Depressed

My HSC results came out today, and even though I still haven't checked my results, I am very depressed about it. Progress had stalled for a few days now, since I was at Barrington Tops for 3 days, even though I took my laptop with me, I couldn't pull myself together. Hope I can make some progress today, I could only hope......

Getting very frustrated

I am getting very frustrated, for 3 days, I got absolutely nowhere with this rack system. A colleague of mine from Singapore has made a new rack for me, and it has significantly reduced the amount of textures by using transparencies. The first photo shows the rack. However, when I bend it using Object Bender to use it for curves, it is still too texturally heavy, and even if I reduce each segment down to 1 metre, it is still ridiculously slow. The second photo shows a curved rack with length of 5 metres, and this has taken Object Viewer about 2 minutes to load.So I'm back to square 1, and decided that it might be better for me to do signals first. As they always say, "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray, and leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy". My plan to create a good looking rack and pinion railway has gone nowhere but down the drain. I am very depressed now :'( .

good news and bad news

Good news, I made a relatively good looking signal that looks more or less like the real signal.
Bad news, the rack I made has to be scrapped, because it is too texturally heavy, meaning that nobody, literally nobody, can play the simulation without lag. Sorry people, I know the rack looks so nice and real, I have to abandon it :(

New rack railway

This is what I've done for a whole day, after about 6000 lines of coding, and 10 teeth per metre, I have finally finished racks along straight sections of the railway, more to come, as I bend objects for curves......Here are two photos. The first one just shows the rails, while the second one shows the rack rail in a tunnel, along with a metre marker I made a couple of days ago.

Work on trying to replicate photos

There are two photos, and the degree of realism is shown, and yes, even though everything looks nice, it is still not finished. The bottom one is taken by Maikha Ly, I do not claim any form of ownership of the second photo, and I sincerely appreciate his effort and permission for me to use his photos.

Progress resumes

Some more line side markers, such as the first photo, showing the black and white marker, meaning a flat section of the track, and the distance from Bullocks Flat in metres, shown in the second photo. I know the train isn't the skitube, it is a cog wheel train from Hungary

Progress stalled

Sorry about this, but i have something really important to do for the next week or so, so no coding will happen for my train simulation. Sorry.

Second photo

Just a bit of minor details,such as gradient signs, with the one in the photo being one of many along the route. They indicate the percentage of incline, with the one in the photo showing 3% uphill. Others include 5% uphill and downhill, 3% downhill, 2% uphill and downhill, 12.5% uphill and downhill, and flat. Quite a rollercoaster ride!!! This is a photo texture, but a bit of work is needed.

Finally, the first photo is up

Finally, the first photo can be published. This is the entrance of the tunnel from the bottom to Perisher Blue. It is made by using a photo taken by Maikha Ly (who kindly granted permission to use his photos), the texture and the track are by the Network West Midlands Team (who has kindly allowed all route developers to use their objects), and the switch, which is created by the program Switch. There is certainly progress after the HSC. Sorry about the quality, I had to reduce the size for faster upload.

HSC is over

HSC is all over tomorrow, so I'll offically start my progress. It won't be long before I put up some nice screenshots. Anyway, here are some photos that my friend took, http://www.railpage.com.au/f-p1383481.htm. Before Christmas, there will be a lot of screenshots up to enjoy. At the moment, please be patient.

Some further news before I abandon it for HSC

Yr 11 are off to Jindabyne for camp next week, and they will be catching the Skitube :)
I tried to ask any one of them to come forward and offered a $50 job to take pictures and videos for me. None of them applied.
So,with close to absolutely nothing to work with, work will stall until I finish my HSC.
Quite a costly project. A return ticket costs $32!!!
I'll leave you with a video on youtube about the skitube, taken not by me. Enjoy.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5jhjO0FGBA

Work so far, before I abandon it for my HSC

Not much, just finished all the gradients and curves. I have added a few signals in, and some tunnel walls. I still require permissions to use the objects, so no photo at the moment.

Ski Tube

Welcome to Perisher and to Skitube!!! (This photo is not taken by me, I take no ownership of it)