VR Blogger is an extension of Virtual Railroader (www.virtualrailroader.com), the 'zine of small computer railroading.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Bus Driving in Trainz
New article at the VR Reading Room, "Bus Driving in Trainz," examines the potential and provides a demo bus route for TRS2006 w/SP-1.
Cheers, Al
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Al, I am fairly new to train simming and so far have been focused on MSTS - attracted primarily by some of the UK tram (trolley) routes available. I have been hunting about the web and various sites regarding how best to integrate some realistic road action, and came across your article on 'bus driving on Trainz'. This is just what I want !!!
Whilst I enjoy the 'driving' apect fo the routes etc I really want to create a town centre with both train and bus traffic, and this seems ideal. The limitations of 'car spawner' in MSTS are too restrictive as I would like to have 'different sets' of road vehicles for different parts of the layout; e.g. buses etc in a town centre, trucks on an industrial estate and so on as the scenery changes.
I do not have Trainz yet, and am just waiting for the reviews of Trainz Classic 3 - which is the latest UK release - to see how the knowledgeable existing uses rate this product.
It would seem that I should be able to add content from the previous Trainz Classic releases, and this would be great for UK content.
And therefore I am trying to find out just what is available in terms of UK road vehicle content and whether the examples you have used have any equivalents. Also are the road layouts etc strictly USA ?
I did see reference to someone creating UK buses last week, but for the life of me cannot find the link.
I haven't used TC3 yet, but Auran said all along that all versions of TC would be compatible with one another. Most content created for earlier versions of Trainz should also be compatible, at least in theory. Difficulties arise because a few rules were changed and the newer versions kept getting stricter about rule enforcement. Thus, something built for TRS2004 should work for TRS2006 except that a minor code error, like a missing comma, could cause an error message but not necessarily be fatal.
Roads for Trainz - I haven't checked versions - are available in left-side and right-side driving formats. There are a LOT of drivable UK double-decker buses available (I think it's one bus with a lot of liveries) and, I think, some single-deckers. There's relatively little for right-side driving. There are also some UK trolley buses available.
Not much has been done regarding layouts, but they are really easy to build. I'm hoping more developers will build buses and trucks, etc.
Al, Thanks for coming back so quickly. I have now found the UK site I was looking for - with the references to buses etc - thank goodness. I am droppingthem a note to see what exactly is available.
From the pictures shown on the web they are exactly the types / period I am interested in within UK.
I guess I have to wait for TC3, asit has aNorth of England route on (again another favourite area), and then retro fit some of the earlier content from previous versions.
We are quite lucky here that in the 50s,60s etc the UK bus industry and a wide range of makers, and also body makers. The good news is that many similar vehicles were used by many companies, and also many body builders built for multiple types of chassis.
Now I am no 3D modeller (yet !), but in some cases it could be as 'simple' as changing the radiator and livery to give an really variable fleet.
It seems quite difficult to find lists of what is available in term sof vehicles, without having access to the DLS - but I am working through various links etc and building a list that might interest me.
Thanks again for your comments. I am sure this is going to keep me amused for some time. Regards John
4 comments:
Al,
I am fairly new to train simming and so far have been focused on MSTS - attracted primarily by some of the UK tram (trolley) routes available.
I have been hunting about the web and various sites regarding how best to integrate some realistic road action, and came across your article on 'bus driving on Trainz'.
This is just what I want !!!
Whilst I enjoy the 'driving' apect fo the routes etc I really want to create a town centre with both train and bus traffic, and this seems ideal. The limitations of 'car spawner' in MSTS are too restrictive as I would like to have 'different sets' of road vehicles for different parts of the layout; e.g. buses etc in a town centre, trucks on an industrial estate and so on as the scenery changes.
I do not have Trainz yet, and am just waiting for the reviews of Trainz Classic 3 - which is the latest UK release - to see how the knowledgeable existing uses rate this product.
It would seem that I should be able to add content from the previous Trainz Classic releases, and this would be great for UK content.
And therefore I am trying to find out just what is available in terms of UK road vehicle content and whether the examples you have used have any equivalents. Also are the road layouts etc strictly USA ?
I did see reference to someone creating UK buses last week, but for the life of me cannot find the link.
Any other pointers would be much appreciated
Thanks
John
John,
I haven't used TC3 yet, but Auran said all along that all versions of TC would be compatible with one another. Most content created for earlier versions of Trainz should also be compatible, at least in theory. Difficulties arise because a few rules were changed and the newer versions kept getting stricter about rule enforcement. Thus, something built for TRS2004 should work for TRS2006 except that a minor code error, like a missing comma, could cause an error message but not necessarily be fatal.
Roads for Trainz - I haven't checked versions - are available in left-side and right-side driving formats. There are a LOT of drivable UK double-decker buses available (I think it's one bus with a lot of liveries) and, I think, some single-deckers. There's relatively little for right-side driving. There are also some UK trolley buses available.
Not much has been done regarding layouts, but they are really easy to build. I'm hoping more developers will build buses and trucks, etc.
Al
Al,
Thanks for coming back so quickly.
I have now found the UK site I was looking for - with the references to buses etc - thank goodness.
I am droppingthem a note to see what exactly is available.
From the pictures shown on the web they are exactly the types / period I am interested in within UK.
I guess I have to wait for TC3, asit has aNorth of England route on (again another favourite area), and then retro fit some of the earlier content from previous versions.
We are quite lucky here that in the 50s,60s etc the UK bus industry and a wide range of makers, and also body makers. The good news is that many similar vehicles were used by many companies, and also many body builders built for multiple types of chassis.
Now I am no 3D modeller (yet !), but in some cases it could be as 'simple' as changing the radiator and livery to give an really variable fleet.
It seems quite difficult to find lists of what is available in term sof vehicles, without having access to the DLS - but I am working through various links etc and building a list that might interest me.
Thanks again for your comments. I am sure this is going to keep me amused for some time.
Regards
John
Enjoy!!!
Al
Post a Comment