Railsimroutes.net

There aren’t as many progress updates at the moment, partly due to hardware upgrades and operating system re-installations, etc, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy; rather there’s just been quite a bit of work which is either “under the hood”, or merely a continuation of features I’ve already talked about. For example, I’m still implementing transition curves throughout the Cross-City South, however I’ve also updated most of the curve radii after determining the likely values from aerial photographs of the route (thanks to » this thread « at the Trainsimcentral forum). Quite a number of curve radii were too large previously, and the route is looking more accurate now as a result of the changes, but it’s taking time, as changing the curve radii also means the overhead wire object rotations are no longer correct and don’t join up with each other any more, and all these objects need to be re-aligned, which is rather tedious and time consuming.

I’ve also been editing the route file as I proceed through it, re-arranging the code and commands to make the file easier to read and navigate through; not just to make the work tidier and weed out bad code, but also for the benefit of anyone wanting to more easily edit the route after it’s released, create new diagrams/scenarios/activities if so desired, etc. Previously I simply placed all commands at a particular line number on the same line; this meant that scrolling vertically through the route file in a text editor is easier and quicker for me (which I spend more time doing as a rule), however when numerous commands are placed on the same line, despite me usually making some effort to group and order them, this can make it harder to find a command and edit it, and also I gather, makes it harder for others to feel comfortable editing it too, as it seems too complicated. This time, I’ve compromised and placed groups of related commands on their own lines, so for example, catenary related commands are placed together on their own line; scenery, curve and railtype, or pointwork related commands are all placed on their own seperate lines, etc, making it easier to locate a command, without the route file becoming excessively long.

I’ve also now re-introduced the marker images which used to feature in the BVE 2 versions of the route, and it’s nice to have them back again in » openBVE «. One of the main tasks in the immediate future will be taking the animated features I’ve demonstrated so far, and extending them throughout the length of the route, rather than just the test locations which are featured in the videos, along with creating more detailed geometry for the 323’s exterior car objects, and preparing animated components like wheels, wipers, doors, and perhaps other things too.