We return almost 7 months since last post, so we have a bit to cover. There's been a huge site update now and there's a lot of new stuff. Let's go over everything that's been updated. If you want to make it easy and read less, there is a complete changelog at the bottom.
Lots of big things this time around. First off, we have a totally redesigned downloads area. Each page has been redone and now browsing for content is much easier and a lot nicer than the previous design. The routes dropdown menu has also switched to buttons to make navigation a bit easier, as well. The new column design of downloads allows for many more items to be on the page without taking up huge amounts of space. Everything has been streamlined now. Also, the 'Support' page has seen a redesign and some additions and cleanup have been made to make viewing easier and obsolete old parts no longer needed. In terms of new content available, we have a lot this time around. 4 brand new Milwaukee Road (and ex-MILW) locomotives 3 new Silver Lines locomotives 1 new Amtrak unit 1 new Demo unit The Amtrak & GM Demo units are both skinned by fellow TEH member, Landshark229. They are excellent skins that bring some great variety to the locomotives now available on the site. Huge shoutout to him for doing those and putting them up on the site! I mentioned there would be Milwaukee Road content soon a post or two ago. Well, maybe not 'soon', but it did happen! With this update we also see two new module routes available to add to the single one previously. We have a small winter based module to merge onto the original Silver Lines Winter module - the new one being called Silver Lines Winter Bridge Extension. It's a brief continuation of the winter module with a large set of bridges and plenty of trees to match. In addition, the Silver Lines Distribution Center is now available, which is a module featuring a reasonably sized distribution center for general goods and some machinery near both commercial and highway areas. Also, big thanks to matrack & Joram24 for allowing the SW1200 skins by Landshark229 and I to be released here. It wouldn't be possible to release these without them, thanks guys! With two more JointedRail reskins now available, a big thanks to JR for making an easy to use set of PSDs and allowing for F7 reskins to be freely released. Of course, big thank you to all those who made freeware content available through a multitude of platforms (DLS, third party sites, etc...) that can all be included within these routes and even as dependencies for locomotives and rollingstock. None of this would be possible without them - thanks so much! Cheers, SM Full changelog below! -Redesigned & reworded Support page to be up-to-date. -Rewrote the Licensing & Policy page to be more up-to-date. -Redesigned the Downloads page. -Redesigned the Pictures & Videos page. -Renamed page 'Misc' to 'Misc & Deps' -Redesigned Routes, Locomotives, Rollingstock, Scenery, Modules, and Misc & Deps completely -Downloading assets on all pages is now easier and more streamlined and smoother. -Removed dropdown menu under the Routes page -Removed the individual Steam, Diesel, & Electric locomotive pages and merged into just Locomotives -Downgraded Silver Lines Overgrown Tracks route to a Module -New and updated banners on most pages -Added custom pictures for content on Download pages -Home page & blog updated -Updated grammar, spelling, and wording on most pages -Added 9 brand new locomotives to the Locomotives page -Added 2 brand new modules to the Modules page -Added 2 truck dependencies to the Misc & Deps page
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It has certainly been a while, hasn't it? Things here aren't dead, many things are being worked on - let's go through a few of them. The biggest project is still the electric route that has actually finally been going on for over a year - I guess we're a little late on that one. Regardless, much work has been put into a few new locations for the route, with some reworking of older areas. The new things on the route include yet more bridges (at least one bigger than the bridge seen in many screenshots), more incredibly massive mountains, and a large railyard at the end of the whole thing. Too early to post screenshots of most of these things, but there are some shots on my Flickr page - located in the 'about' tab - as well as on both main forums. Another ongoing project has been the reconstruction of two other routes - both of them Silver Lines - but at very reduced rates compared to the electric route, which by itself has been pretty slow. The current hope is to finish at least one of these 3 major routes by some time this year, but we'll see how that goes. A few other notes; some new modules & model railroad-style routes are also in the works, with plans for many more of both of the former and two more confirmed major routes which have had basic starts and another one in planning stages. As well, a new Milwaukee Road project is in the works now to build parts of the Milwaukee Road's electrified lines. Some good news is that a fellow Erecting Hall member (petrama25) has made a sort of 'beta' version of his EF4 Little Joe locomotive in Milwaukee Road colors, and gave me the locomotive and a psd for it. Long story short, I gave it a quick skin. ...it does include rusty/weathered skins, too. Not yet for release, but some day in the future when the route is ready for release and when a 'final' version of the EF4 is available, it just might happen. Another thing to note is the F7B with black grilles - this is the real 'Freight' scheme, despite what the downloads page claimed. This and the F7A will be done up in the freight scheme and put out sometime in the near future, with a few other little odds and ends.
