Willy's attempts at railroad retexturing

[Swordmaster]

Even at zoom3 I'm still more than happy with the color. 
I love it!!

Thanks, Robin. It's better than the original, but not good enough for me, actually. Too brown, too much.

Actually, the game itself handles shading differently on puzzle pieces and model-based items, versus draggable/fully texture-based items.  Technically, the draggable/texture-based items get darkened a bit by the game engine, while the puzzle piece versions are represented exactly as they were.  Most transit texturers compensate for this by darkening the puzzle piece version.  There's a lot of debate as to the correct settings, and it depends on the program you're using.  I've typically done a -15 brightness adjustment.  I know jondor's recently found a method using alpha correction that works especially well.

Thanks, Alex. It illustrates why this wouldn't end well without some NAM team support. Although I should be good to figure out most of the things. I'll try to get in touch with Jondor.

It looks a little bit like old wild-west-tracks...I would change it, so that the basalt has the same texture under the tracks like next to them...

A fair and relevant point. Thanks!

This is very interesting indeed. It really made me think a bit more about railways in SC4 and in RL. Most of them here look just like your textures. The rest which are new(ly) reconstructed though have grey-ish ballast and concrete sleepers. Maybe that's what Maxis were aiming at

Thanks, Ioann. Concrete sleepers would be light yellow/gray, I think, so still not the Maxis black. The more I think of it, the less I understand their texture.



Now, after the initial thrill of creating something new has subsided, what one should do to make a good, universal-ish product is go back to the source. So, what do rails actually look like in reality, beyond the theoretical, work-biased approach I took in the first post. I'm a perennial skeptic, so I went back to find some Bing maps pictures. Keeping in mind these have varying levels of corruption in lighting and colors, I certainly didn't find any form of my initial textures. And after all, the game is viewed through these angles, not mine!





These are all shots from the US, which is what I'm aiming for. (If you want to reconstruct the TGV/ICE/whatever modern, high-speed network, you'd need very different rail specs anyway.)

What stands out more than anything here is that you need to be lucky to get any form of glistening off the rails. As a driver/engineer I'm very used to seeing the shiny surface, but when your view moves away from the center, it disappears (the worn off part of the surface is at best 1-2 inches wide). Meaning they're not even grey, they're dark brown to black. In combination with being unsatisfied with the zoomed out views, I concluded dark rails were the way to go.

Second, the ballast is hardly colored on the sides of the rail. That only happens on very busy tracks like the ones I'm used to drive on. But not for the vast majority in the US. So I kept rust coloring restricted to the area inside the rails.

What that in mind, I created about 20 different STR textures to further test the results in game. Here are the latest 3 of them.




Ballast is too blueish to my taste, doesn't go well with the rails and sleepers. I like the more yellowish look from the pics above, it'll also fit in more nicely with rural areas, and provide some more contrast when zoomed out.




Better, but now the contrast with the sleepers is too big.




Well, I like this one. You can still clearly see the sleepers are made of timber, the rails are rusted at the sides, there is ample shadowing on their sides, too, and the ballast should fit in better than what we're used to. I think I'm quite close to a final texture.

Cheers
Willy

[Silur]

Hi, Swordmaster ...
I saw Your excellent work, but I have only one poor question - can You create thousands for Rail Road plates to MAXIS, NAM and STR by Dedgren ? This only one question - no more .... May be You can create only simple one way rail road as a dirty rail road ? But this a great work with a NAM or no ? 
Thank You ...

[Swordmaster]

Hi, Swordmaster ...
I saw Your excellent work, but I have only one poor question - can You create thousands for Rail Road plates to MAXIS, NAM and STR by Dedgren ? This only one question - no more .... May be You can create only simple one way rail road as a dirty rail road ? But this a great work with a NAM or no ? 
Thank You ...

No, I want to make a total conversion mod for all railroads. Unless I bump into major issues, I don't see why that would be impossible. Fortunately, we have some great tools to work with so that editing and saving FSH files is easier than you might think. Some skills with the GIMP (a free type of photoshop) are a must, though, but I'm learning as I go.

Not a poor question!

Cheers
Willy

[Silur]

Thank You, Willy ...
I think - this a Great Idea ....
Sometimes I worked with some textures for my own lots with Original Photoshop Pro and others, but we must create moving thru all ...
I like Your idea, but You can create it with more dirty ... and there are many steps for it ...
Good luck,
Nick 

[io_bg]

Nice progress! I think it would've been cool to have a SAM-like mod for railways - this way we could have different types of textures in one city tile. I'd certainly prefer this to triple rail that has been in development for the RAM. Anyway, I look forward to seeing the further evolution of your texture.

[FrankU]

Hi Willy,

Yes. Your third texture looks convincing and realistic. There is some contrast, so you can clearly see the rails stand out a bit. Not too much, but just a bit. The sleepers and the ballast have good colors and are noty too grainy, but also not blurred. Yes..... yes..... I do like it.

Please continue!

[Simcoug]

I agree, that last example is looking great.  Even the far zoom looks nice.   

[art128]

Yeap, the last one is excellent!

[Aaron Graham]

Great Work on the re-texturing of the rail textures, Keep it up!!!

