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Tunnel Internals

Started by walsjona, August 15, 2015, 04:35:00 PM

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walsjona

I tend to spend a lot of time underground, with various metro/subway systems in and around cities and thought I would have a go at making some tunnel interiors for the none tube lines. So far I have created a narrow arched tunnel along with a wider equivalent, both based on the Red Brick Tunnel in the pakset.

Narrow Arched Tunnel


Wide Arched Tunnel


I have also had a play with the tunnel portals and allowing for double/triple portals for both:



Both tunnels are based on and use the data from the red faced tunnels in Pak128.Britain.
Textures used are from the blender repository.

The dat and image files can be found here if you want to have a look.

Let me know what you think.

Jonny

Junna

That narrow one is really nice-looking. You ought to make some other similar versions, like a box-section tunnel with a similar appearance.

kierongreen

Yes - narrow portals are really the way to go as wider ones wouldn't be as stable in real life so aren't often used. Due to scale issues in simutrans and hence the track separation distance I don't think it will be possible to get multi track tunnels that look particularly realistic (even bridges will have issues with this).

walsjona

Quote from: Junna on August 15, 2015, 04:45:44 PM
You ought to make some other similar versions, like a box-section tunnel with a similar appearance.

Do you mean something like this?



Here are a couple of others I am looking into
Concrete Tunnels: Top=Channel Tunnel/Crossrail Type, Bottom=Concrete Box Tunnel (narrow)



Brick Tunnels: Top= Another arched red brick Tunnel, Middle= Brunel Tunnel, Bottom= Recolouring of the previous arched tunnel.


Quote from: kierongreen on August 15, 2015, 05:12:04 PM
Yes - narrow portals are really the way to go as wider ones wouldn't be as stable in real life so aren't often used.



hmm true, you don't want to cut out any more rock than is necessary. The main reason I made them was for compatibility with the current stations without making separate underground ones straight away. This then prevents the clipping you see in the image above. I then made the wider one more expense to construct and maintain to reflect the increased size (though probably not by enough).
<side note>On that point interesting thought restricting construction of stations/signals on certain ways, such as trestles, narrow tunnels etc... though I would imagine this would be a pain to code limited in applicability and frustrating for players</side note>

Quote from: kierongreen on August 15, 2015, 05:12:04 PM
Due to scale issues in simutrans and hence the track separation distance I don't think it will be possible to get multi track tunnels that look particularly realistic (even bridges will have issues with this).

I think there is an element of suspended disbelief with this game and objects are never going to look wholly realistic though there may come a time when paksets enter the uncanny valley. That said here is a quick double tunnel, it's not particularly realistic but it stretches the truth and doesn't look dreadful.


kierongreen

Some impressive graphics there :)

Straight walled tunnels are more typical of cut and cover tunnels, there are some of these in the UK but possible not as many in other countries. The London Underground Circle, Metropolitan and District lines have some of this, but also many sections, particularly stations which are just in cuttings. Compare that to the New York Subway sub surface lines, where nearly all of the below ground level sections of line, including stations are completely covered.

For the cut and cover tunnels spanning several tracks minimising the distance between the tunnel wall and track will make it look more realistic I think, though I realise that will mean you can only use specific underground side platforms...

Junna

Special underground platforms (like the tube tunnel stations, and the French underground metro stations for pak128) would be the way forward.

Your double tunnel graphic there does look good, however. Well, all the others look great, too.

The Hood

Oh wow, these are great. I'd had in mind to do something similar myself but hadn't had the time. A few thoughts:
- narrower portals look better
- ideally we'd have a complete set of underground station graphics to match. See how the existing tube station graphics work on top of the tube tunnel tracks if you fancy giving something similar a go.
- it should be possible to restrict stations to underground only or above ground only in the dats (this was added a few years ago I think but we haven't got enough platforms to make it look realistic yet.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops!

jamespetts

Those look splendid. Sadly, it will be harder to make these work well in Experimental with its new feature of separating tunnel and track (to allow the track to be upgraded without the cost of replacing the tunnel), although I might be able to look into separating the image of the tunnel internals from the image of the track itself: indeed, this would probably be the best way of doing it. I wonder whether it would be possible to produce versions of these without the track images so that I can look into this?

