Revision as of 02:36, 5 September 2020

The top left menu bar includes a Camera Menu providing 8 different camera view options in TRS2019 (4 in TS12) for viewing the 3D world (and, as well, a 2D Map View; see Help:Surveyor MenuCamera). This help page covers setting up tracking cameras along your route specifically for Lineside View. A camera is a map object set anywhere on the layout (game board), that will activate (change your view of the scene to what the camera sees) when a train that has focus comes within a 150-200 meters (490 - 660 feet) of the camera. Placing a Session in Camera Mode (Lineside in TRS19) will activate any camera along a route as it is encountered, but will default to Chase Mode in the absence of a camera encounter.

A camera can be placed when editing either a Route or a Session. A camera placed in a Session will only activate in that Session; a camera placed on a Route will be present in all sessions attached to that route. Cameras are placed and managed from the Tools menu in an edit mode. Three tools are available: "Place camera 'A'", "Move camera 'M'", and "Delete camera 'D'". To place a camera, move your viewpoint to the approximate location where you wish to place it, click on Place camera, move your pointer to the exact location on the ground and click LMB. The camera view will appear, with the view area marked by four corner angle lines, and a flashing green light indicating the camera has been created and set in 3D space and you are in Move camera mode. Adjusting the actual view to what is desired is accomplished with the arrow, PgUp, and PgDn keys on the numeric keyboard, allowing you to pan left or right (arrow or cursor keys), up or down (arrow or cursor keys), or forward (PgUp or zoom in key) or backward (PgDn or zoom out key). The camera location and mode are fixed by clicking on Place camera a second time. Use the PgDn or zoom out key to back off and see the camera. Not satisfied? Click the pointer on the camera body and click Delete camera to remove the camera, allowing you to start over in a more desirable position using your pointer. The Move camera tool can be used to adjust an existing camera.

The camera itself has a distinctive icon (a camera body and a hood) and has two settings: Static and Tracking. In static mode, the camera view is fixed, the camera has a red hood, and the camera is activated by a train entering the view area at the set distance. In tracking mode, the camera follows the train engine and is activated when the train enters an area defined by a circle with a radius of 150 to 200 meters; the camera hood is green; and the camera turns off (the screen view is passed to another camera or to Chase mode) once the train leaves the circle centered on the camera. Note that in Tracking mode, the pan of the camera will be determined by the train, so you need only adjust the angle (up/down arrows) and closeness to the track (PgUp/PgDn). It is best to get in the habit of selecting Static or Tracking mode before fixing the location of the camera.

Placing cameras at particularly interesting points along a route will result in the view shifting from Chase to Camera mode as the train progresses and encounters the camera triggers. Chase mode views are set up by the player and camera views--set up by the developer--may conflict with the user's preferred way of following his train. This fact suggests that if Camera mode is going to be used, the experience must be a continuous one for at least some distance of travel if not the entire layout. Camera mode becomes a tool that can be developed to display a route/session in a manner at the control of the developer, particularly suitable to ride-along scenarios. Setting up a series of cameras that move the view from camera to camera as a train progresses along a track can be a fairly complex undertaking, requiring not only consideration of the best separation between cameras, but some consideration of cinematic principles. Cameras must be chained together so that the view is handed off from one to the next camera in a long sequence; cameras set too close together will produce short bursts of views and a jerky experience. Camera views are the equivalent of a rail-fan's view of the route.

Establishing smooth transitions can be done by hit or miss, or employing a useful tool: the guide camera sphere <KUID2:70337:23049:1>, an object that, set directly on a camera, draws a transparent green hemisphere showing where the distance of 660 feet (200 meters) is located from that camera in all directions above the ground. Of course cameras need not be placed at the point where two adjacent hemispheres just touch or overlap. At any point where two cameras are separated by more than the maximum trigger distance, the view will jump from Camera mode to (an unknown) Chase mode, then back to Camera mode.

See Also:

• Help:Driver_MenuCamera