[Cerbera]

Jason, that route has extremely sharp corners, would require very steep slopes and interfeers with a massive amount of land. Where does the railway go from the South of illCOM? It's hard to tell whether some of the wiggles are intentional or accidental. The curve tool and line tool aren't difficult to use! Also, the image of your island isn't at the same scale as the rest of the image; it's too small.

I know it's just a rough sketch, but you've just created a route which is contrary to what I've been talking about in this thread. We are supposed to be working on this together but you havn't justified why your alternative design is better than mine. In fact, you havn't commented on any of my ideas at all. I'm wondering whether you have read any of my posts? Is your intention to simply ignore my ideas?

We have to communicate and examine each other's ideas thoroughly so that we eventually come up with one design instead of two. I've numbered my ideas so that you can refer to them easily (illCOM 1, illRES 2, etc) which will avoid big quote chains. I think that your current design is too unrealistic, interfeers with too much land and is not well thought out.


(EDIT) On the subject of mass transit systems like railways, I've noticed that there don't seem to be any airports in Myriad?

This post has been edited by Cerbera on Wednesday, Oct 5 2005, 15:21

[Knife]

Airports have been descussed for a long time. Now we have space one can be made. i would suggest just a concerete island or something.

[AleXXX]

QUOTE

Airports have been descussed for a long time. Now we have space one can be made. i would suggest just a concerete island or something.

I dont see a place for the airport in Illcom, but in Illnorth such LOT is necessary! In SA is greater of planes.

[Cerbera]

Perhaps it might be best for us to only discuss the railway in this topic. The railway will be a complicated enough project on it's own. If an airport is to be designed, I think it would require another topic.

[Knife]

Or someone could just make it...

Anyway back to train...

who can model a train?

[Mark]

anyone that can model a car can model a train, in my eyes. I'd offer but you know how often i complete things

What kinda train we looking for? - GTAuron

[JasonB]

QUOTE

Jason, that route has extremely sharp corners, would require very steep slopes and interfeers with a massive amount of land. Where does the railway go from the South of illCOM? It's hard to tell whether some of the wiggles are intentional or accidental. The curve tool and line tool aren't difficult to use!

I'm too lazy to use line/curve tools, freehand drawing all the way!
And that map was just a quick drawup, to show a basic idea of the sort of track I had in mind (sort of anyway). The track wouldn't follow the map exactly (especially not the wiggles ), it would have to be modified to fit the land and where the stations would go, and also to make it realistic.
I left the route after it leaves south illcom like that because, well I have no idea what's going there, if another island is going there then it would probably go straight down and meet it. If not it would turn west and go meet up with Necrosis.
Also, the scale of my island in relation to the rest of it is pretty exact I think, maybe a bit small, but close enough.

QUOTE

I know it's just a rough sketch, but you've just created a route which is contrary to what I've been talking about in this thread. We are supposed to be working on this together but you havn't justified why your alternative design is better than mine. In fact, you havn't commented on any of my ideas at all. I'm wondering whether you have read any of my posts? Is your intention to simply ignore my ideas?

Although I think your design could turn out well, the layout of the design ignores large parts of Myriad. The track connects with illcom via means of an offshore station, which is on the east coast. Illcom, as a commercial hub of Myriad is going to be a busy place and your design alienates the whole west coast of the island and travel to the centre of the island is somewhat lengthy. A subway going under the island could easily make to the centre of the island and make travel to and from illcom much easier. Also, in your design the track would cut right through my bridge (which is a suspension bridge) and go over my fancy harbour thingy.

illRES is a bit of a trouble aswell, you only connect the track to the northern half of the island, which is intended to be low desnity residential housing, while leaving the southern half of the island, which is supposed to be medium density commercial. Ideally, the train should come within the vicinity of both these areas, to facilitate the travel from home to work.

illURB carries some of the problems of illRES, but to less of a degree. illURB is more of a residential/ruralish area than illRES, and not so demanding of train connections, but still the southern edges of the island are likely going to be higher density. Admittedly, my rough sketch neglects the east side of the island, but connected a track to that part would make the track needlessly complicated and in the end would leave a sloppy, and overly intrusive track.

Also, no train model should be modelled yet. The train should be made to fit the tracks, and since we have to tracks yet, you have no idea how big to make the train. We don't want a train fiasco like we had last time, people modelling silly pieces of track, pylons and trains with no idea what is going on and certainly no planning.

[Cerbera]

It doesn't take much to use the curve and line tools and it makes your design a lot more accurate and easier to understand.

In reality, railways do ignore large sections of cities because they have to follow fairly straight, fairly flat lines. You can't have a railway which snakes around the city between the buildings because it would have to crawl around at extremely slow speeds and would be impossibly expensive to construct and maintain. All of the islands in MI are extremely small, less than a square kilometer on the whole. Therefore the railway system will be more of a branch line between towns than a metropolitan inter-city megatrain.

