Atomic Systems

I'm curious as to what others experience has been trying to get rolling stock into RS. This will give me some idea as to how much more time I want to put into this effort myself. If you've made any attempts of any sorts please answer the question below. Thanks.

Setting a loco up is the hardest task in Rail Simulator in my opinion. There are many features and fields that need to be filled in correctly, it also means you need to know a little about the loco you are trying to set up. Without Adam's help it would have taken me much longer.

I am keen to make the process easier, but just not sure how.
I am also interested at where most people get stuck.

regards
Derek

Derek

The biggest problem is probably bogies.. logic is out of the window and generally unpublised facts need to be known..
Next biggest problem is what is the minimum needed to get something up and in game and preview
Also causing major issues is the fact if you reference something outside of source it will screw the preview but not necessarily the game export. so from that point on everything is trial and error.

It is all there but needs a spot of sorting, tidying and documenting (think Kev and Richard are doing one)


A couple of suggestions from the "altering the Xml thread"

Prioritise and or color the order and try to indicate the minimum required fields.

Whever a reference is required make it possible to display/ ammend the full path..
it is impossible to specify certain elements that are "outside" as the asset editor puts in a Delta String for a presumed path

As it seems the asset editor can only view items that are in "source"
a selection of placeholders in a source\kuju\railsimulator for default Kuju items that are likely to be used as alias's or children.

A lot of developers will want to alias to default items for some time to come..

Me Personally I found it easier to establish what the game wanted rather than what the asset editor required... I have got there now ( I think ) but it took longer to suss the asset editor than it did to learn canvas, build a loco and then put it in the game by xml editing.

Not moans just pointing out where I have had problems

Sly

Who calls for a "How to get an item of rolling stock into RS for dummies" book?

I must admit, I haven't read any of the tech docs but I am really quite put off by the whole process after reading some of the posts on here. Either that or I'm lacking in keen-ness to learn.

How about a series of video tutorials showing how to get the different types of traction into RS ( Steam, diesel & electric )?

Hi, I agree that maybe a how to doc could be useful.
Reading the dev docs though should be done before reading any 'How to' docs.

to be continued...

regards
Derek

Tried and totally succeeded in installing fully functional rolling stock into RS

Today i have done the first run on my route with an EMU i have done for MSTS 3 years ago

I have not yet succeeded. I finally got some of the included examples to show in Asset Editor by finding the shader files with the extension *.fx.o, making a copy of them REMOVING the ".o" extension. This is the kind of stuff I find absolutely maddening. Why in the world is there a .o extension in the installed shader files and why was that stopping the examples from working????? But I'm now getting an error message that the *.lua files can't compile on the engine examples and I don't have a clue what to do about that. Apparently you people haven't tried to work with the examples or you all are a lot, lot, lot smarter than me.

Over the weekend I got my first loco into the sim - it's an 0-4-0 diesel with no animations - and it uses all the example cabviews, physics and whatnot. It's still missing a few pieces, and the physics are all over the shop, but I'm now confident that I can sort it out... then move on to kettles.

It's no more mysterious than MSTS was at the beginning... but perhaps that's because I don't know enough to be scared, yet.

Mike

Congrats Mike

Its a great feeeling when it shows up in game

Sly

Sadly, it's only the bogie that shows up so far... I think it's a hierarchy issue.

Only the bogie... usually its the other way round everything but

The things to look out for are, Group Names need to be unique as well as components.. this does not flag as an error if you are using the file menu export IGS route. (which I recomend).
The wizzard method was altering my naming and Hierarchy.

Other thing is the railsim custom box in properties is best if it is blank in every instance this too will lead to components not showing.

The preview fails to show anything if you have an alias to an object, animation, file etc that is outside of your developer group.. so I only use the game to check.

If you want to see your loco in the game in 30 secs flat...

Copy the example loco to your own source\developer\railvehicles\diesel\... folder
Export just the IGS from 3Dcanvas and overwrite the example_engine IGS
export from the blueprint editor
start game and enable your developer \ addon
select example_engine and your baby should show up

Then the fun starts

Sly

The other thing is, that the more I look at the model - the 2' Dick Kerr PE I originally did for MSTS in 3DC, the more holes I find. I think I'm going to rebuild the visible bits anyway, there's a lot more detail I can add that will make it look better in RS - plus hide my complete lack of texturing ability.

Thanks for the tip on aliased objects - I've been putting off developing my own couplers, but will probably need to do that.

Hi Mike

couplers are dead easy... import the example 3 link coupling into canvas and have a look... three arrangements of the components ,,, no animation.. make sure you set the origin points the same as the example..

I now have a heavy screw coupling on the front of the 8f...... the stock one looks a bit weedy

Sly

Sly401 wrote:The preview fails to show anything if you have an alias to an object, animation, file etc that is outside of your developer group.. so I only use the game to check.

That explains why my loco is now showing entirely in the game, but not in preview.

Now how the heck do I position the driver figure without being able to move the widget about? I guess the answer is to hack the XML...

Hi Mike

Yep hacking the Bin is my way of choice.. however I did try a method (mixed results and increased complexity)


make two copies of your basic engine blueprint... one I fill with all the aliases etc and keep the other one basic so I can preview..

That way I could for example use an example smoke emitter to mark the position then change the asset to An engine driver

However I find that just by knowing a few basic dimensions of the model a reasonable guess gets me reasonably close when I hack the files.. If its your model then accurate locations can be got from 3Dcanvas purely by right clicking and looking in properties (its the position relevant to your main group).

Sometimes You don't get a matrix displayed... don't know why
However I copy the section from somewhere that does and paste in... ouch !
The ones to edit are
4th from last... "X" distance across
3rd from last... "Y" height
next to last.... "Z" length

All from your models origin... the other fields must be for rotation and possible scale ?

Sly