Thebigroyboyski's

Train Simulator 2013

Terrain Basics Tutorial

This tutorial is will show you how to use the terrain tools to add life to a flat world. I'll cover the use
of the terrain tools and how they are used and adjusted to create a cliff top railroad. I'll also show
texturing and water basics. This is how I use the tools so if anyone knows of better or faster ways to
use them please let me know. We are all here to learn after all.

1. First thing to do is lay a section of track

2. The next thing I want to do is use the Level tool. You will find it under the paintbrush icon
at the top left along with the rest of the terrain tools.

I want to create a cliff about 50ft high so I next enter the amount of terrain drop I want. The editor is
in meters so I put in a figure of minus 20. If I wanted to raise the land i'd just enter 20.
The first line is the shape of brush you want to use, square or round. The second line is the brush
size then the brush falloff.
After selecting the size and height I run the tool over the land next to the track.

I then increased the brush size and levelled off a lot of land to make the sea bed.

3. The next tool i'm going to use is the Smooth tool.

For now I don't need to adjust any of the settings.

The top row again is the brush type. The second row has the size and falloff but also a speed setting
now.
As I want a more angled cliff rather than vertical I run the smooth tool over only the middle and
bottom of the cliff to bring it out a bit.

4. Now it's time to add some water.

To increase the size of the water you click and drag either the yellow corners or the yellow blocks.

I the turn it round using the blue circle in the centre and stretch it out for the length of the cliff.
I next want to lower the water down to the bottom of the cliff using the blue arrow.

5. Now I want to add some colour to the sea bed using the Textures.
As I want to add texture under water I experiment with different ones until I find one that looks
right for what I need. In this case it's the 3 tarmac textures.

As you can see from the edge the water changes the colour so even though it's tarmac it works for
what I need.
I next use a sand texture for the bottom of the cliff and the shallower water. I also added a small pier
made by using a Great Northerner Trestle.
The water colour was close to what I wanted but not quite the right shade so I changed the water
colour. You do this by clicking on the water and opening the window at the top right of the screen.
I click on the spray can to bring up the colour options window and adjust the sliders until I get the
colour I want.

I next paint on some ballast.

6. Now I want to add some terrain to get rid of the flatness. Even the flattest ground isn't
perfectly level. For this i'm going to use the Noise tool. This tool is used to manually create
 terrain quickly. For real terrain Redem or SRTM is used.

For this tool there is a few more settings that you can change or be confused by.

The top 2 are your brush shapes. Line 2 is brush size, brush falloff and strengh. Line 3 is speed and
frequency. Line 4 is the height you want to adjust. The noise tool works by raising and lowering the
terrain in a wave which you adjust by changing the frequancy. By just using the brush size,
frequency and height you can make quite realistic terrain.
 7. After i've build the terrain around the track it's time to add the cuttings and embankments
that our track travels over and through. For this I use the Snap To Track tool.

There is various things you can adjust to make a gentle embankment or a vertical cutting.

The top row is your brushes. Row 2 is the brush size and brush falloff. The last tool in row 2 is the
trackbed size. Adjusting this determines the distance from the track that the cutting or embankment
starts.
Row 3 has your cutting angle and your embankment angle.
I always run the snap to track tool over my line no mater how flat the surrounding ground looks.

Now that i've got my line running by some hills and a cliff all that's left to do is add more textures
to the ground and add various trees, bushes, grass and phone poles to add the subtle details that
bring a route to life.
I hope some people find this Terrain Basics useful and more US/Canadian routes come from it.
I used Donner Pass ground textures and Great Northerners Phone lines and trestle. I also used
Michael Sinclair trees.

For any questions or suggestions you can find me on the Railworks America Forum as
Thebigroyboyski.