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Trainz Preview

The popularity of Microsoft's Train Simulator has spawned similar spinoffs, like this model train sim.

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Auran's upcoming Trainz is designed for those who have never grown up...or, more specifically, for those who have never outgrown a childhood fascination with trains that survived mothballing that model railroad set. The Australian developer, best known for creating the original Dark Reign in 1997, is teaming up with publisher Strategy First for the February release of a software toy of sorts best described as a model train simulator.

Part of the fun is checking out your train collection.
Part of the fun is checking out your train collection.

A recent beta build shows that this focus should make Trainz very different from other railroading games. For example, although Auran will be competing with Microsoft Train Simulator for the same locomotive-happy audience, the two titles have little in common. Where Train Simulator re-creates the operation of authentic trains in real-world situations involving shipping cargo and transporting passengers, Trainz makes you an omniscient figure with complete control over both the trains and their environment. Instead of pushing your engine to the limit so that commuters can reach Osaka in time for work, you'll gather cars and construct terrain layouts. Anything you could build in your basement--albeit with plenty of room, a knack for carpentry, and a king's ransom's worth of Lionel model railroading equipment--can be accomplished here.

Driving through the snow.
Driving through the snow.

Your creativity will be indulged in three separate components that Auran is calling modules. The first, My Collection, is a place where devotees can look over their engines and cars. Each is represented by an intricate 3D model that can be rotated and inspected at close range. It's not quite the same as being able to actually handle neat little plastic locomotives and boxcars, but it comes with some added benefits. Cars can be organized by name, country of origin, and corporation, and technical information on each can be called up at any time. Railroad historians should appreciate the amount of data gathered here. Rolling stock varieties on display in the beta include refrigeration cars, passenger cars, and even flatbeds bearing loads of huge redwood trees for the lumberyard.

Users will eventually be able to put together a collection representing the world's principal railroading nations. The beta showcases just a few locomotive types from Canada, France, and the United States, although the final is expected to host nearly 40 different models. Each of these engines is expected to be from the modern era, so those of you interested in the golden age of steam locomotion will have to make do, for at least a little while. Auran is promising that Trainz will receive a lot of aftermarket support in the way of official expansion packs and downloadable goodies, meaning that this oversight will probably be corrected in short order. As with traditional model railroading, special engines and cars will be available for individual purchase. It probably won't be too long before you'll be able to steam your way through the English countryside of the middle 19th century.

Surveying the Terrain

Perhaps the most important of the three modules will be Surveyor. This program lets you construct layouts--the model railroading term for the track and its surrounding terrain. Everything is guided with a point-and-click interface and a bank of icons along the right side of the screen. Clicking on these icons opens up menus that give you full authority over the environment. Access the paint commands and you can turn the countryside into grassy meadows, dirt-brown farmland, or thick forests. Move to topology to carve hills and valleys, and even create lakes and rivers by filling the latter up with water. Switch to the objects control panel to erect houses, churches, factories, and every other type of structure known to man, along with such frills as cars, street signs, farm animals, and the like. A tools menu lets you fine-tune all of the above, right down to the color of the water. And of course, all manner of tracks can be laid on top of and around the terrain and objects.

You can also serve as a virtual engineer.
You can also serve as a virtual engineer.

No experience with model railroading will be required to operate Surveyor. The utility is already very easy to use, thanks to straightforward controls and a helpful camera system that lets you zoom in and out with the mousewheel and pan across the terrain with a click of the right mouse button. Basic layouts can be constructed in mere moments, though of course more elaborate designs will require some serious effort on your part. At this point in the game's design, however, it doesn't appear as if any special effort will be required to learn the program's interface. That alone should help Trainz develop a good following among model railroading enthusiasts who are just casual computer gamers.

Setting up your cars is an easy process.
Setting up your cars is an easy process.

Finally, the Driver module lets you get a good look at what you've created. A dream come true for the real-life model railroad architect, this program gives you a firsthand tour of your layout. You'll begin by establishing parameters for your trip. This includes picking an engine and setting up train consists--the cars trailing your engine and the order in which they are coupled together--and choosing a layout section through which to travel. Trains can be controlled manually, similar to those in Microsoft Train Simulator, or in the nearly automatic fashion of typical model trains so that you can just sit back and enjoy the scenery that you created. A route can be selected on the fly by either clicking on the onscreen track switches or by calling up a layout map.

You can also tweak various other atmospheric settings. Any time of the day or night can be selected for your run, from early morning to late at night when you'll speed through the dark with only the stars for company. Weather can be adjusted as well. Choose a Canadian Pacific engine and you can set up one of the Great White North's blizzards, or you can pick a Santa Fe engine and roar through the pouring rain of the US Southwest. Climatic conditions can be set to change over time so that lengthy runs will show variations in terms of cloud cover, snowfall, and rainfall. And time compression can be altered so that you'll be able to get through a lengthy trip in a matter of minutes, experiencing full day and night cycles just like you were an engineer on a real long haul. Serious simmers will be able to do their runs in real time, of course.

More Module Madness

The Surveyor module is easy to use.
The Surveyor module is easy to use.

Excursions with Driver show a remarkable level of graphical detail. Auran is using OpenGL to create a 3D world filled with lifelike models and terrain features. Even those of you with little interest in model railroading can't help but be captivated by the sight of a train in motion here. Three camera angles are available--a cab view that lets you see the world from the engineer's perspective, a chase view that can be rotated around the engine, and a tracking view that moves to random locations (and often provides some of the most stunning looks at the scenery). All three cameras show the engines and cars to be near-perfect replicas of their real-world counterparts. The three default layouts included with the beta are often spectacular. Set things up for a late-night run in the rain and you'll get to see lightning illuminating distant hills and the dynamic effect of your headlamp lighting up the track ahead and exhaust billowing up toward the clouds. Snowy evenings are even more dramatic, thanks to big fluffy snowflakes that put you in a Christmas state of mind. These settings can be lively as well. People crowd station platforms, and cars make their way down roads. Homes and farms have a lived-in look that belies each layout's status as a mere model. The default maps certainly indicate that there is a lot of potential in the Surveyor module.

First-person view of a starry night.
First-person view of a starry night.

Audio is sparse, at least at the present time. There are few sound effects in the beta other than the chug of the engines and the conversational buzz of people at train station platforms, and there's no musical soundtrack. In some ways, there is an industrial feel here, provided by the way the sound of heavy machinery dominates. Still, not many changes seem to be needed, although a few more atmospheric effects would be welcome in the final build.

Actually, calling the boxed version of Trainz "final" may be slightly erroneous. As indicated above, the game is being developed with expansion in mind. A fourth module, called the Yardmaster, has already been announced. This follow-up will adjust the physics engine to allow rolling cars, introduce a number of new objects such as cranes and filling stations, allow the use of signaling methods from across the globe, and more. Regional add-on packs are also on tap, as is online capability. Auran has ambitious plans to make Trainz the ultimate railroad simulator on the Internet, complete with linked user layouts that will afford the creation of virtual railways. Those who would rather do car and layout design work on their own will be able to avoid some of the official expansion packs by turning to user-made work. Auran has already set up a section of its Web site to host these creations. A 3D Studio Max plug-in will ship with the game, making it easy for third-party designers to produce engine and car models.

Trainz is shaping up as an intriguing alternative to traditional railroad modeling, particularly for those with limited floorspace and others who would prefer to construct track layouts with a mouse rather than a hammer and saw. It is currently available online at the Auran Web site, though an updated retail edition will be in stores sometime in February.

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