work on the roundhouse/engine facilities. I need to add a coaling station as well as a place for the later oil burning locomotives to fuel up. Not only here in Ballarat, but also in Panamint Junction. Though I may add an "emergency" coaling station at Slate Range just in case, even though it's roughly 10 miles away from Ballarat. (give or take a few miles)

[Kegg_Works]

Got a few more quick updates for ya'll! First up is the new, res-skinned depot courtesy of PacificCoastBorax!



This depot was originally one by Fitz505 and was his ATSF2StoryDepot. I've contacted him via the NV3/Auron forum site to ask for official permission for not only to re-skin his model, but also to make it available for public download. Seeing as I want to eventually release this route publicly. Still waiting on his response though, hopefully he'll give the go-ahead. *finger's crossed*

Next up is new overview of Ballarat, but this time WITH A TOWN!!!



I'm still working on placing a few structures and finalizing a few things. I was improvizong a street corner business with some of Pencil's false fronts and a few wall splines. But then I found one by Hobbyman350 that was much better, if not perfect, but it was pretty darn close to what was there historically. I think the building is called Shenandoal Crossing...? Or something along those line. Hopefully by next week I'll have some more progress shots highlighting some of the businesses and town structures.

[NormHart]

Well I must admit defeat. I have gotten the RGS#20 tender into TS12SP1 OK but one dependency of the locomotive, RGS #20 Frame,<kuid:43955:50046>, baffles me. It works fine in TANE but not in TS2010, TS12, or TS12SP1. The error is Error: Texture 'rgs20_b.texture' is missing or could not be loaded in mesh 'rgs20_frame_bogey.im', material 'local*hash-a5\kuid 43955 50046**rgs20_frame_bogey*EC879B98*main*m.onetex'.

I've tried all sorts of things trying to overcome the issue.

The files rgs20_b.texture.txt and rgs20_b.tga both exist and seem OK. The right size 512x512 and all. TGA file seems to be a bump map in so far as I understand these things.

[Kegg_Works]

Well I must admit defeat. I have gotten the RGS#20 tender into TS12SP1 OK but one dependency of the locomotive, RGS #20 Frame,<kuid:43955:50046>, baffles me. It works fine in TANE but not in TS2010, TS12, or TS12SP1. The error is Error: Texture 'rgs20_b.texture' is missing or could not be loaded in mesh 'rgs20_frame_bogey.im', material 'local*hash-a5\kuid 43955 50046**rgs20_frame_bogey*EC879B98*main*m.onetex'.

I've tried all sorts of things trying to overcome the issue.

The files rgs20_b.texture.txt and rgs20_b.tga both exist and seem OK. The right size 512x512 and all. TGA file seems to be a bump map in so far as I understand these things.

That's alright, I certainly appreciate your effort in trying. Hopefully someone will make a good 3ft gauge Ten-Wheeler for TRS12 and up soon.

[Pencil]

Could be a bad material in an unsupported slot - didn't one of Pev's tools fix that issue?

Looking really good, Kegg!

[NormHart]

But why does it work in TANE?

I attempted to include it in the rgs20.texture.txt as

Primary=RGS20.tga
bump=rgs20_b.tga
Tile=st

but that didn't work.

I changed the tga to a bmp, nope, changed the tga to 8, 16, 24/32 bit, no help.

Really got me puzzled.

[Trainboi]

How are bump maps even set up in Trainz? I know normal maps get a separate texture.txt...

[Pencil]

Trainz only supports normal maps; though people often call them bump maps. Norm, try running the mesh through PM2IM - that should clear out textures in improper slots. See http://trainz.shaneturner.co.uk/tutoria ... ools/pm2im for more details on that feature.

Dunno why there'd be a difference in TANE other than it's a new code base, and so the quirks aren't necessarily the same.

Curtis

[NormHart]

Thanks Curtis, tried stripping with PM2IM and it didn't work either. According to PEV's Mesh Viewer that texture isn't part of the mesh but deleting the texture.txt and the tga didn't work. Trying to alter the texture.txt to call the rgs20_b.tga as an alpha didn't work.

Still got me stumped.

[Kegg_Works]

Much obliged, guys! I've since made some more changes to Ballarat and added some more structures. PCB made an interesting point that with the railroad more people would be drawn to the town, so more structures would make sense. Originally I was strictly following Craig Tice's lead and trying to portray the town historically, which I still intend to do. I only wish there were more adobe building for Trainz out there.

In thee next week or so I'll be changing focus from the narrow gauge to the standard gauge portions of the route. Sadly neither Mojave or Lone Pine, CA are on the map, but portions of their ROWs are. So I'll be laying track down for the SG for operatinal interest. And I think Trainboi's recent CP locos would look RIGHT at home here!
(Since the LA&I was leased to the CP in 1885) now that would make for an interesting scene, "El Goob" working and switching the yard in Panamint Junction!! Though I might need a bigger turn table, or running in reverse back to Searles may be a common sight with larger locomotives.