[Tutorial] Use real world data in Transport Fever 2

In this tutorial I show you the steps to get real data into Transport Fever 2.
Note: This is based on vector-based height data (contours) - if you have some other type of data you can probably still follow along, you just won't need to use the TIN interpolation tool.
LINKS:
QGIS: www.qgis.org/e...
GIMP: www.gimp.org/
OS Data Hub: osdatahub.os.u...
TpF2 Map sizes: www.transportf...
Find your Transport Fever userdata folder: www.transportf...[]=userdata
1km Terrain Map Brushes mod: steamcommunity...

[@bazzamackenzie8022]

Thank you! That is an incredibly useful tutorial. Much appreciated.

[@badgerrhax]

Thanks! Glad it was helpful

[@hellothere6023]

A very detailed tutorial. I wanted to do this a while ago for the Wath area and the other tutorials were hard to follow, with this I might be able to do it

[@badgerrhax]

Thanks and good luck!

[@DecPlays_]

Just book-marked this to use in the future. I'll be working on Norwich and the surrounding area

[@oswynfaux]

Very nice for those complicated areas

[@trainswithnickyt]

I was with you right up until 15:38 when my heart sank. I never saved the QGIS file and so I couldn't import my lovely map. I had to start over, remembering to both NOT close QGIS and save the project just in case. This video was immensely helpful, at this time of night though, my brain is too fried to work out how many tiles or what scaling is required for a 24kmx24km map as I have a desire to recreate a full city. I have attempted this before with inaccurate heightmap data and it didn't go as well as I'd have liked. I'm hoping this time will be better.

[@trainswithnickyt]

here's how not to do the tiles steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2618814004 I know the tutorial specifically doesn't give the info for creating 24km maps due to the amount of work involved creating the layers, but does anyone have the correct dimensions needed at 18:50 I think it will be 98304 (6x the 16384 entered by the OP,) but I have a feeling it's not that simple, or is it?

[@trainswithnickyt]

Okay, so I spent 2 hrs on and off making all my images and exporting them etc, only to find I can only use 16 of them, if I close the game and rename another 16 to A1, B1 etc, they just overwrite the ones I have placed previously. After all this, surely there must be a way for me to populate my whole map.

[@badgerrhax]

The brush mod does indeed only support 16 tiles, which covers a 4km map. For an 8km map you'd need 64 tiles, (my reply in the other comment explains how), but for a 24km map you'll need 576 tiles, meaning to use them with the 1km brush mod you'll be replacing the data 36 times. Since these are intended as temporary overlays to assist with track placement etc I recommend working through small areas then clearing the paint and replacing the tiles to paint on the adjacent area, and work systematically like that until the map is covered with roads and rails etc. Ps. 98304 is the correct number for a 24km vrt

[@badgerrhax]

Side question, what kind of imagery is it and would it survive being lower resolution and still be clear enough? If some 4km tile brushes would be useful I could look into that. They didn't serve my purpose as they lost too much fine detail for me but maybe it would be ok for different maps

[@trainswithnickyt]

@@badgerrhax it's the same OS imagery as used by you in the video, but with 576 tiles as you correctly stated. I could go through adding the road layouts 16 tiles at a time, I wondered if there was a less time consuming process though as keeping tabs on the naming and replacing could be a real pain. I'm unsure if lower resolution would work, because I am a masochist who has plans of high detailing a full city. I already attempted it with Manchester, but with a lack of accurate DEM or overlays. Sadly a corrupt save due to deleted mods killed it.

[@bbacher95]

Thanks for this! I think I'll need to give it a try.

[@hamsandwich7353]

Thank you. What an excellent walkthrough.

[@anglosaxon5874]

Great job! Easy to follow.

[@badgerrhax]

Thanks!

[@Hushey]

that 3d model kicks ass

[@badgerrhax]

Thanks!

[@fabianweiss3411]

I do not understand how i can ensure that my overlay map is to scale… I have tried creating one, but noticed, that its scale was to small. Any ideas how I can avoid such an outcome?

[@BiGC0LGAMER]

Finally got it working on 24km x 24km Megalomaniac Map with 36 titles A1 to A6 down do F1 to F6

[@12D__]

Hi mate, im trying to make a large (14km x 14km) map but im not sure how to scale up from the tiny map example he showed do you think you could share what you did?

[@bouncegenesisukbounce]

i want to do large and i cant seem to get it right

[@bigj1454]

Extremely helpful video. Thanks.

