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Posted: 17 Feb 2003 15:19
by krtaylor
I assume you mean Adobe Photoshop. That is a superb program but it is designed for press publication. If you are going to have something printed out it has to be a whole lot more detailed than if you are just going to look at it on a screen. So the job of blending colors is hugely more complicated than just swirling round a few pixels. Photoshop is a very professional program and extremely complex; PSP is simpler and I think more suited to the less exacting needs of work that will only ever be on a computer screen.

You can use whatever you like. I've just found that PSP works well for this sort of purpose, I've had better results from people using it than from professionals with Photoshop, for Web and electronic graphics.

I think your concrete sample looks good, insofar as I can see it against the almost identical background!

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 15:34
by Dinges
Maybe this ones better to see


BTW PSP. is available for trial only (30days)

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 15:44
by krtaylor
>> BTW PSP. is available for trial only (30days)

You can use it and see if you like it.

I've used the old demo versions and they don't actually stop working, though I'm not sure about the new ones.

Anyway, it's only $50 or so to buy, or it was when I bought a copy a year or so ago. Photoshop is several hundred.

I think your concrete might want to be a bit darker, and maybe more mottled, but I don't want to be a pest. What you have will probably work fine since we won't really be able to see much of it between the rails.

I agree with you about the Toyland rails, they work nicely on bridges, especially the concrete ones.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 15:51
by Dinges
Anyway, it's only $50 or so to buy, or it was when I bought a copy a year or so ago. Photoshop is several hundred.
Ofcourse I'm going to pay that for something I use only a few times!

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 15:56
by Dinges
agree with you about the Toyland rails, they work nicely on bridges, especially the concrete ones.
The rails can also be used on the land if we want

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 16:03
by Dinges
A few questions about PSP

1. How do you change the size of the paintbrush?
2. Where's a eyedropper?

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 16:09
by krtaylor
>> The rails can also be used on the land if we want

Yes but we don't want. In real live the crossties as very close together, if anything even closer than they are shown in the normal TTD track.

On bridges, sometimes they just lay normal crossties on top of the bridge at their normal spacing, but more modern bridges may just have the rail sit on top of a steel beam, or set directly into the concrete, and there wouldn't really be any crossties at all, just crossbeams every so often. That is what the Toyland rail basically looks like on the bridges, and that's appropriate. On land it wouldn't be.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 16:12
by krtaylor
>> 1. How do you change the size of the paintbrush?

I'm assuming you are using PSP 7. All the tools, when you select them, also pop up a "Tool Options" sub-menu somewhere on the screen. This can be pretty hard to find as it "rolls up" and only shows its title bar; but when you roll the mouse over the bar, it unrolls and you get the whole menu. There are multiple settings for the paintbrush there, including size, shape, hardness, and a bunch of other stuff.

>> 2. Where's a eyedropper?

It's on the main tool bar at the left of the screen. Actually in my version it's the one right above the paintbrush. PSP just calls it the "Dropper" though.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 16:17
by Dinges
Thanks, couldn't find it.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 17:51
by Dinges
krtaylor wrote:>> The rails can also be used on the land if we want

Yes but we don't want. In real live the crossties as very close together, if anything even closer than they are shown in the normal TTD track.

On bridges, sometimes they just lay normal crossties on top of the bridge at their normal spacing, but more modern bridges may just have the rail sit on top of a steel beam, or set directly into the concrete, and there wouldn't really be any crossties at all, just crossbeams every so often. That is what the Toyland rail basically looks like on the bridges, and that's appropriate. On land it wouldn't be.
But this gives some more things to see at when looking at a bridge, see for yourself: a rail just on the concrete with nothing else is boring, so this looks like something more for the eye!

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 17:58
by krtaylor
Right. So I like the Toyland rail on bridges.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 18:01
by Dinges
I'm working on a new bridge (white suspension) now, leaving the concrete as it is becouse the rails look nicer (BTW, looked at the rails over here today and they were brown) with this white color (gray = hardly any differance with rails).

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 18:10
by krtaylor
Great, I'll look forward to seeing them.

It's been a long time since I was in Holland but I vaguely remember the railbed being lighter in color than generally in the US. Maybe that was because I was in Amsterdam and mostly it was set in concrete.

In Japan I don't fully remember either, there certainly was a lot of set in concrete type track in the cities.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 18:11
by Dinges
For those who want to use better white color's use something like 200/200/200 (R/G/B) this looks very better than the snow white!

For morre dark white use 148/148/148 for example!

Below 100 is grey-black

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 19:25
by Dinges
Some picure's

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 19:43
by krtaylor
The cement bridge looks perfect.

Somehow the Toyland tracks look strange on the suspension bridge. Does TTD allow you to set the tracks per each bridge, or is there only one set that's used by all bridges?

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 19:50
by Dinges
The front & end part are the same for all bridges (exept wooden). but the midparts are different for all bridge types

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 19:53
by Dinges
If you look at scr11 (top one) you see that a part of the concrete bridge is used in the middle of the suspension bridge. So you need to have the same rail-type for concrete and suspension

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 20:00
by krtaylor
Let me suggest that we use normal track (dark ballast, lots of crossties) for all track on the ground, and for the approaches to bridges; that we use Toyland track and grey background for the bottom of the cement bridge; and that we consider each other bridge separately. For instance, I don't think the Toyland track looks right on the suspension bridge, but I think it would if you made the bottom of the bridge transparent, kind of an open-mesh of girders. Some bridges are this way though by no means all.

Posted: 17 Feb 2003 20:13
by Dinges
Could make that but what about the concrete one then if that middle part doesn't fit the rest of the bridge