My Experience with the Train-Sim Community
By Jake Kulik
This might be the kiss of death for me, but I have strong feelings about
this site and the members here, and I would like to express them. First, a
little background information. My name is Jake Kulik and, like many
others, I was a member of FlightSim.Com before Nels instituted this site.
I can recall awaiting each new announcement from over a year ago when
Robert Scoble started the Microsoft Train Simulator Fan Site, and when the
screen shots were first posted the message boards were alive with
speculation. Then the betas were released and we finally had something to
drool over until the release.
June 1, 2001 I purchased my copy off the shelf in the local Electronics
Boutique. No problem with the install, good frame rate, good sound, good
views. All was right with the world. Since Nels had a beta copy he had
done some of the first repaints (look for the New Haven GP38). At that
time I posted that there was only one exhaust trail coming from the GP38
and Nels answered with one of the first .eng file hacks: dual exhausts.
Things got better and better (the head out for diesels, etc.), and
TrainSim.Com grew.
The download section steadily grew on a daily basis, basically repaints at
first, but then two weeks later Kevin Combs released the SW1200 and SW900.
New models! Yard goats at that. Others followed, and the library grew
larger. What kept MSTS alive on my hard drive was that it became user
oriented instead of Microsoft/Kuju dependent. Tutorials were written on
repaints, file manipulation, route editors, etc. It seemed that every
facet of the sim had someone working to change or improve it.
I decided that I could do my part. At FlightSim.Com, I was a voracious
downloader, but I didn't contribute, because I didn't know how. I didn't
possess that knowledge here either, but others were willing to share. I
"liberated" my son's copy of PhotoShop (he went to an art school), and
attempted my first repaint. Of course I was going to make the Totally
Perfect Conrail GP38 on the first try, but that's when I learned that what
you see isn't always what you get. The texture mapping was poor, and I was
bummed...so I tried a boxcar, got it to work, uploaded it and must have
checked 10 times a day to see how many downloads it got. I was happy with
anything more than one. This encouraged me to try others.
The library started to grow quality-wise as well. When
Train Artisan
released the ESE v1.0 we couldn't get it fast enough.
3D Trains
F7 was another milestone. Sky Conductor became a necessity. Some offerings
were pay ware, some were free, but all were setting new standards for the
sim. John Fowlis' 4-6-2 was amazing. Ian Morgan's track truck was buried
in the maze of files, but he enabled us to survey our routes with it. I
was fortunate to be a beta tester for Chip Buchanan's GP15 with the
see-through air intakes. Sam Spade's cab views are of the highest quality.
I spend more time railroading the PO&N, East Metro and Hoboken Shore than
I do on the default routes. It seemed like every day someone had uploaded
a "must-have". That trend has continued to this day.
What prompted me to write this was my dumb luck at releasing the rotary
snowplow (plough). When I got
TSM I stumbled through the tutorials, and
then decided to take my usual path - start a project by winging it to try
to learn what I needed to know when I needed it (I'm not a big fan of
RTFM - Read The Fine Manual). After some mental anguish (and references
to all the forums), I managed to construct, animate, and convert it into
MSTS. It was rough around the edges, but it did function. In my nightly
perusal of the forums, I saw Ron Paludan's snow file mod post. I replied
with a screen shot of my plow and said that I had just the thing for all
that snow. We conversed off line and said he was willing to host the plow
on his site. I uploaded it rough spots and all at TrainSim.Com and Ron's
site that day.
I was perfectly happy with it in the first release, having no prior 3D
experience; I was thrilled to just see it function. Then Chuck Hebert
thought he could do a steam engine file and add "snow effects". Harold
Clitheroe thought likewise, and my personal mailbox zoomed over quota as
files got tweaked and zipped off everywhere (in my haste, I had left out
a .con file on one version, but most folks overlooked that - thanks).
When Chuck and I released the steam rotary I couldn't get over it. All I
did was add a smokestack, but Chuck's magic made it come alive. Now with
the modern rotary and snow effects in the blade area plus the sound files
it's reached a new level.
What I'm proudest of is that this WASN'T a solo effort. In the truest
sense this was a community project that went far beyond anything I had
imagined. Ron started the snow craze, Harold is managing to get the track
textures "snowed in", Chuck will probably have the MSTS cows spitting snow
next, and all the other projects that are ongoing, whether they be route
building, locomotive or rolling stock issues, cab views, file tweaks,
sound mods, you name it - this is what makes Microsoft's motto - As Real
As It Gets - ring true. My thanks to all the people and 3rd party vendors
responsible for ANY add-on - a simple repaint or a complex locomotive and
route package will all be welcomed here. Hopefully anyone who downloads
files from this site will be encouraged to try their hand at a project.
The atmosphere that Nels has fostered here is indeed that of a
"clubhouse", and I feel like I have many friends sharing the same passion
about MSTS. Things can only get better.
Jake Kulik
lightbg@bellatlantic.net
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