We could also very much do with more modern underground station interiors: the existing interiors will suffice up to about the 1950s (and although very much London Underground deep level tube in style, the same style of station was used for the widened lines that could accommodate standard gauge stock), but we need images for a station circa the 1960s, and a later one for circa 1990s/2000s and into the present.
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walsjona

Quote from: jamespetts on August 17, 2015, 10:26:35 PM
Those look splendid. Sadly, it will be harder to make these work well in Experimental with its new feature of separating tunnel and track (to allow the track to be upgraded without the cost of replacing the tunnel), although I might be able to look into separating the image of the tunnel internals from the image of the track itself: indeed, this would probably be the best way of doing it. I wonder whether it would be possible to produce versions of these without the track images so that I can look into this?

So far, most of the tunnels have been made as walls in blender and then overlayed onto existing tracks so that they match (with the exception of the tube tunnels below).

Here is a png without the track:


Once I have a few more completed I will upload them as well.

In the meantime here are some tube like tunnels for normal sizes trains I have been looking into as well. Any thoughts appreciated.

jamespetts

These are very interesting - thank you for uploading them. I wonder whether you would be able to upload the .blends as well at some point, since it would be very useful to have them if someone else wanted to make even more tunnel internals using your .blends as a starting point?

As to the tube tunnels for full sized trains, I am not sure whether these have an historical precedent (that is, metal segment tunnels with the suspended cabling). Is anyone aware of this?
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walsjona

Quote from: jamespetts on August 21, 2015, 10:00:47 AM
As to the tube tunnels for full sized trains, I am not sure whether these have an historical precedent (that is, metal segment tunnels with the suspended cabling). Is anyone aware of this?

The metal segment tunnels with suspended cabling (middle two tunnels) are modelled after the northern city line which is a metal segment tunnel bored at 4.9 m which is large enough for normal rolling stock. However, the trains running into the Moorgate have to change from overhead to 3rd rail at Finsbury Park.


source: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3036614/exposure/5-illegal-photos-of-londons-abandoned-underworld-captured-by-daring-place-hackers#2

the front one is a concrete tube, similar to Crossrail

and the back tube is based on the channel tunnel:


kierongreen

One interesting point, which I'm not sure is worth pursuing (but may be more so for Experimental) is differing tunnel diameters. Channel Tunnel is 7.6m, Crossrail 6.2m, Northern City 4.9m while the rest of the tube is only 3.56m. For comparison the 2 track Severn Tunnel is 7.8m in diameter.

jamespetts

That is very interesting research! Thank you. I don't think that even Experimental can do anything useful with differing tunnel diameters (beyond "normal" and "tube"), but it might conceivably be worth differing graphics going with differing speed limits, perhaps.
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The Hood

What is the latest on this project? I'm hoping for the usual pre-Christmas release and it would be great to include these.

jamespetts

I had not progressed this pending possible inclusion in Standard, as there is no point in two sets of developers pursuing the same thing in parallel, but I have not heard anything on this for months.
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kierongreen

Real life keeps getting in the way of me progressing anything in Simutrans this year :(

jamespetts

That is rather a shame: the tunnel internals would be a splendid thing to have. Let us hope that there is rather less real life next year.
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walsjona

Hi all,

Apologies, really life has gotten in the way (plus a few side projects) and had planned to post an update at the weekend but internet was down.

