Looking for New Rail 2D Graphics

[Bill-Peters]

I am looking to see if there exists a traditional looking rail graphic. The typical two rails with the wooden cross ties. The current graphic is hard to work with in the Map Editor and the Light Bridge graphic which does not stand out enough.

Has anyone seen such a graphic?

I tried to put one together tonight but didn't get very far. Just not as good at the graphics part of the artwork for the terrain as I am for other parts of these products.

PM me or post here please. Thanks!

[MisterMark]

Yeah I'd like to see some sort of alternate mod for rail lines too. The typical depiction of a rail line on older maps is usually a single line with hash marks intersecting at 90 degrees to the route line.

Seems simple enough so I'm surprised no one has done it yet. Keep me posted if you find something!

-Mark

[MisterMark]

Well after thinking about it, I decided to have a go at it myself. Here is a quick screen shot of what I've been able to put together on the Smolensk map (click on image to enlarge and get a better look).

I'm not 100% on the colors and I've only modded the most common rail shapes as a test... it would take me quite a bit longer to convert every single rail graphic but I think this is off to a good start. If I can find the time, I'll see if I can complete a whole set for the small, and med views too.

Let me know what ya think

-Mark

[LordDeadwood]

Looks good to me, I like it.

[Dion]

Looks good to me too. I don't think the colors or anything else should be changed. I hate it when rail lines look like colored roads or border lines, and less like railroad tracks, but yours don't do that. Good work!

[MisterMark]

Looks good to me too. I don't think the colors or anything else should be changed. I hate it when rail lines look like colored roads or border lines, and less like railroad tracks, but yours don't do that. Good work!

Thank you both for the feedback... however, it doesn't translate as well when the rail line is going through a large area of forest hexes... the rail line seems to get a little lost as you can see in this example here:


dice generator

Also not sure how it will look on other maps and hex types but in the open terrain it seems to work well. I'll try some variations and post here for more feedback.

-Mark

[Dion]

Ah...I see what you mean. The railroad ties get lost in the trees, so have to follow the tracks until they get in the clear otherwise they just look like another road. I don't think it will bother most people though, you get used to it. Still, good work anyway!

[Bill-Peters]

I can see it fine in the woods. <THUMBSUP>

Could you share that with the WDS community, please. I will start using it with my map making work right away!

[MisterMark]

So I experimented with several different approaches and the best color combination to my eyes has the alternating dark and light similar to the original. This version seems to stand out a bit better through the forest hexes over the all grey version. Nonetheless, below you can compare this latest version with the alternating dark and light, the all grey version and the original version... feel free to chime in with your opinion.