If things go smoothly, some of this stuff might get done relatively soon, and I use soon loosely. Lately, I've been plagued with hardware problems - everything from headphones to hard drive to graphics card - which has slowed things down significantly. Last note is that even a year after Trainz: A New Era (TANE) has been released, it's still too bug-riddled and a disaster to be worth supporting. Poor performance regardless of what settings are inputted and the mess of the content manager have also caused more issues than it's worth to deal with the game. That's all for now. Cheers, SM Hey folks, some updates on stuff. Let's start off with the biggest new thing - The Erecting Hall SMWorks is now partnered with The Erecting Hall (TEH for short). This means that some items will be released on TEH or SMWorks - or both! It all depends on what it is. It also means we can get some good info on new stuff - whether it's track plans, tutorials, or just an idea, it all helps the site out. It's only beneficial. Routes & Other Content What's happening with WIP routes?
They're all under construction - albeit slowly. The electric project has gotten a new area added onto it, finally giving some much needed life to the project that appeared to be slowly drifting away. As for the old Midwest route, it has been receiving large upgrades. Most of it is being completely rebuilt, and so far the change has been stunning. Pictures of its progress can be found on my Flickr page. (Link) In the areas of other non-route content, progress has been made. Seen in the back of the units in the above photo, SD9s & SD7s have received a Silver Lines paint job. Plus, an SW1500. All can be found on my Flickr page (link above). What does the future hold for new locos? Well, I can't be sure, but there are some ideas of stuff to skin and build routes for. Now that it's December, school should begin to slowly wind down for the coming break, giving some extra time to work on things here, in Trainz, and soon, in Blender. Cheers, SM Hey folks, a brief update on general things. Trainz.netFor the last few days, I have been involved in the creation of a new forum called Trainz.net. Trainz.net is built by content creators, for content creators. The site features a forum to share your creations, talk with other Trainzers, help others & more! The site even features a shoutbox - a simple little live chat - and some special features coming in the near future. Coming soon to the site will be the ability to host content for download. Using this, you won't need to make your own website or use the DLS, but instead have us host your stuff for you. It's civil and clean. Just the type of forum for a train sim. Not just for Trainz, too. Play Railworks (Train Simulator), MSTS, Run8, OpenRails, and others? We have a subforum for you. Check us out at http://www.trainz.net/ Other Stuff Alright, since now we've introduced Trainz.net, the other general stuff.
School's starting now, so unfortunately, time spent working on future content will be slowed, but we hope to still push out a few updates. During the breaks, lots of time will be spent working on new items. Content & Trainz.net So, I mentioned earlier Trainz.net features content hosting (as of writing, it is still being finalised and worked on). This may pose the question, will SMWorks shift content uploads to trainz.net? No. Simple answer, we won't switch to there. That's not to say there won't be some exclusive trainz.net only items in collaboration with SMWorks! For certain, though, there will be content uploaded here. TCCP This is a big one with the release of the new system from N3V Games. If you don't use or plan to use TCCP, just ignore this part. The following is a legal notice: None of the content on this site is to be used in any payware program. None of the content on this site is to be used in any DLC or TCCP creation for your own or someone else’s monetary gain. You may not distribute the content on this site with any payware offering, DLC, or TCCP offering. You can not reference it for any payware offering, DLC, or TCCP program. You may not upload any of the content on this site to the DLS. You may not upload content here to yours or someone else’s site. For those who know the Erecting Hall, we have adopted the same stance as them. Anyways, What's the content plan for the future? For now, it'll be whenever something is ready to be released, we'll package it into the next update. Instead of making updates at random with 1 or 2 pieces of content, things will be packed into updates set up reasonably. If we have lots of content ready to be released, it'll be put out then, but otherwise stuff will be held until a proper update for the time being. Now, while this isn't necessarily official yet, SMWorks IS looking for content creators to join the site. While traditionally, it's just been me running the show, something else other than the Silver Lines needs to be here. If you are interested in joining up and getting your own downloads page for your content specifically, email our support email under the Support tab and we'll get back to you. If you're interested, have some kind of 'samples' ready. But please remember - Quality over Quantity. Even if you don't have lots of items, as long as they are of good quality you're just fine. You can choose to opt into the SMWorks Update System if you want as well - meaning your items get packaged into the next update, major or not, and will be announced along with the rest of the items that update. Regardless, your item(s) released will be mentioned in the update nearest after your items are up. The SM in SMWorks may no longer stand for Silvermoon anymore... Cheers, SM Within just the past 2 weeks, SMWorks has received 2 major updates. The first update was effectively nameless, but nicknamed the "Streamline Update" because it cut down on, well, everything and made it easier to browse the site. The Streamline Update saw the very first locomotive & piece of rollingstock arrive at SMWorks. The locomotive, a 2-8-2 Mikado #2457 was just the first of now 4. Today, SMWorks proudly presents the Steam Update. The Steam Update features 3 brand new steam locomotives. Including Silver Lines 2-8-8-2 #2371 Silver Lines 2-10-2 #2483 Silver Lines 0-8-0 #2447 ...and last, but not least, Strasburg 475 Hooter Whistle The entire locomotives section has received a full redesign and has all 4 of these new items ready for download. Please note: SMWorks does NOT support Trainz: A New Era (T:ANE).