Railway stations for settlements like Myriad (taking into account the shrink-wrapped nature of GTA landscapes) would be built on the outskirts with good road links to the districts of the area. With illCOM, there is a 4-lane freeway which runs all the way around the island and the island isn't very big, so not even the illSUB island is particularly isolated or remote. Putting the railway station in the middle would be unrealistic since there are no decent road links in the middle...it would cause gridlock in a realistic environment.

Since the railway is being retro-fitted to the landscape, we must design it as though the city planners only added a railway when the settlements outgrew the road links. This happens in real cities which have grown from small towns; you find that railways have been built around them. When these retro-fitted railways have to run through a section of existing landscape, they do so in the least intrusive way possible so that the planners don't have to compensate existing residents and businesses. To make the MI railway seem realistic, we have to choose an inobtrusive retro-fitted route like this. There's also the issue of interfeering with the lots which are going to be given on the new islands, which would become very small and complicated with your design, imho.

Therefore, the MI railway will need to be unobtrusive. Runing the railway over the sea with tunnels through high ground achieves this important goal.


The railway must be fairly flat to avoid the silly slopes present in GTA3 and GTASA. Moving from a tunnel under the sea bed to a ground-level railway within the distances of your designs would be impossible without steep slopes. The railway must remain above sea level to avoid steep slopes, which rules out the possibility of going beneath illCOM.


Your understanding of illRES and illURB seem different from mine. When I first proposed these island names to illspirit many months ago, my idea was that the islands would start with the industrial center of Necrosis and become gradually less industrial as you moved clockwise around the landscape. This means that illURB would be a pretty rough neighbourhood, populated mainly by the low-paid factory workers for Necrosis. However, illRES would be quite an affluent island with the office workers and executives for the commerce of illCOM. He generally agreed and I think he's posted to confirm that view in various topics during the MI expansion. Since there are road bridges and/or tunnels from illURB to Necrosis and from illRES to illCOM, the railway would normally be used for longer journeys, such as illURB to illCOM.


I didn't realise that your island was going over there, lol. If you moved it further East it could share my proposed illSTA island, perhaps via an underground road tunnel leading to an underground car park, kind of like a smaller version of the car park for Easter Bay Airport? It might be possible for the underground road to link up with the tunnel from illCOM to illRES, a bit like the underground tunnels of GTA3. Maybe extend the road tunnel system to reach Necrosis, if Respawn can find space for it, then it would be a proper nod to GTA3 and a good representation of coastal city infrastructure.

The railway which runs above the sea would not be particularly high off the sea, only about 10 meters at that point, which is why it would need movable bridge sections. Your suspension bridge would easily clear the top of it. The gently kink in the East section of my railway means that it wouldn't have to move a really massive distance to clear the illSTA island. It would produce a similar feature to how Nixon Island sits between Central Park and Estoria in GTA1's "Liberty City" level. The offshore railway would be a nice tribute to that GTA1 level as well, much like the "CMP" initials for "Community Map Project" are in honour of the ".CMP" format which GTA1 levels were saved in.

I'm pretty sure that the picture of your landscape is at a smaller scale than the rest of the image because the equivalent roads are bigger in the other MI landscapes. If you make a correctly scaled image without any lines drawn on it, I could create a new image showing how I think your island could be positioned relative to illCOM and the potential illSTA island.


As you say yourself, creating a track which is "needlessly complicated" or "would leave a sloppy, and overly intrusive track" is not what our design goals are. My design has no twisty sections altering many of lots and roads, it has gentle curves so you can thrash around at a decent speed, no steep slopes making it look silly and yet it still has variety with tunnels, bridges and with some onshore and some offshore stations. It is far from perfect, but I think it offers the better starting point to develop from?

This post has been edited by Cerbera on Thursday, Oct 6 2005, 18:44

[mickarrow]

First I'd like to say I believe the train system is in good hands, seeing the both of you are writing a book about it here

I got a silly question though : what do you mean when you said 'taking into account the shrink-wrapped nature of GTA landscape'.
I simply don't understand that sentence, wich is quite a bummer, 'cause I really'd like to follow your discussions.

[Diesel]

QUOTE (mickarrow @ Oct 6 2005, 18:38)

First I'd like to say I believe the train system is in good hands, seeing the both of you are writing a book about it here I got a silly question though : what do you mean when you said 'taking into account the shrink-wrapped nature of GTA landscape'. I simply don't understand that sentence, wich is quite a bummer, 'cause I really'd like to follow your discussions.

I think he means how the cities of GTA are sort of... optimised. With main features present, but less important things (like thousands of rows of housing) sort of scaled down to have less of an influence. See Staunton Island in GTA3 - it's relatively quite big in comparison to what we normally see in games, but in comparison to the real Manhattan Island, it's a tiny fraction of the size.

[Cerbera]

Exactly what DieselGT said.

[mickarrow]

ok, thanks for clearing that up.

[Mark]

I think its a little wierd that your design cerbera is suggesting you run a very large chunk of the railway over the sea, especially around illcom, i mean the easter side of illcome isn't really used at all and I'm sure if you just dip the railway in between the docks and the industrial estate you'll have a more believeable railway to which other lots along that side of the island could use to good measure. If not just tunnel under/over it etc, or even a crossing. - GTAuron

[steve-m]

QUOTE (Cerbera @ Oct 6 2005, 18:19)

Since the railway is being retro-fitted to the landscape, we must design it as though the city planners only added a railway when the settlements outgrew the road links.

