Title: Tutorial 2 - setup options and some track laying Post by: disisme on February 14, 2006, 01:05:54 AM OK, if your reading this one, I assume you
have read 'let the tutorials begin'. If you havent, go and do that
one first, because I am going to assume you are familiar with the buttons
I taught in that tutorial. In this tutorial, we are going to go through the setup screens and options that let you get started in drawing a layout seriously, rather than just dicking arouond like we were in the first tutorial. Lets start by looking at the layout options. Select "Options" from the menu and select "Layout". Set the varioous fields to the following : 200 200 Xtrkcad tutorial 2 (leave blank) HO This means we have created a layout size of 200" wide x 200" high and the track library will be HO scale. Now, 200" is pretty big, but what the hell, its all virtual space anyway, so lets use a lot of it! You'll notice that the xtrkcad map screen (that little floating one that always seems to get in the way) now shows an area much larger than what we can see on the screen. Thats what the maps FOR...so you can scroll around the layout fast. OK, on the options menu again, select 'Display'. In this screen you configure how things will ve displayed to you on screen. The default settings are ok, but jsut to make sure set them as follows : Dash All no boxes checked 72 8 no boxes checked no boxes checked 16 solid 3 'Enabled' is checked no boxes checked 90 unchecked (but you might want this one.. I hate it) Proto/Manuf from drop down list unchecked The explanations are pretty self explanatory for all those fields. Select Options again, and select Command. Settings are as follows : Normal 0.000 Describe (probably better as select, but do that later, not now!!) 100 top one selected. All you did with those options was tell xtrkcad how to do certain things when you put them on the layout and what to do when you did certain things. Select Options - easements. Values are (because we wont be doing easements) : select 'none' in the radio buttons at the bottom. Everything else becomes redundant. Try clicking the other options and see what the values change too, but make sure you leave that screen with 'none' selected. Select Options - Preferences (the other options are rather boring and a waster of time for this tutorial). The values should be : 10 English 999.999 Polar 0.100 0.100 1.000 20 500 unchecked none checked 18.000 5.000 200 You;ve just set the options that dictate the display units of measurement and the minimum and maximum acceptable tolerances for track. Title: Re: Tutorial 2 - setup options and some track laying Post by: disisme on February 14, 2006, 01:46:42 AM Right, at this point your xtrkcad session is
all setup. It will remember these settings next time you restart the
program. If you need to change scales or whatever, going with the
defaults is generally fine, but you may need to 'tweak' them under some
situations. Do that as it becomes neccesary. Bear in mind
though that decreasing your minimum turn radius to stop track going
purple, or increasing the maximum grade for the same reason is not a good
idea. Those numbers are pretty good reference points. The
track is purple for a reason....trains are going to struggle on
it. OK, remember that square of track I got you to save in the first tutorial? Load that now. All the settings you jsut made will get blown out, but thats ok...they should be pretty right for what we want to do to this layout. You're sitting there looking at a square of track, feeling just a little bit excited and what we might do to it.... ok, lets do it. See the line of track pieces that are under all those buttons you played with in tutorial 1? Thats the track toolbar. Put the mouse cursor in that toolbar and click the right mouse button. Woooo...lots of stuff in a drop down. These are all the track types you can use to build your layout. Unlike some other software programs, sectional track, turnouts, crossovers...jsut about everything except flex track is stored together in here, and all displayed pictorially rather than by text or part number. go down and select "Peco HO scale turnouts". The pictures on the track toolbar changed. The peco turnouts are now to the left of the toolbar. You can use the arrows at each end to scroll forwards and backwards through the list, but right clicking and selecting is the fastest way to move around. You'll probably have noticed by now that there are buildings in that list too.... You couldnt resist and went zipping around looking at stuff didnt you. Well, leave those building be for now...thats a different tutorial. Oh, OK....pick one building and put it in the top left corner. Happy? Lets get on with it. Make sure you have the peco turnouts displayed. Move the