Just as my wife prepares to leave me home alone for another week to look after our daughter and cat I found just enough time to post a few of my thoughts on this topical subject.
One thing is for certain, no 2 people think alike when it comes to creating routes.
Creating a route is a labour of love no matter which package you use (speaking from experience), it's normally easier to create a fictional route when you do not have to spend hours and hours finding and checking reference images to make sure you have it just so. It also prevents thoughs who like to point out something is wrong from commenting.
However, fictional routes need creative thinking. The 3 Fictional routes in RailWorks are all based on real areas with their names changed. This allowed us to lay the track fairly quickly, it also helped us to define areas for scenery and activities.
Taking a real section of track and moulding it to your needs is a great starting point and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who was serious about creating a route.
For me though, I'm not interested in spending my time making a fictional route (unless it was on the moon or Mars, that way you really could let your imagination go!)
I started my route for very different reasons; I did not do it for others to play, I did it for myself.
My plan was and still is to create a number of large oil paintings of the station complex. I've spent hundreds of pounds researching it and many thousands of hours reading/searching and drawing little areas so I can get an idea of where everything was.
Some areas of Bishop have changed so much that you'd never know what was there, very few books document the recent past, there are not that many pictures around and so few seem to even remember what it was really like.
So for me the devil is in the details. I want the right building in the right place to the right scale.
Now, I'll get some bits wrong and some others I'll have to make a best guess from the pictures and text I have. However the beauty of this is I can always update it.
I am currently making oak terrace, it is seen in many of the photos of Bishop Station and it is still there so I have no reason to get it wrong, however it has been a chore organising the photo to make a 512/512 texture.
Here is a sneak peak of the wip. (Hopefully put up the final image in the next day or so)
4 comments:
An outstanding shot Derek, it really is a labour of love. Being local to the area, I personally am looking forward to getting a feel for what it was like in days gone by. Of course all I know now is the solitary platform that remains.
Nice shot indeed, can we assume that 3d sleepers are on their way to junctions as well? ;)
Dear Derek,
A prototypical route is a challenge indeed, one I’d love to try at some point in the future.
I’d love to hear about how you’re going about your research. If you can find the time to blog about it of course.
Good luck with the route and your endeavours at RS.
Shadders.
You will go crazy trying to include fine detail .. I have gone crazy already.
Inspirational work Derek and definitely something to look forward to.
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