Brief Update:

I have created a tunnel based on the Severn Tunnel Portal and interior:


And here is an old map that I have been retrofitting to test projects



Here is the link to the files:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B02IBLqxuNYpZlA3UTctcUtoVmc&usp=sharing

This contains:
- Portal images
- interior images (with and without track)
- dat file (not balanced)

Currently missing:
- blender files

I have a few more tunnels I will upload this evening if the internet is working again

jamespetts

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The Hood

Wow these are great - definitely going to include them in the next release so if you do get time to finish off a few others that would be fantastic.

walsjona

Channel Tunnel:







I also have a Maglev version but this isn't quite ready yet

File Link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B02IBLqxuNYpbjJXQXNSaDNTaHM&usp=sharing

Brick Faced Tunnel:
I have posted this one before but I have updated/added snow images


File Link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B02IBLqxuNYpb01IQlBmQVhKWlk&usp=sharing

Other Projects
As a side project been looking into underground stations, here are a few successful ones so far:






Thoughts welcome :)

Drewthegreat87

I really like the new stations and retaining walls that are trackside! They look great!

jamespetts

#22
That is rather splendid. One or two questions if I may: firstly, how is the brick faced tunnel intended to be distinguished from the existing brick tunnel in terms of function or real life counterpart? Secondly, the brick arch facings are rather splendid; how have you coded these; are they artificial slope side textures? If so, they would also appear in other contexts than the railway. I produced something like that a while ago (before double heights, so the graphics are no longer usable now), and they could sometimes look a little out of place not in a cutting, although they did look very good in cuttings (and yours look even better).

As to the underground stations, these look good, but I worry a little that there may be some confusion between a station built completely underground and a station on the London Underground network, many of which were not built underground. The stations that I see there look like something from the East London Railway/line (the smaller one) or the Metropolitan Railway/line (the larger one; it is a little like the old Barbican before the overall roof went), which were actually built in cuttings rather than tunnels. Even many stations that appear to be built in tunnels are actually built in cuttings (all the stations on the Circle Line, for example). Certainly, it would make no sense to have an overall roof for a station built in a tunnel. Stations actually built in tunnels (as opposed to stations built in cuttings between sections of tunnel) really did not exist until the very late 19th century with the opening of the City & South London Railway, the style of which is represented by the existing "tube" stations. This is suitable for mainline use, too, as exemplified on the Great Northern & City stations. What we could really do with in terms of underground stations is more modern ones (think City Thameslink, the Jubilee Line extension and Crossrail, to give some London examples).

Your cutting stations are lovely, and I should hate to see them go to waste, but it is difficult to think of a functional use for them distinct from plain platforms at present (and a plain platform next to your cutting side wall would appear to have the same effect without the somewhat odd look of a cutting side wall in the middle of two platforms not holding anything up).

Incidentally, what is the semi-solid semi-empty overall roof intended to represent?

Edit: One thing that I notice about the Severn Tunnel type tunnel is that the menu icon for this is in a different style to the menu icons for the other tunnels: the other tunnels have the portal image as their menu icon, whereas this has the tunnel interior. This makes it difficult to find this tunnel amongst other tunnels. Do you think that you could modify the icon image to be consistent with the other icons?
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The Hood

Wowzers. I need to check this out properly next week!

The Hood

These look great - just want to check though, are they intended to replace existing tunnels or addition? I'd love to add them in early next week before Christmas and release a new binary so if there are any updates let me know.

The Hood

I've just discovered a problem whilst trying to compile these. The images in the google drive appear to be the wrong size - 733x611 instead of 768x640. They also appear to have "blurry" edges (anti-aliased) rather than the sharp contrast between e7ffff (transparent) and the image itself. This is odd, as your screenshots clearly show the image working which means it must have been the right size on your computer without the blurry halos. Has google drive compressed it somehow on upload? If you can upload some fixed images in the next day I will be able to add them before the next pakset release.

walsjona

Hi,

Sorry for the slow response, the run up to Christmas has been quite busy.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
how is the brick faced tunnel intended to be distinguished from the existing brick tunnel in terms of function or real life counterpart?
Quote from: The Hood on December 19, 2015, 10:25:24 AM
These look great - just want to check though, are they intended to replace existing tunnels or addition? I'd love to add them in early next week before Christmas and release a new binary so if there are any updates let me know.

The Brick faced one really began as an exercise to see if tunnel internals could be done and look good in game. I initially made the internals for the original brick faced tunnel but thought might as well have a go at making a portal as well. It doesn't really serve any alternative function and is loosely based on the generic brick tunnels. Included it here as thought it would add a bit of variety.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
the brick arch facings are rather splendid; how have you coded these; are they artificial slope side textures? If so, they would also appear in other contexts than the railway. I produced something like that a while ago (before double heights, so the graphics are no longer usable now), and they could sometimes look a little out of place not in a cutting, although they did look very good in cuttings (and yours look even better).