[RickD]

First of all, fantastic idea, Willy. 

I like the third version very much. Maybe the rails are a tad too brown/rusty. Also the edges of the ballast look a little bit too straight.

I would immediately make the switch to your textures. My only concern is, that the rail textures (jestarr's for example) on lots won't match any more.

[Swordmaster]

Just some quick replies:

Sometimes I worked with some textures for my own lots with Original Photoshop Pro and others, but we must create moving thru all ...

I'm not sure what you mean, Nick, "moving thru all". Do you mean you have to edit every zoom level of the texture? You don't! You edit the 128x128 texture and PngToFshBatch does the rest.

Nice progress! I think it would've been cool to have a SAM-like mod for railways - this way we could have different types of textures in one city tile. I'd certainly prefer this to triple rail that has been in development for the RAM. Anyway, I look forward to seeing the further evolution of your texture.

Why didn't I think of this? An override for the rail network might be a very good idea! Although I think there is the issue of having to include different puzzle pieces for every texture. It's not a big deal for the SAM because there's only three puzzle pieces that I know of, but for rails there's already quite a few, and there should be a good deal more! Multiplied by the number of textures, you'll have huge tab rings.

Anyway, that's currently beyond the scope of my investigations, but who knows some day.

Maybe the rails are a tad too brown/rusty. Also the edges of the ballast look a little bit too straight.

I would immediately make the switch to your textures. My only concern is, that the rail textures (jestarr's for example) on lots won't match any more.

If you make them lighter, more neutral, you miss out on the contrast with the ballast when zoomed out. I spent most of my morning at work staring at the tracks, and I realize my fist texture was the most realistic: it's all a brownish hue. Rails, sleepers and ballast have mostly the same, dark colors. But just like the RHW doesn't completely look like the real stuff, this texture won't either. It needs to stand out in the game and blend with the existing color palettes. That's my next step. The ballast may also get a little more tweaking to give it some more volume.

Concerning the base/overlay textures, my intention was to include them. But I guess I need to get some clearance first with these folks if I want to override their texture IIDs. Moreover, my plan is to make my own set of new, realistic railyard textures. Later.

Everyone else, thanks for posting! I'm gonna make a basic version now, only with textures for the draggables, non-detailed, and see how it behaves in a real landscape.

Cheers
Willy

[Gugu3]

Willy nice work you are doing!really like the texture and how it looks in the game!keep up the great work

[vortext]

Nice work here! 

I agree the third example is the best, though imho the rails could be toned down a bit both in terms of contrast and saturation.

Other than that, I can only say it was about time someome made realistic rails textures! Keep it up! 

[FrankU]

OK. And then....
Who picks up the challenge of making a good catenary mod for these tracks? I like the Highspeed mod a lot, but it is a bit fancy for regular tracks, isn't it?

[gn_leugim]

both are good actualy, but a mid term would be better IMO

keep it up!

[noahclem]

Your work here is once again looking just lovely    I was wondering if you are considering making HD textures for your rails. Because there are so many pieces perhaps only having basic ones in HD would make more sense, but there are certainly times when an extra level of detail could make zoomed in rail pictures look better.

It's also great news you're wanting to make your own rail yards!

[Swordmaster]

Thanks for your replies!

I agree the third example is the best, though imho the rails could be toned down a bit both in terms of contrast and saturation.

Good suggestion! Taken it into account.

both are good actualy, but a mid term would be better IMO

What do you mean with mid term? Or are you talking about the catenaries?

Your work here is once again looking just lovely    I was wondering if you are considering making HD textures for your rails. Because there are so many pieces perhaps only having basic ones in HD would make more sense, but there are certainly times when an extra level of detail could make zoomed in rail pictures look better.

It's also great news you're wanting to make your own rail yards!

Are HD textures even desirable for networks? If you've got a large city full of rails (like I would), wouldn't that increase loading times and all? I don't know much, if anything, about HD textures so someone enlighten me!

Moreover, is it necessary? Judge for yourself; this is zoom 6:


The first six textures:






To have sleepers of different colors was apparently an added difficulty for me, especially on the diagonals, but I got it now. Just a pixel or two to correct, I think. I'll also reduce the reds by 2 or 3 points, as you can see there's a difference between the PNGs and what the game renders.

One more question: does anyone think I need to widen the ballast even more? In the real world, many STRs occupy a right-of-way for DTR, so a bit more ballast could be beneficial in terms of realism.

Cheers
Willy

[Flatron]

Great!
I wouldn't widen the ballast, because it would look unproportional I guess...

[gn_leugim]

a ballast mid term between these two. 

[Tarkus]

I remember when the notion of "HD" textures first came about, circa 2009, the NAM Team did some experiments with it, and the initial design spec for the textures used in RHW Version 4.0 were built to accommodate HD textures.  However, in further testing, we found out that the increase in filesize was exorbitant.  A single closest-zoom texture can run 128KB or larger, as opposed to 16KB at the most for a standard texture, and with as many textures as transit mods require, that would have meant we'd have been looking at a 50-100MB mod, easily, just due to the textures.  We also discovered that if special care was taken in the importing process, the difference in quality was negligible, so we jettisoned the idea.

-Alex