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Project Status (21st April 2019)
Welcome to the Railsimroutes.net Blog, where I'll be posting progress updates, work-in-progress screenshots, information about the progress I'm making with active projects, as well as anything else I feel is worth mentioning. Hopefully more frequent updates here will make the wait for upcoming releases more bearable! News from 2008, all the way back to 2001, can be found in the News Archive.

Railsimroutes.net YouTube Channel My openBVE videos and other comments from users and myself can also be found via my YouTube channel.



Blog and Progress Updates


Chashinai Railway April updates

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 14th April 2010 at 12:30 am

Information IconWhat I would consider to be one of the flagship routes for openBVE due to it’s innovation, and one of the most varied and enjoyable, namely » odakyufan’s Chashinai Railway «, has been updated. The Misaki Line from Tawaramoto to Hitachiomiya can now be driven back and forth in both directions (via seperate route files), which is fun. The ATC system has also been redesigned, such that a gradual, smooth brake curve is now implemented, along with a Rapid Mode which removes the smoothening for use in the rush hour where trains are more frequent and adhering to the timetable is harder. Driving the Chashinai 9000 Series train with ATC, TASC and ATO activated is one of the most enjoyable things which can be done with openBVE, so I’d strongly recommend that you give this a try — it’s well worth it. Instructions can be found » here «. Please also note that the source code for the plugins used by the Chashinai Railway’s trains is included within the train download, and I’d recommend that anyone considering plugin development in future, study the cleanly written, concise source code as well, of course bearing in mind that a move to cross-platform .NET plugins will occur in future. Incidentally, publishing the source code for plugins is something I would like to see more train developers doing in future, and certainly something I will be doing in future (I’ll be writing a new cross-platform .NET plugin for the new class 323 of course), once » openBVE 2 « is in a more advanced stage of development.

Moving road vehicles have also been added together with traffic sounds, shown to best visual effect on overbridges, I think particularly on the Koriyama Line (also bi-directional), Takahagi and Ishinden Lines, and vehicles can be seen travelling parallel to the railway between Shirosato and Motegi on the Misaki Line as well. The use of texture shifting functions here, enables vehicles to appear as though they’re travelling along the road, despite it’s apparent gradient and directional changes. I’ll be doing something similar at Watford Gap and other locations on the Watford Junction to Rugby route, using a technique developed for 3D vehicles by odakyufan, » details of which can be found here «. Other details, such as beacons correctly aligned with sleepers and track are taken care of too, as I’ve tried to do with AWS magnets in my routes. You’ll also find far more variation in the numbers of passengers waiting to board your train, which makes stations pleasing and fun to approach as there’s far more to see now; the recent changes to openBVE regarding the weight of the train increasing with passenger load and the effect this has on performance, can be used to good effect here (don’t forget to download the most recent version 1.2.6.1 of » openBVE « for this to work). Watch out for wheelslip depending on location, environmental or meteorological conditions too!

Developers might also be interested in taking a look at how the Chashinai Railway’s route files have been prepared. openBVE’s $Include directive has been used extensively, with much greater efficiency and flexibility now possible.

Please visit » The Web Presence of Odakyufan « to download the latest release of Chashinai Railway, and also » this thread on the openBVE forum «, where additional screenshots, information, details and benefts of $Include can be found. This is sophisticated, high quality and beautiful work, and I look forward to seeing more in future.

Images captured at 1680×1050, with smooth transparency and 16xQ anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering
(Please hover over any thumbnail image for a description)

About to pick up additional passengers waiting to join the train at Izumozaki North on the Misaki Line, with ATC indicating a clear line ahead. [Click to enlarge] Animated road vehicles crossing the overbridge at Kawarada station where the Ishinden and Uchiike Lines join together, as the warmth of the rising sun adds ambience the scene. [Click to enlarge]
openBVE / Chashinai Railway screenshots
Download from » The Web Presence of Odakyufan «
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Railsimroutes Projects

Railsimroutes LogoI know haven’t posted any updates regarding my own projects for some time, about which I can only apologise. I have a couple of features which I want to be working on for » openBVE 2 « first, however when I have time spare I’m also working on implementing another feature for both of my routes, and I’ll post some screenshots of this once I’m happy with how it all looks. More to follow fairly soon…

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 1 Comment »



Updated openBVE developer tools and openBVE v1.2.6.1, upcoming Network West Midlands updates, upcoming Taipei Metro route for openBVE, and server upgrade

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 7th April 2010 at 6:00 am

openBVE v1.2.6.1 and updated openBVE developer tools

openBVE LogoopenBVE v1.2.6.1 has been released, which includes a bugfix relating to the Options.UnitOfSpeed command, which could for example, involve an incorrect speed limit being determined when the Route.Limit command is used. Please » download the latest release « if this issue affects you.

Also, when I posted my last blog entry, I forgot to mention that the » openBVE Route Viewer « has been updated. When your route is loaded, you can now simply type in a distance via the main number keys (not the numberpad keys), and hit Enter — the camera will then be moved directly to the location you just entered. This is an immensely useful time-saver.


openBVE RouteViewer v1.2.6.0 with Jump to Track Position feature--click to enlarge

openBVE Route Viewer screenshot — click to enlarge

Also, when you pass a CSV format route or object file as a command line parameter to either Route Viewer or Object Viewer, the tools will now auto-detect whether the CSV file is a route or an object, and load the appropriate tool automatically. Please see the Tools section within the » Developing for openBVE « pages for more information. For developers who haven’t used the command line for opening routes or objects before, it can be done as follows (obviously replace the path and file names according to your own setup):

RouteViewer.exe “<YourDrive>:\YourPath\FileName.ext”
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Network West Midlands openBVE updates

Information IconThe » Network West Midlands « (NWM) team have announced some promising updates for the first 2010 release of the route network, which should make some good use of openBVE’s capabilities and features. We can look forward to such delights as random moving traffic on overbridges, moving passing trains similar to what I’ve demonstrated in one of my early YouTube videos, various points of interest, multiple eras, random routing/weather conditions/other features thanks to openBVE’s » $Include directives «, 3D signals, trees and lamp posts similar to those I’ve shown previously, along with the addition of catenary based on my own high detailed Cross-City South OHLE objects throughout the routes, where a very nice job has been done with their implementation. Some excellent new track textures have also been prepared for the route.

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openBVE / Network West Midlands screenshots — click to visit the NWM news page

Please visit the » NWM website « for more information and screenshots.

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Upcoming Taipei Metro route for openBVE

Information IconI noticed some new screenshots of the Taipei Metro Xinbeitou Branch Line, being developed for openBVE by » BVETRT «, and I wanted to mention them as I think they look superb. There’s richly coloured scenery, the detailing of the stations and near-track areas looks fantastic, and the railway infrastructure is very well modelled and convincing. Also take a look at this » YouTube video « of the line as well.

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Taipei Metro Xinbeitou Branch Line for openBVE — click to read developer’s blog entry
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Server upgrade

Railsimroutes LogoLastly, my webhost kindly migrated Railsimroutes to a new, high performance shared server recently, and they also installed the Nginx reverse proxy webserver in conjunction with Apache, which I’ve noticed has increased the responsiveness of the site along with page loading times. The migration went smoothly, but if anyone has had any issues with the site during the last three weeks, please let me know.

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 5 Comments »