These are just coded as normal ways. I have been testing ideas for double track with fences/retaining wall to make the layouts a bit more interesting (my menu bar is getting quite busy). I did try coding them as way objects but quickly ran into problems first with stations and then with electrified track.

While I know it would serve no practical purpose, in an ideal world it would be nice to have a "base" object that sits below the track ways (or above in the case of a near side fence) that could be placed perhaps independently of the way its-self (just thinking of, for instance, those odd corners in a cutting that the track doesn't quite fill any more due to a new alignment).

The other issue is, as far as I know Simutrans doesn't support asymmetric way rotations, so you can't rotate your map. Which is fine for me at the moment as I currently have a large map which takes an age to rotate anyway but when I do need to it looks odd.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
As to the underground stations, these look good, but I worry a little that there may be some confusion between a station built completely underground and a station on the London Underground network, many of which were not built underground.

The issue I had was that there are very few examples of "underground" stations on the main lines. There are of course other examples of underground station outside of London such as some stations on the Tyne and Wear metro as well as Merseyrail but many of these follow the same basic blueprint of either the subsurface cut and cover/trench type stations or tube station. The closest I could think of was Birmingham New Street, but this was originally built in a trench with a proper canopy roof and only later covered over more fully with other buildings. Unfortunately I feel this is where one could start arguing the symantics about what classes "underground", particularly as the over building of stations with other buildings isn't possible in Simutrans atm.

So to avoid that distinction I turned to London in the first instance.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
The stations that I see there look like something from the East London Railway/line (the smaller one) or the Metropolitan Railway/line (the larger one; it is a little like the old Barbican before the overall roof went), which were actually built in cuttings rather than tunnels. Even many stations that appear to be built in tunnels are actually built in cuttings (all the stations on the Circle Line, for example). Certainly, it would make no sense to have an overall roof for a station built in a tunnel.
...
Incidentally, what is the semi-solid semi-empty overall roof intended to represent?

The station set in the images was based on Paddington Praed Street Station.



Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
Stations actually built in tunnels (as opposed to stations built in cuttings between sections of tunnel) really did not exist until the very late 19th century with the opening of the City & South London Railway, the style of which is represented by the existing "tube" stations. This is suitable for mainline use, too, as exemplified on the Great Northern & City stations. What we could really do with in terms of underground stations is more modern ones (think City Thameslink, the Jubilee Line extension and Crossrail, to give some London examples).

Many of the stations on the west stretch of the original met line (namely Baker street to King's Cross) while built at subsurface level certainly sit within the tunnel rather than an open trench (bar the odd ventilation shaft). During my initial prototyping I had tried to recreate the baker street station, but the results looked odd. Underground versions of the Praed Street Station became a bit of a compromise really, but this is a WIP.

Incidentally the graphics for the tunnel variant are actually slightly different to the trench variant to accommodate the tunnel internals, but again WIP.



I have also prototyped some tube type tunnels, but as with the Praed Street Station this is also a WIP.



Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
Your cutting stations are lovely, and I should hate to see them go to waste, but it is difficult to think of a functional use for them distinct from plain platforms at present (and a plain platform next to your cutting side wall would appear to have the same effect without the somewhat odd look of a cutting side wall in the middle of two platforms not holding anything up).

Which is fair enough, I personally quite like the variety, but that currently comes at the cost of a very busy menu.

Quote from: jamespetts on December 10, 2015, 10:55:24 AM
Edit: One thing that I notice about the Severn Tunnel type tunnel is that the menu icon for this is in a different style to the menu icons for the other tunnels: the other tunnels have the portal image as their menu icon, whereas this has the tunnel interior. This makes it difficult to find this tunnel amongst other tunnels. Do you think that you could modify the icon image to be consistent with the other icons?

