Finally a bit of French Touch on Train Sim World. It was time. So many of us want to take control of our famous TGV. It was during a question-answer with 2 developers, Jess and Matt, on the blog of dove tail that we learned of the existence of the future “LGV Méditerranée” DLC. Here is a translation.
Before we start, can you tell us what the two of you do at Dovetail?
I ss : I am the main artist of the environment. Within the team we have dedicated road performers who are responsible for building the world much like a level builder would, which includes props, track elements, and sets.
Matt: I am the main producer. I take care of the team in general, watch over the vision of the product and its evolution. More specifically, I lead the track, signal and gameplay teams. I'm directing the gameplay that's being created and helping these teams deliver great stuff.
What do you do first when creating a route?
I ss : It's a mix of things from multiple teams that are all interconnected. The start of the route will start normally with the track crew and they will generate the “tiles” from which we build the world, to do this we source DEM (Digital Elevation Models) data. This then creates the tiles with an elevation based on that data, and the trail team will then lay the trail based on Google Earth or follow documents much like blueprints.
Once we have that we get the art involved and they will start building the route itself using the assets we have, foliage and buildings, while sculpting the landscape from video and photo references. We then build from this in stages.
What's the biggest challenge in recreating an actual route?
I ss : We like to be as specific as possible. We focus on key areas such as stations and the areas around it, including key gaming areas such as depots and courtyards.
We'll of course be basing everything on real-world imagery, but if a road has to be slightly too far to the left to make sure it works in terms of the landscape, that's an artistic choice we'll make. We also sometimes have to edit things to have working NPCs. Within the framework of an artistic license, we try to be as precise as possible, but our main goal is really to give a correct impression of the route, this is our priority.
How do you build a route and how is LGV different?
I ss : For the LGV line, we have introduced a new pipeline which uses our new tool.
Matt: When you visit websites like Open Street Map and Google Earth and see the map, what feeds those maps is the data. Through sites like this, we can access this raw data. The tool we are building then transforms this raw data into instructions in Unreal to say “paint this terrain” for example.
I ss : Our lovely tech team implemented the ability to extract tiles from the DEM data and use a collection of scripts to automatically generate the landscape painting and asset placement. They then apply our landscape material and they pre-paint areas such as roads, concrete and track ballast. They can also prepopulate areas with meshes, which includes things like tree lines, fences, and hedges, so when we get to our initial stage with the new tool, we've skipped a few steps to the start, so it's not so much a blank canvas.
Matt: Traditionally, we build our routes by hand, which can often be difficult to see. Crafting is no different than how building a model train would be. For example, if you want a tree, you place a tree, now multiply that by 60 miles of line and that gives an idea of the weight of the work that the environment teams take on.
Players often ask us "Why not start offering longer routes?" Because one of the key things about faster trains is that you need longer routes to enjoy them properly. Either projects have to take a ridiculously long time to complete, or we have to find ways to automatically generate content.
We have to be careful how we operate on this line, this is really our first attempt at self-generation. It is not a complete self-generation. This generates some initial content, then the environment team will take a look and adjust things so that we keep the craft side. This means that we can now start a project in step 3 instead of step 0.
I ss : It's a lot nicer for the environment team to take a tile and see that it has already started, no one likes a blank canvas and that makes a project less intimidating at the start.
Matt: From there we have to decide what will be the next step to take, so in the future we automate more and more, but we do not automate the things that will harm the experience and, therefore, make all repetitive. We want to make sure we get the same quality that we would have had if everything had been done by hand.
What is unique about this route?
Matt: This will be our fastest route on Train Sim World 2 at an incredible speed of 320 km / h. This is the first route we have done which deploys TVM430 signals and also uses the French signaling system KVB in the cabin.
There are a lot of firsts, but the environmental side of this route is really interesting because it's a real roller coaster. At 320 km / h, you really feel the reliefs and you will find that they are more severe than what you could have felt before ...