Ask the Experts / Invisible Tram Tracks and Paths

I'm a born again RCT2er and a lot has happened that I'm not sure of even the terminology.

 

I viewed this is at least 2 parks I've downloaded....trams and/or cars going along "pavement" with no tracks.

Now, I have discovered and used the tile inspector for zero clearance in OpenRTC2.  Seemed to work fine. I saw no glitches.

 

Where I am perplexed is viewing these downloaded parks (in "see thru scenery") it appears to me that the tram tracks are "1 click" below grade yet the paths (tarmac) and trams are at grade. Another park this seemed to be the case with path peeps were using to enter the park.

 

So (sorry, old people ramble)....1. Why is this done? and 2. How is this done? Is there a tutorial out there for whatever this is called?

 

Thanks

 

 

Do you have pictures or links to these parks?

 

Here is my best guess as to what you are seeing:

 

A change made in OpenRCT2 is that miniature railroad track built through paths using Disable Clearances splits the roadbed and rails so that the gravel roadbed is drawn below the paths. Before this, the gravel was displayed above the paths, which is not how real railroad crossings are built.

http://imgur.com/a/aygSE

 

Hopefully these illustrate my confusion.

 

The trams are from a Busch Gardens Williamsburg reproduction.

 

The second, showing the peeps entering, is from the newly updated "Riverland Season 9" I obtained from this site.

 

As you see, there's a depression in the land and the path is on top...yet the trams and peeps are on the paths and not on the lower level, so to speak.

That effect is produced with a combination of custom objects and hacks.

 

Part 1: invisible path
 

The peeps are walking on invisible path. It's like normal path, but it's totally invisible

 

Part 2: custom path objects

The visible portion of the path is actually an object that is 2 units tall (a full-height wall is 4 units). This was done so that there would be no draw order issues with the paths, where the path might get drawn above the peeps walking above it. Because the paths are 2 units tall, a trench must be dug underneath them.

 

Part 3: hacking the track invisible

 

There are a few ways to make invisible tracks, but the simplest is changing the track type to one that has no track pieces, like a Merry-Go-Round or Crooked House. Since the track type has no track pieces to render, none are rendered.

 

Also, since a convincing bus ride has yet to be developed, many park makers use the trams as stand-ins for busses.

 

In OpenRCT2, there is a tweesers option in the scenery placement window. If you use the tweesers and click on a scenery object, you will copy the scenery object and be able to place it like any other piece of scenery.

In addition, making track into crooked house/invisible does have the effect of lowering the vehicles ever so slightly as you may have noticed.

Thanks very much. Obviously a lot has transpired since I last built in RCT2. Thanks to all above for taking the time to help this ol guy get back into the swing of things.

For making tracked rides invisible, setting the track type to crooked house is my preferred method since it's only one click as opposed to doing an entire ride tile by tile, and making any modifications after being an extreme pain in the ass. Go to the cheats menu (which you can enable in the options menu) and check the box that says something about arbitrary ride type changes. Click on a ride and in the ride window you'll see a new drop down menu at the bottom of the window. Play with it. Crooked house is the standard for invisible tracks, but it also copies the stats of a crooked house ride. If you set the track type to enterprise, the excitement rating will be higher and there will be more peeps riding it.

Welcome to the site! Don't be afraid to ask more questions or share some of your work!