Question for signal creators...

[Irishrailguy]

For anyone who has ever made a semaphore signal, I'm trying my hand at getting one done myself. I'm almost there but I'm a bit unsure as to how the animations should be handled:

Basically, the issue is that there appears (from a guide I read) that there are 2 animations for any given signal arm (Clear01 and Stop01), can anyone tell me if they can be 2 different animations? Because I have the drop animation set to be faster than the raising animation. But this doesn't seem to work for me as I can only get the .igs to support one of the 2 states at any given time, i.e. if the arm model is in the lowered position I can play the raising animation no problem, but the lowering animation behaves strangely as the animation for that starts with the arm in the raised position. So the lowering animation in this case results in parts going all over the place as the game gets confused when it tries to play an animation with the model in the lowered position, this is the same the other way round when the game tries to play the animation for the raising when the model is already in the raised position. So does anyone out there know how this is meant to be done? Because it seems clear enough that 2 separate animations for both movements should be specified in the signal blueprint.

Thanks,

Kev

[johny]

Each animation should be saved as a separate ia file, labelled clear and stop, and the igs file being the basic model. You should therefore have 3 files for each arm eg:

Stop_arm.IGS
Stop_arm_clear.IA
Stop_arm_stop.IA

John

[Irishrailguy]

Thanks for the info. I fixed the mishap with the second animation by setting the animation itself to start in the raised position and then animate downwards, it appeared as though I was setting the object itself to the raised position and then doing the animation which was what caused the issue in-game.

However does anyone know how I can get dynamic numbers working on a signal? I have a post with an ID number on it but I'm giving it a go and it's not working out. I've done the same as with rolling stock auto numbers (texture set and placeholders for use on the Multi shader material in Max), in game the flyout box on the right where the signal's properties are will allow me to enter the ID for the 2 rows of digits/characters, but it has no effect on the model. Is there a trick to doing this? Because I don't see how the game can tell which quads of the autonumber object are on the top row and which are on the bottom? Any info on dynamic signal numbering would be greatly appreciated as I've never dealt with this area before.

Thanks,

Kev