MSTS Track Texture #04
By Scott Miller
smmille1@yahoo.com
August 25, 2002

This is actually a rework of my third track texture.  Jim Ward (Sniper297) had the crazy idea to put a different number than 8 ties in a acleantrack1.ace.  Chaos ensued.  Well, chaos didn't really ensue, but it looked pretty darn good.  So I reworked this to include 10 ties instead of 8.  I also scaled the files down from 512x512 to 256x256, so they're significantly smaller and should improve framerates as compared to a 512x512.  The textures look a lot better if you have anisotropic filtering enabled.  You need to have a decent video card in order to use this (it must support it, and you have to maintain playable framerates).  This is done with the command line switch /anisotropic .  There is info on it at the official Microsoft Train Simulator Website. 

Stuff from last time:
It is based on photos I took myself.  It features good condition wooden ties, with 'used' light grey ballast.  Some tie plates are missing a spike.  The alpha'd edges were made from the real edges of the ballast to obtain the most realistic border possible.  A light snow texture (to match the default snow 'amount') is also included.  These files have been modified after being produced with makeace to contain proper mip levels, and therefore when used with the default track shapes show very little moire/crawling problems.  The .ace files are compressed using acecomp.exe by Martin Wright, available from http://fly.to/mwgfx/

Installation: 
Backup old textures: (optional, but recommended)
If you would like to back up your old textures, rename acleantrack1.ace in the \textures and \textures\snow directories of the selected route to something else, i.e. acleantrack1_old.ace 
(The default install of MSTS is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator 
add \ROUTES and \"the name of the route" to this and you've got the path to the route.)

Add new textures:
Unzip acleantrack1.ace to the \textures folder of the selected route, and unzip snow\acleantrack1.ace to the snow folder of the selected route.

These files are released as Freeware. Copyright (C) 2002, Scott M. Miller.

As freeware you are permitted to distribute this subject to the following conditions:

- The archive may be freely redistibuted in its original form.

- The files may be included in any larger freeware distribution, such as a route.  The author would appreciate it if credit was given, but he understands if something like this is omitted.  

- The files are not to be included in any sort of payware package without the author's explicit permission.

- The files can be modified and redistributed (as freeware, still subject to these conditions) so long as original credit is given to the author.