Shape File Manager rescaling all wrong! Help

[02nwilson]

Hi all,
Im making a narrow gauge route and have tried to rescale some 2x scale locos to truescale. I succsefully got Monarch to work but locos like Gowrie and the WHR Garratt Milleniom (Also Mountaineer which kept crashing my shape veiwer anyway, Russel) have problems once resized. In shape veiwer the rods dont appear to have anyanimation after scaling and it comes up with the "Cant add <Loco name> to the world" (UID Object 2000 error) which i believe is something to do with the grouping of objects. Is there any way to over come this error? I read somewhere that SFM sometimes corrupts Eng and Wag files, could that be the problem (although if its anything to do with UID then i guess its the s. file!) Many thanks in advance, And I wil ask for permission if the rescaled locos are to be released!

[MuzTrem]

Welcome to the forums
All the models you list are by Kevin Martin, so he's probably the person you need to talk to about it.
However, he has released truescale patches for some of his models, which allow you re-scale them without using SFM. Might be worth doing a quick search of the library to see if any of the ones you need are in there.
Murray

[davidaward]

SFM often has problems uncompressing the shape files. May i suggest using Route riter to uncompress the shape files, then scale up/down in sfm, then compress again in RR.

I've typed this many times before and I'm sure it'd appear in a search of the forums .

[kevmt]

Shape file manager does sometimes have problems with rescaling locos.

I can do some patches for the locos mentioned, but it will probably be a couple of days before I can get around to doing them.

Cheers,
Kevin

[CaptainBazza]

SFM can corrupt ENGs, although the exact problem is hard to find. I always uncheck that option when using SFM and do a manual edit of the ENG and SD. It might be safer to resize uncompress shapes, although I have (once) successfully rescaled a compressed shape...but I must point out that I only tried it the once. SFM is a 'must have' tool, but if you've not tried it before it pays to experiment first.

Regarding my favourite tool, Paul's amazing (insert sound of *Trumpet Voluntary*) Shape Fix(er), I prefer to manually edit the animation, so I always uncheck the [check animation] button. I've made it a habit to use SF on uncompressed files because this allows me to do the above manual editing if required.

I manually convert .3DS mesh to shape .S, using the MSTS conv3ds.exe utility. (I setup a batch .BAT file to do this task for each project shape, which converts the shape to unicode text. This is possible in XP, using a MS-DOS window, because I've got used to the DOS versions of the tools.)

Then, as required, I use SFM (on uncompressed shape) then run the shape (uncompressed) throught SF.

I tend to use a batch file to compress the shape from unicode text to binary, as required for distribution, using the MSTS tool.

Cheers Bazza

[CaptainBazza]

I would run SF over the file after rescaling and see what happens.

Cheers Bazza

[leveritt]

SFM can corrupt ENGs....although I have (once) successfully rescaled a compressed shape...but I must point out that I only tried it the once.

Captain,
That matches my experience also. You may recall your Baldwin C-21 from a few years ago. I resized it with the shape file in compressed condition. I then had to hand-edit the ENG file to move lights, smoke and steam effects into proper position.
http://forums.flightsim.com/ts/dcboard. ... full#42554

regards,
charlie

[02nwilson]

Thanks for all your help. I will bare those ideas in mind and have downlaoded RR. And Kevin i look forward to the patches, Especialy for Gowrie (Excellent model ) As for Bazza working with DOS, i should become familiar with that soon as im learning programing and stuff at college. (Might even do a small sim like SpoorSim! After ive done uni though!)

Cheers

Neil E. W.