Not necessarily. There are several examples in reality where settlements developed because of the railway, and later turned into big cities around it. And that's exactly what we would have on illnorth: railway first, buildings later, so we don't necessarily have to create an "illusion". Same for illcom - buildings are there already, so it would be more realistic to run the tracks around/underneath it.

[Cerbera]

The problem is, Steve, that illCOM would not have become a busy commercial district before illURB and illRES were large centers of population. The railway must take a retro-fitted route since the entire area would need to have been built before the city needed a railway.

It's a bit confusing to explain this since there aren't any models on the new islands yet. However, if you imagine the way this city would have developed in reality, then you'll see how the entire area would need to be populated before a railway around it was required. If the area was not already built up then illCOM would not have all those buildings in the way.

Therefore, I think the railway route we design should look like the islands were already quite populated when the railway was built.


(EDIT) I just noticed that in my previous design (1024 x 1024, 59.6kB) I was running a stretch of railway underneath the big bowl in illURB which is at a low level. This would require some sort of ramp or cutting to be present somewhere so it could exit from the bowl at ground level, therefore there would have to be a relatively steep slope in plain view. It would also mean that the sea crossing would have to be very low, so even small boats would have to wait for a moveable section of bridge so they could pass.

I've changed how I think that area should be traversed:

1024 x 1024, 59.6kB

The railway station would still be on the North-east corner of illURB. There would be a gentle slope into a cutting West of the station; there would be no slope inside the station itself. This slope would descend into a cutting. The cutting would become a tunnel as it curved South. There is an East-to-West road just South of the little cove/bay thing, so that could be where the railway entered a tunnel.

It would stay underground as it curved West but it now runs inside the high ridge around the bowl, rather than under the low center of the bowl. This would allow a long, gentle slope upwards which would not be obvious since it was underground. This slope would allow the railway to exit through the South wall of the ridge at a fairly high level onto an embankment, allowing a fairly high bridge across the sea to Necrosis. The railway could then descend as it went around/through Necrosis on a very gentle slope so that it would be at the correct level by the time it got back to illCOM.

(EDIT2) I've been researching what gradients real railways have on them. I knew that normal railways only had gentle slopes but the actual numbers have surprised me!

QUOTE (Freundeskreis Selketalbahn)

Driving downhill begins just as winding as the uphill drive. With each kilometer, which the train drives, it lost 25 m at height. This inclination is the steepest of the entire network of the HSB. (Source - 9th paragraph of "Description" section.)

The steepest part of the German railway system only changes height by 25 meters each kilometer!

This post has been edited by Cerbera on Saturday, Oct 8 2005, 14:12

[Mark]

Well yeah, Though they usually do travel over rather hilly terrain, usually a big mixture of embankments and cut-throughs. A lot of work to build a railway... - GTAuron

[illspirit]

Okay, new coordinate offset is now -600x, +1100y, -6z, from what it was in VC.

And an updated render:



Download the large version here. rar'ed 7.12MB. 3000²px

[Cran.]

Just to throw in a quick idea here, it think it would be nice to see an overhead line the runs over the streets in some parts of illcom. Then it would go underground some how..

Kinda like the one in GTAIII

[Knife]

@illy - so are they final? Please say they are! How hard would it be for you to make new ipl's at this stage? They would be useful so I could continue with the mission script.

[steve-m]

QUOTE (Cerbera @ Oct 8 2005, 14:59)

The problem is, Steve, that illCOM would not have become a busy commercial district before illURB and illRES were large centers of population.  The railway must take a retro-fitted route since the entire area would need to have been built before the city needed a railway.

You do have a point. But from what I understood, the Northern islands won't be "large centers of population" at all, especially illres will be rather low density. And since the buildings on illurb will all be quite small, in reality it'd be no big problem to build a track right through the populated area, by relocating a few families and tearing off their houses, if necessary.

QUOTE (Cerbera @ Oct 8 2005, 14:59)

I've changed how I think that area should be traversed: 1024 x 1024, 59.6kB The railway station would still be on the North-east corner of illURB.  There would be a gentle slope into a cutting West of the station; there would be no slope inside the station itself.  This slope would descend into a cutting.  The cutting would become a tunnel as it curved South.  There is an East-to-West road just South of the little cove/bay thing, so that could be where the railway entered a tunnel.

There are two problems with this design. The slope South and SE of that little bay is quite steep, maybe too steep for the track. Also, I have no idea how the track should run after leaving the West island heading East, the cliff is higher than on the East island, so again there'd have to be a too huge decline. A possible solution would be to keep the track underground and let it exit right through the cliffs in that bay, being continued at a level of about 15m along the cliffs, using a mix of tunnels and fancy wooden constructions.



But I have no idea where to put the station then. Or, we leave the station there and put cuttings on boths sides of it, so in the East the track could decline and enter the East island through a tunnel in that canyon.