Yep should be easy to swap.

walsjona

Quote from: The Hood on December 21, 2015, 04:39:47 PM
I've just discovered a problem whilst trying to compile these. The images in the google drive appear to be the wrong size - 733x611 instead of 768x640. They also appear to have "blurry" edges (anti-aliased) rather than the sharp contrast between e7ffff (transparent) and the image itself. This is odd, as your screenshots clearly show the image working which means it must have been the right size on your computer without the blurry halos. Has google drive compressed it somehow on upload? If you can upload some fixed images in the next day I will be able to add them before the next pakset release.

This is very odd. Which one is causing the issue? Or is it all of them?

I checked the drive and they all seemed to be the right size and there isn't any blurriness that I can see.

jamespetts

The Hood - you need to download the images using the "download" link  rather than just "save as" the displayed images.

Walsjona - thank you for your response: this is most helpful. Praed Street is certainly built in a cutting, not a tunnel. I know the station well. It is also apparent from the pictures. The same goes for Baker Street, and all the stations on what is now the Circle Line. The only thing that differentiates what can be done in Simutrans and what is done in real life with these cut and cover tunnels is that, in reality, but not yet in Simutrans, it is possible to build things (such as roads and buildings) on top of these cuttings. We could in theory now have elevated roads above cuttings, but this would look rather odd. It may well be possible in future to address this, although this is not a priority. However, I think that this shortcoming (which may be overcome in the future) is the lesser of two evils when compared with having stations with overall roofs with glass built underground and other things that conflate stations built in cuttings with true tunnel stations.

In reality, until the very recent invention of the box method, there were only two ways of building stations underground: either build them in a cutting and then build over them, or build them in a bored tunnel (as with all the deep level Tube stations). In the UK, very few stations other than those on the London Underground were ever built in bored tunnels, but there were some examples (as on the Great Northern and City line to which I made reference above, which was at one point run by the London Underground before reverting in modern times to a mainline operation again). Those stations are visually indistinguishable from London Underground stations except in the size of the tunnels supplying them.

Stations built in cuttings and built over are, however, not in principle distinct from stations not built in cuttings and built over: consider Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street stations in London and New Street station in Birmingham, for example: all ground level stations with buildings on top of them (all added many years after the station was first built).

Stations built in cuttings in Simutrans should therefore be the same as ordinary above ground stations, and those built in tunnels should be based on the bored tunnel method of station building (or, for 21st century stations with higher capacities, the box method).

Those tube stations look most interesting; we could certainly do with different eras of bored tunnel stations (currently, we have only early 20th century style). Have you been able to make player colour work yet (which requires post-render editing in the GIMP or similar)?
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The Hood

Quote from: jamespetts on December 21, 2015, 11:36:43 PM
The Hood - you need to download the images using the "download" link  rather than just "save as" the displayed images.

Thanks - that worked. I have decided, for now at least, to use the three tunnels as direct replacements for the existing tunnels. That way all (standard gauge rail) tunnels have internal images too.

Walsonja - I love these. Thanks. They're going in to the pakset now. A few thoughts:

1. It would be great to have more variety of tunnels. I notice that you drew several internals early in this thread. This would allow more variety of speed and graphics throughout the timeline. Some could just be different track with the same internals and faces (e.g. normal track rather than high speed track for the concrete tunnel).

2. Underground stations - as someone who plays with a different style than jamespetts, I disagree with some of his views about underground stations. I think some underground-specific "cut and cover" style platforms would be a great addition - although they could be built on any level in Simutrans I think the graphical anomaly of having flowers etc underground just doesn't work for me from a graphical realism perspective. I prefer things to look more believable even if they aren't 100% true-to-life - after all simutrans allows many unrealistic situations. I guess I prefer a slightly more "model railway" angle than "historical simulation".

3. Track backgrounds - wouldn't it be great if we could have these placed automatically? At present I assume you need a separate icon for tracks on the left, middle and right of a set? But if these could be placed automatically that would improve things a lot. Or is this already possible (before I post an extension request)?

4. As jamespetts says, player colours would be great on the new stations, and if we include them, the fences on the side of tracks.