Building the IRTS in Trainz

I've started a new series on building the Island Rapid Transit System in TRS2006. The first two installments are now available at the VR Reading Room.

Cheers,
-- Al

Lionel Goes Virtual

Well ... at least it does at Virtual Railroader, where John D'Angelo has created a virtual Lionel layout for Trainz and written about it here:
"A Lionel Layout for Virtual Railroader." The layout is available free at the VR Downloads page.

Cheers and many happy returns (to an earlier age),

-- Al

OpenBVE 1.0 now available

OpenBVE version 1.0 is now available at the OpenBVE website. Note that this is a different URL than the one I've used in previous OpenBVE announcements. This one is the currently correct URL.

Version 1.0 is the first stable release of OpenBVE. The screenshots are super. I'm about to DL this new release, so I haven't checked the new features, which include out-of-train viewing and animated objects. Open BVE supports content created for all past and current versions of BVE and has a new user interface and options.

As the name implies, OpenBVE is open source, which opens the door to Mac and Linux users (the latter should be able to run this new release from the command line). Meanwhile, it is fully functional in Windows with OpenGL, OpenAL and .net.

The new website includes some extensive material describing the plans for future develoment of OpenBVE.

Cheers,
-- Al