mouse over the third turnout from the left. A little yellow box will pop up saying "LH Medium turnout". Cool! left click on that turnout. Read the next bit before proceeding. Move the mouse down to the main screen and position it over the top horizontal track, Click and hold the left button. The turnout appears. Drag the mouse up and down over the horizontal track. See the turnout change direction? This is just like the parrallel track tool I told you about. The direction the turnout faces is directly related to the rail the mouse is over. Drag the mouse over to the extreme right end of that top straight track, get the turnout facing inside the circle, and let go of the mouse button. hit Enter. The turnout is now 'set in concrete'. Stop reading and go do it..... Now, to lay another turnout, you COULD click on it in the track toolbar. Since we already have it selected though, you can jsut left click and another one will appear. Put the mouse in the middle of the screen and left click.....bingo! There it is. Move the mouse around to different places on the screen that ARENT over another track and left click. The turnout disappears from where it was, and magically reappears where you jsut clicked. Hitting enter will make the turnout be permanently (kinda) positioned in its current location. Try it (once!). OK, hit undo so that turnout thats not on a track disappears. click and hold the left mouse button and go down and place the turnout on the bottom horizontal track, as far to the left as possible, with the turnout facing inwards. Dont forget to hit enter. you now have your square of track with 18" radius curves in the corners, and 2 turnouts diagonally opposite each other, both facing into the center of the square. Click on "join 2 tracks" and select the free end of the top right turnout. A red dot appears.... now select the free end of the bottom left turnout. What happened? Nothing, except maybe a beep, right? No red track, no black track....nothing. The red dot is still there tho, right? Try clicking on the bottom turnout again, and watch the text box at the bottom of the screen. What did it say? "Tracks are parrallel". wtf? well, they ARE, in fact.... actually, they diverge. Xtrkcad cant REALLY join 2 tracks taht are diverging. It gets a little confused. How do we fix this? Save the track plan exactly how it is, with the 2 turnouts. Mess around for a while and see if you can get the 2 turnouts joined up, then I'll tell you how its supposed to be done. <insert mood music here> You're back already? How did it go? Make a mess? If you track doesnt look exactly like it did when you saved it, reload it now. DONT save the copy you have.... OK, there are 2 methods of doing this. Remember how we made the left side look like the right side in tutorial 1? If you were to put a vertical straight piece of track in the very center of the layout (length, again, is irrelevant), would that let you do it? Give it a try. Worked, didnt it? No? Well, either keep trying, or go back to tutorial 1 and learn how to do it again.. I wont go into it again here.....you were supposed to practice that stuff :) Now, the other method..... Select the straight track tool and draw a piece of track going up from the boottom turnout 16" long. Try as well as you can to get this piece of track aligned with the direction the turnout is facing....about 15 degrees or so. You made sure you started it as close as possible to the turnout, right? ok, select the connect tracks icon and join that straight track to the free end of the turnout. If it cant do it, 'undo' and redraw the straight track. Do the same from the top right turnout. Now select the curve track tool. At the end of the piece of track connected to the bottom turnout, draw a curve track at 18" radius that curves somewhere around 106 degrees. The unconnected end should be pointing up towards the left corner kinda. Connect that to the other piece of track. Select the 'join 2 tracks' tool. Click on the end of the top piece of track. Get a red dot. Click and hold the left mouse button on that new curve. Black track! Drag the mouse around till your happy with it. OK, what you jsut created with the 2nd technique is a bit of a layout design, and layout construction, taboo...the dreaded S bend....and thats quite a formidable one. The first technique is ALWAYS better. You CAN get away with doing it the second way if the 2 tracks are only an inch or so apart in parrallel...the S bend will be so slight as to be almost unnoticable, but generally, thats not goood practice. Thats it for this one. The third tutorial will go into more manipulation of track. Save this layout into a file called xtrkcad tutorial 2...you will need it in tutorial 3 The
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