T:ANE errors sent to SMWorks Support will be disregarded, as it is stated we will not assist T:ANE users with any of our content at this time. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the new updates! Cheers, SM Trainz: A New Era... one of the worst games I've ever touched. The Mac release of the game finally came out (over a month late), and it is so poorly optimized and full of bugs it's basically unusable. With settings on their lowest, framerates are atrociously bad. Comparatively, Trainz Mac 2 on high settings run pretty well (30-60fps), while T:ANE runs (at lowest settings) at 1-15 fps on a basic route. Horrible. I will confirm again: No SMWorks content will ever be supported for T:ANE. Routes, locos, rollingstock, etc. will receive NO support from us, and likely will NEVER see support. It is not worth the time and effort to do so. On the topic of routes, however, progress on constructing the electrified route is going well. A few images taken in Trainz Mac 2 (edits done in GIMP). The large overhaul is doing well, and is should be coming to a close relatively soon. From there, expansion can once more continue. As it stands, the route has expanded in terms of baseboards and tracks, but no terraforming, texturing, or scenery placement has gone down on any of the new boards. Introducing some very good news here: SMWorks will finally have its first locomotive available soon™ (and I use the word soon loosely). The locomotive will be a Silver Lines 'Little Joe' EF4. It will be a finished model coming from an open-source model a friend has given to me. It allows me to customize the locomotive to my own specifications, and have things on it the current EF4 I use doesn't. It also means I can release it on my own without reskin permissions - just have to credit the original author (Josheh on the Trainz Forums). A render of it: That's all for now. Stay tuned for updates in the future!
Cheers, SM And merely a few days later, I am here to talk about stuff to do with T:ANE's release.
SMWorks is NOT supporting T:ANE at this time. We just don't plan on supporting it for now. It's far too early to say much about the game for now, and there are issues with it that affect our content. Currently, the Pofig Trees that are used all over all SMWorks routes do not work in T:ANE because they are part of Speedtree V5 - which is no longer supported by T:ANE. T:ANE uses Speedtree V6, which requires a paid license, and as far as I know, Pofig can't get that at the moment. No trees in a route from SMWorks will work in T:ANE. It is very unfortunate, and we hope that someday soon Pofig will be able to, or another person with his permission, upgrade the trees to T:ANE and release them as proper freeware. As of now, this is not the case. What's in store for the future? The plans for the future are to halt all construction on the Silver Lines, Silver Lines Midwest, & NB Model routes for the time being. Currently, the electrified route is #1 on the priority list. Nothing else is more important than getting this, it's locomotives, and its buildings done. There is no way to tell when it will be completed, but it isn't going to be soon. A brief Q&A of some questions I've received on the forums/Skype. Q: What route is that in your screenshots? A: The route you see is the Silver Lines Electric Coal route, an ongoing WIP. Q: What locomotives are those/where can I get them? A: The locomotives are reskins of tume's wonderful Milwaukee Road EF4 & EF1 locomotives. The Milwaukee Road paint scheme is available through the DLS or through Deluxe/Collectors versions of T:ANE. Q: Is your route available? A: The SLEC route is not available at this time. Q: Can I beta test/get a copy early? A: Right now, we have five beta testers (dropping one and picking up a new one) who actively test the route to make sure things are working. Beta testing entries are closed for the time being, however we may see them open back up in the future. No, you may not receive a copy without being a tester. Q: What (item) is that and where can I get it? A: The SLEC route has dependencies from all around the DLS, JointedRail, and other sites. When the route is completed, a full dependency list will be given so you can know what everything is. Normally here I would post screenshots, however the route is undergoing a huge overhaul to change lots of stuff. Any questions/concerns/comments/feedback, comment or contact me through the contacts tab on the site! Cheers, SM Hey folks, Today we have a few new releases! First one, and this is the big one, we have the Silver Lines Overgrown Tracks Ver. 2! The route has stayed generally the same structurally and the trackwork is almost exactly the same. This is the changelog:
Instead of screenshots, we have a short promo video. (Please note all locomotives/rollingstock have been removed)
The route still features no sessions, signals, locomotives, or rollingstock. The lack of signaling comes from the route being so short, and most of the tracks are overgrown and ruined, making signals useless because of the very little use of the tracks. Note for TS12 users: You will need to change the build number in the routes config from 3.8 to 3.7 due to Trainz Mac 2's higher build number. You can find the route under Downloads > Silver Lines Overgrown Tracks All dependencies can be found on the DLS & JointedRail. If you are missing any, before posting here please run them through TrainzKuidIndex. Download these and more at http://smworks.weebly.com/ That'll do it for this update. If you have any concerns/questions/comments contact me using an option under Blog/Updates > Contact Me Cheers, SM At last, like caption says, content. Today we have some new stuff. Release 1/3/15 - Scenery2 new buildings, reskinned, originally from jointedrail.com. -Silver Lines Railroad Engine Shed & Repair Shop -Northborough Yard Tower These can be found under the 'Scenery' tab on the site, and in-game. ::Note:: The engine shed sign is subject to change - if it is changed in the future, it will be re-released and replace the old one. In other news, I have been working on a few other projects. The primary project I'm focused on is a new route. This is a brand new route with new texturing, landscaping, trackwork, and scenery. The route is based up in the mountains in the northern United States, similar to the Milwaukee Road's electric route. In this case, instead of the Milwaukee Road, we have the Silver Lines Railroad with electrics. The story in this case that instead of the Soo Line buying the MILW, the SLRR purchased the failing company before their electric locomotives were sent to the scrappers. The SLRR shops rebuilt the inner workings of the EF4 'Little Joe' locomotives, and even get working sets of EF1 Boxcabs, among other smaller electrics. This route is purely fictional. The terrain is not made with any DEMs or pictures before - hand built and with inspiration from tume's Milwaukee Road Avery-Drexel route. Here are a few pictures of the route, and included are the current SLRR EF4s (subject to change). I can in no way guarantee the release of the EF4 locomotives in SLRR scheme. I would need to contact tume about it and get his permission. I may see about it near a release for this route.
This route will be my primary focus for a while, so the other Silver Lines routes are on hold for the time being. This new route will likely be a major release a few months from now. Head on over to the Trainz forums and find my topic in the screenshots section (lego207's Work/Silver Lines) to get updates on the latest progress, as well as future plans for each route. As a side note, because of this new route design, the release of the other two larger Silver Lines routes will be pushed back even further - primarily due to texturing and grass placement. This electric route is the only route with multiple textures mixed together to make most parts of it. The other SL routes are built with one or two textures that have been rotated around. This has at least three to four textures, rotated and mixed in a 6x6 grid area. Much of it is covered by heavy tree cover. Strangely, even with the likely thousands of trees already placed down, there is very little frame drops. That's all for now. Sorry for no updates for a while, but stuff happens! Cheers, SM Hey guys, short post, but I have just pushed out a big update.
From now on, routes will have their own page each. In the future, I will add a slideshow of pictures from the route, but for now, on the page for a route you will the find the following:
So that's all now. Content releases will be in the next update - we'll be seeing scenery. Cheers, SM |
Hello, my name is SM, and this is where I write.
This little blogspace is where my thoughts go - whether it's talking about a photography trip or a DJ mix, this is where it all ends up. SMWorks isn't free to run! Consider sending a little support our way if you can.
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