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Spoorlijn Zwolle - Groningen

Our first Dutch route! With some seriously stunning areas & some seriously cool trains!

What have I done?

Route ambience:

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  • Zonal & detail ambience with some new & needlessly detailed sounds!

  • Collectible sounds

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SNG3 assistance:

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  • Internal running edits

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Post-release ICMm3 improvements:

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  • Implemented friction sounds to the emergency brake magnet when it contacts the rail

  • Replaced emergency brake air with ICMm3 recordings

  • Fixed ATB & Deadman alarm loops

  • Brand new internal traction motor & chopper sounds (Read more below)

  • External chopper sounds moved to correct positions instead of playing from the centre of the carriage

  • Brand new DVD component sounds (Read more below)

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Wind turbines:

There are loads of wind turbines on this your, some are even right next to the track! I implemented a very subtle hum to these, but the detail comes from the blades. As I designed and implemented a whoosh sound as the blade passes by the camera which changes in characteristic depending on wind strength. You have to be pretty close to the blade to hear this in lower wind speeds though.

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This vid's at the max wind strength:

​​​​​​FC Groningen: Euroborg stadium:​

In typical 'me' fashion, I decided to create a new detail sound; implementing an unnecessary amount of detail. This time round, I created a blueprint for the FC Groningen Euroborg stadium & programmed an array that contained every single matchday of 2023.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Here's the day/month array!

​​​​​​Ticket barriers & ticket validate posts:​

Lukas had recorded a video walking around Hoogeveen station & I had it forwarded to me by a co-worker who said I might be able to extract the ticket barrier sound from the video to use in-game.

 

I initially wanted to use the sound raw from his video but there was just a bit too much background noise. So I used it to re-design a version of the ticket barrier instead.

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In the video, Lukas also scanned his phone at a ticket validate post, they seemed to be everywhere. So I decided to re-design that sound aswell to trigger randomly from a few posts at each station with varying regularity depending on the time of day.

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By pure chance, it got caught in the teaser video! I've trimmed the segement here:

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​​​​​​Bicycle sounds:​

​Oliver from the character art team set up some really cool bike splines that cyclists ride along. They'd since been implemented into the latest WSR update, where they made an appearance on the Thomas preview stream!

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I implmented some pedal / tyre noise with the occasional bell ring, it's a nice little touch seeing them cycling beside the line.​

Post-release ICMm3 patches

  • Brand new internal traction motor sounds

  • New internal chopper sounds​

  • External chopper sounds moved to correct positions instead of playing from the centre of the carriage

  • Updated the DVD component to implement new relay & air sounds when the visual warning is displayed and once it's been acknowledged

  • Added sun visor open/close sounds

  • Normalised the doors closed "Dong" sound so it's more audible

  • Fixed a timing issue that was playing the doors closed sound slightly too early. It now plays as the green light turns on

The DVD pedal now has sounds for its deactivated & activated states. These change depending on if you have the direction set on the reverser handle

When a visual warning is issued, you'll now hear a relay click & an air sound that is descending in pitch. Once acknowledged, you'll hear another squeaky hiss. 

This route & its locos look insanely cool, I mean the ICMM3 looks like it's straight outta Despicable me 💀 I love it!

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It's a super cool introduction to the Netherlands in TSW!

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