Readme for the Sea View 4 Environments
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Contents:

1) PROBLEM: Route doesn't load. "Train World Initialization Failure"
2) Some notes and acknowledgments about these environments.



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1) PROBLEM: Route doesn't load. "Train World Initialization Failure"

Sea View 4 uses a new kind of water for MSTS routes. One layer of this water, called
the "reflective" layer, has caused some computers to terminate route-loading with the 
message: "Train World Initialization Failure".
Unfortunately, we've not yet been able to determine the combination of circumstances
which causes this problem. Here are the steps to follow if you encounter it.

First, make sure that Microsoft Train Simulator is not running.

Find the folder on your computer where you've just installed Sea View 4. MS Train Simulator is usually located in:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator
(although this may be different, depending on where you've put MSTS)

within which will be a folder called \ROUTES, and within which will be a folder called
\SEAVIEW4. Within SEAVIEW4 is \ENVFILES, and that's the folder we're interested in.
So the whole location is:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\ROUTES\SEAVIEW4\ENVFILES

Inside this folder are nine files of interest:

SV4Clear.env
SV4Rain.env
SV4Snow.env

SV4SunnyDay.env             	
SV4QuietRain.env            	
SV4CosmicTumult.env         	

SV4CosmicTumultNoReflect.env	
SV4QuietRainNoReflect.env   	
SV4SunnyDayNoReflect.env    	


As installed, 
SV4Clear.env is an exact duplicate of SV4SunnyDay.env
SV4Rain.env is an exact duplicate of SV4QuietRain.env
SV4Snow.env is an exact duplicate of SV4CosmicTumult.env

Also, SV4Clear.env, SV4Rain.env and SV4Snow.env are the 
actual files which Train Simulator uses to set the environment of Sea View 4. 

To fix this problem, you should delete SV4Clear.env, SV4Rain.env and SV4Snow.env. Make a copy of SV4SunnyDayNoReflect.env by highlighting it, right-clicking, and selecting "Copy". Then right-click in an open space in the same folder, and select "Paste". A file will appear called  "Copy of SV4SunnyDayNoReflect.env". Rename this file as "SV4Clear.env" (without the quote marks). Do the same with SV4QuietRainNoReflect.env and SV4CosmicTumultNoReflect.env, renaming the copies to SV4Rain.env and SV4Snow.env.

Sea View 4 should load fine by making this change, although the sea will be a little less
than originally intended.

For those folks with Environment Control installed, the process is even easier. Make sure 
that Train Simulator is NOT started. Then open Environment Control, highlight SEAVIEW4 on
the right, and click on the "Select" button. Put a check next to Summer Clear on the left. The three Summer weather conditions are the only ones that Sea View will start with. In the right hand box, select the environment file you want to use. Any of the nine listed above will do, remembering that SV4Clear.env and SV4SunnyDay.env are the same, SV4Rain.env and SV4QuietRain.env are the same, and SV4Snow and SV4CosmicTumult.env are the same; and that each provides the best example of the environment features. Then click "Load".  Do the same with Summer Rain and Summer Snow. Then "Exit" from the window and then from the program. Anytime you wish, you can go back to Environment Control and select another environment file to try.

For those folks who do have a problem loading Sea View 4, and who find that the problem 
is fixed by performing the above procedure, we'd appreciate it very much hearing from you,
and hearing about certain key details of your computer. This is because we're still trying
to track down the exact cause of this problem, and a survey of the problem-causing
hardware would help greatly.

If you experience the problem, please email me at jbush@fullhouseny.com with the following 
info, as much of this as you know:

CPU Name and Speed        example: PIII 1GHz
Amount of RAM             example: 512 MB
Video card or chip        example: Nvidia TI-4400
Operating System          example: Windows ME, Windows XP Home, etc

Those are the four important items. Any other details are fine too. Thanks so much for 
helping, if this problem happens to you!

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2) Some notes about these environments.

First off, let me point out that the Sunny Clear Sea View 4 weather and water is the same as in Sea View 3. We worked on many new environments for Sea View 4, but that original Sea View 3 sunny weather still holds up as the best so far. It is active in Sea View 4 as the file SV4Clear.env.

Here are my notes from Sea View 3 about that weather and water.

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A new water appearance came about for Sea View 3 through a remarkable set of circumstances. Conversations with Bill about Sea View (one of my absolutely favorite routes!) had led me to start fussing with the water, principally on the flashing water problem. After we achieved a semi-fix of that, Michael Vone came out with his new version of the "Guide to Route Building", which includes 60 some-odd pages detailing the environment structure of a route.

This got me excited about building a new water for Sea View. I know that Bill feels strongly about the huge importance of water in his route; after all, half the time the train is entirely surrounded by it! But I set off trying things without telling him, and only after I had something semi-ready did I ask him if he wanted to see it. To my great relief, he liked what I had done, and together we improved it to what you see here.
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Then there are the two new Sea View environments: SV4QuietRain and SV4CosmicTumult.

QuietRain got started as I worked on a better rainy weather for other routes. The default rain has always struck me as too blocky and visible. Real rain is usually barely visible; you know it's raining because you feel it, and because of the raindrops in the puddles. Here again, Michael Vone's invention of raindrops for his Albula Line 2.1 route was the catalyst. Using his raindrops idea, and modifying the rain very significantly to create more of a strong mist, I came up with "QuietRain". When Bill and I started talking about other environments for Sea View 4, QuietRain was a natural. It is active in Sea View 4 as the file SV4Rain.env.

And then there's the "Cosmic Tumult"! Bill has always advocated more action, more visible motion, even at the risk of un-realism. (After all, this is Sea View!) At one point he sent me a list of bizarre weather phenomena, so I started with the first, a solar eclipse. Never did get the solar eclipse to work right, but I did end up with Cosmic Tumult. It has 11 suns, one moon, and three sky layers, all rushing past each other at great speeds. Surely a "tumultuous" environment, if ever there was one! It is active in Sea View 4 as SV4Snow.env. (We put it in the "Snow" slot because there are only 3 weather slots available for each season, and Bill is reluctant to add more seasons to Sea View because of the many additional files which might be needed. It's already very big.)


I'd like to offer a huge thanks to Michael Vone, both for the thorough research he put into the environment section of "Guide To Route Building", and also for the conversations which helped me fill in the information gaps as I was putting it all together. Specifically, his basic work on the "reflective" water layer, and his invention of raindrops, were major contributions to these environments.   Also a real thank you to Pat Malicki for his water texture (available in the Train-Sim Library) which was used (in a greatly modified form) in two of the five layers comprising the Clear weather water. And I must add a thanks to Ron Spalding, who, although we haven't heard from him in awhile, really formed my conviction that incredible things can be done with the MSTS environment.

Also a thank you to Ransom Active Graphics (www.ransomactive.com) for their excellent sky
textures. These are payware textures. I am a registered licensee of these textures, and the use of this file for activities such as MSTS environments is explicitly permitted by the license, the relevant section of which I have printed below. 

But especially, I again want to thank Bill Burnett, creator of Sea View, for giving me 
the opportunity to give back something to him and to the Train-Sim community, in exchange
for the incredible things that I've received. Thank you so much!

Jeff Bush
jbush@fullhouseny.com


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