[@badgerrhax]

Glad to hear it!

[@stevekenilworth]

I thought making height map was a pain, and sometimes even that failed. thanks for vid on how too. but unsure if i try it even tho its something im always needing. really wish they make things more simple

[@liamcooper6721]

well this is a game changer. Shame Mega map is still small for what I want to cover. Could I assume that one could compression scale both terrain and Vmap?

[@jazzmann1984]

Very nice tutorial! I am currently doing this in ArcPro and working on a map of Chicago. One thing that I noticed creating the Height Map was that I didn't need to use GIMP. Also, when I moved the Height Map into to the TPF2 folder and imported it, there was an issue. The game renders these maps where the top of the map is your view facing east. I created the Racetrack Metra portion where the width of the map was running east to west and the height was running north to south. This would have rendered in TPF2 perfectly if the map sizes were 4:1. An easy fix is to open the heightmap .png in whatever preview app you are using, and rotate it once so the east end of the height map is now in the North position. I'm creating a 1:4 megalomaniac map and the ratio is 1(east to west) to 4(north to south). This fixed the heightmap rendering wrong. I don't know if this makes any sense but, if you are making a map larger than 1:1 for TPF2 and your map in ArcPro or QGIS is running east to west, once the .png is made open it, click edit and rotate the image 45 degrees to the east in ArcPro is pointing North. When you open a map in TPF2 and you tilt the map view so you are looking towards the horizon, you are facing east in an app like google maps.

[@alex1207_]

I just wanna place a simple street map on a completely flat map to make a real life city. Why can't I find a simple tutorial?

[@nimaparsa5960]

wow, still good

[@umaryudipratama933]

This is great

[@mystikaltunes]

i love your mod but i live in germany and dont know what to do.. :(

[@gochamp9339]

Any ideas on a gpkg source for NSW, Australia? Perhaps I am missing something. I can find GeoPDFs (whatever that is)...

Would this work for any place really?

[@maciejgrabowski8579]

brilliant, what a subtle solution. If I wanted a bigger map than 4x4, is it just a case of scaling up the same steps?

[@badgerrhax]

For the height data yeah. The brush mod is 1k tiles tho so if you wanted images too e.g 8x8 you'd need to generate 64 tiles instead of 16 and work on each corner of the map one at a time, then replace the tile images with the next corner, etc. For example, A1-D4 for top left, A5-D8 for top right, E1-H4 bottom right, etc. Hope that makes sense!

[@Andy-nv9pc]

Great tutorial and mod. I have been trying to adapt this to work on a 24x24km map with some success, however I have run into a problem. I have managed to get the mod to work with extra tiles by adding more .lua files and the relevant data. This has worked great up until "I7" or tile number 199, then it throws up an error: Assertion Failure: Assertion `detailTextures.size() < 255' failed. This doesn't seem to be a problem with one of the .lua files but rather a limit either in the mod or the game. Is there any limit that you know of to the number of tiles I can load into the mod? I appreciate any pointers you can give me as to how to get around this. I am happy to send the .lua files over once completed if you would like to post a 24x24 mod up in the future with some of the leg work done!

[@Paradyski]

Awesome

[@badgerrhax]

Thank you!

[@Dallas1460]

👍👍👍

[@danielgroger6725]

Very nice and interesting mod, but I can't find dates for my area, Czech Republic. Could you help me please?

[@badgerrhax]

Yeah not a lot of options by the looks of it.. there's some commercial data but if you're looking for free data all I can find is some general EU height data which is probably quite low resolution.. maybe it's a start www.opendem.info/opendemeu_background.html

[@nicokeel9609]

I am having some issue at the “TIN interpolation” part. I am missing the propertyValue interpolation attribute. I have instead OBJECTID or YEAROFCHAN which are both useless. Any idea what the problem could be? I am trying to do an area in Switzerland maybe the data I use is the wrong one.

[@badgerrhax]

Could be the type of data is incorrect - is it definitely vector height data like contours?

[@nicokeel9609]

@@badgerrhax I am using DHM25 data which should include contours.

[@nicokeel9609]

youtube seems to delete my comment as soon I mention the website or put a link to the data I used...

[@badgerrhax]

I see they also have a matrix model which is ASCII GRID format, which you could try instead and it won't need the interpolation step as it's already interpolated from the basis dataset

[@nicokeel9609]

ok thanks will try that

[@S_1.q]

this looks very sketchy