More tugboat screenshots

Here are a few more screenshots showing the tugboat on the canal.

Canal and tugboat screenshots

The tugboat is now in Rail Simulator as a driveable boat. I'm pleased with how quick I can get new driveable vehicles into the game.

Adding the reflective water to the water loft (as seperate objects) was also very quick and easy and it creates a far more interesting water surface. I think the only thing now missing from the canal is a shopping trolley.

I've included a few screenshots here. More will follow soon.

The canal

At the moment, the plans are to make the canal lock a static asset i.e. it won't be functional at all. Obviously when I place the gates in my route, I'll place then in the open position.

Here is a 3DSMax render of what it will look like (lacking the in-game reflections of course.)

Canal lock gate

Here is a 3DMax render of the gate. It's difficult to see from this image but if you look at the foot-planks, you'll notice that I've made this gate symmetrical. This was done intentionally so that the same gate asset can be placed on each side of the canal (with one of the assets rotated 180 degrees).

Canal loft

Onto something a bit more interesting with water based transport. Once again the same principles will be used; this time we swap the train for a boat, and the rails for a canal. Underneath, it's still a vehicle moving along a path.

I wanted reflections on my canal loft, so I ended up doing things slightly differently. Unlike the default Rail Simulator assets, I created my loft with no water shader assigned to it. The loft was simply a hollow channel.

Once this empty loft is laid in the route, I can place a number of 'scalable' water quads over the top to fill my canal with reflective water.