April 2024 Newsletter
Aint no joke!
I know I must sound like a broken record at this point but the P&B is awfully close to completion and I couldn't be more excited. The route is looking great and I've been working with JR to get a new loco pack put together to update the roster a bit. More info on that in a future post though.
Currently Willys is working on the route updating some older scenery on the eastern end as well as adding ambient environmental sounds, track condition and swapping out overly high poly assets for ones that won't drag performance. Let's look at what's left for me to do once the route is passed back to me.
Industry configuration -I've already added the JR multi industries where they need to be but still need to configure everything. A bunch of industries along the phase 1 section were also reset at some point so I'll have to address those as well.
TRC -ugh, not looking forward to this part. Will need to configure all TRC crossing gates and traffic stoppers.
Double check signals, speed limits and track marks -I've already spent a bunch of time adding all those things but I've already encountered a few issues I'll need to address. Namely needing a few additional track marks for industries and a signal or two malfunctioning here and there. Shouldn't be tooooooo time consuming
And I think that's about it. Then I can fully start the beta testing stage and get this thing out to you guys! I'm sure I'm forgetting something checks notes but I'm still feeling pretty confident I'll have it in the late spring.
Subscription Billing for Patrons:
"Subscription Billing" has arrived to my Patreon! What does it mean? Billing will now occur every 30 days from the day you sign up rather than the first of every month.
If you're currently a Patron (or long time Patron) nothing will change for you, you'll still be billed on the first. But if you're new or you're a current Patron who comes and goes and cancels and rejoins often you'll now be billed monthly on the date you subscribe. So you'll no longer have to worry about being double billed the first of the next month if you join near the end of the month.
It'll make things easier for you guys and those that want to join here and there to grab assets or route downloads, etc.
What else is going on?
Recently I added the JR Median assets to my website as a separate download for those of you who've been searching for them for a while now. You can find them under the asset collections section all the way at the bottom.
I've also been working on updating my old Union Terminal model railroad so that will be added to the website in the very near future as well. My goal is to get all of my small routes/modules updated to 22 with PBR textures and get them uploaded to my site where they belong. Damn procrastination hits again!
Once the P&B is out my plan is to begin work on the New York Cross Harbor module for Trainz 22. This will be a video series but I haven't decided on what the format will be yet. I've honestly been pretty burned out with video production these days so we'll have to see how this one pans out. Either way, it's a project I'm really looking forward to. Its going to be a challenging build and likely require me to custom make a few of my own building assets in Blender so I'm sure that'll be entertaining at least 😂
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Patreon Benefits:
Executive: The P&B route download with Willys updates will be available by April 2nd or 3rd. Again, I don't know all of the specifics of what he's adding/removing, so we're all going to find out together 😁
Dispatcher: This month's livestream will be Wednesday the 10th at 7pm EST. Usually it's the first Wednesday of the month but I'm doing the N3V live stream on the 2nd and I'd like to avoid doing back-to-back streams. I may have to permanently move this stream to the second or third Wednesday in order to avoid doing back to back streams.
Project Manager: I'm actually pretty excited about this asset pack and I think you guys are going to love it as well. This month is a pack of 5 actual classic style brownstone homes. These are the kind that are very characteristic of cities like New York and Boston. And I can honestly say, I don't think there are any assets available that I've seen that fit this niche. The collection has several variations in size and shape and there are corner units for both left and right sides.
The full collection of buildings will be released in two parts, April and May.
Station Agent: Weekly Wednesday hangouts (7PM EST) should continue as scheduled all month.
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That's about all I got for this month. Keep an eye out for updates to my website, new videos (hopefully again soon), livestreams and maybe some more N Scale stuff.
Thanks for the support!
-AM