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http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/12214.htmlThere's the thread with the new idea;http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/40f5e6bb63869637.ziphttp://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/40f5e6d663ee035e.zipThere's a four tile test route. Download and extract both zips to \WhereEverYouGotIt\Train Simulator\Routes, go into \Routes\Sigtest, and run the installme.bat, which defaults to standard forest region scenery. Explore from East or West yard, check out framerates.Run the 1gantree.bat to change scenery, check out framerates again.If you exit the activity/explore back to the menu, you can ALT TAB out of the trainsim menu screen to run either 1forest.bat or 1gantree.bat, since it reloads the world files each time you restart the game from the menu screen, so no need to exit completely.This was originally a four tile test route for testing conventional signal configurations with two way AI traffic and limited freedom for the player, but I couldn't get the double reverse points to work correctly.Anyone wants to fiddle with that, the idea is to make it so the player can drive from either the east or west yard to the industry in the center, spend as long as he wants switching cars there, then proceed to the other end whenever he's done and the track is clear. I can't get it to work right.Anyway, it's a good small route for trying out the idea, if you want to hack it go ahead and hack away, then rename the new .w file to .f or .g and run the appropriate bat to make it permanent. Same textures are used in both scenery methods, so it's a pretty fair comparison of what to expect.
Well, let's toss something new into the stew:http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/24193.htmlAnyone wants to see what that looks like, after downloading the two zips above, download this:http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/40ff33c5324815f7.zipExtract, copy or move to \Routes, then go into the \sigtest folder. Two more bats from my belfry, 1short.bat will give you the regular KUJU signal lights, 1long.bat gives you the new long distance lights.
Sniper, I'm kind of side-tracking your thread here for a moment, but I've been following through all of this and decided to try something basic to start with. Phil's telepoles, I believe. Haven't tried it yet with 'veggies', but have run across a strange one. After re-reading one of the earlier threads, I was thinking if the tracks diverge, a pole or object would just not be placed if the spacing was wider than anything in the gantry file, until MSTS decided it was a single track. However, I've come across the following 'ghost' in the sim and wonder if that is what is causing this. If so, what happens when the veggies are used, or have you run across this?Notice the ghost insulators above the track, with the telepole still off to the side. The only way to correct it is to manually delete and put a new 'single' one in place. Have you had this happen with anything other than telepoles?RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com
I'm a little embarassed about this, because those ghost insulators were spotted not long after pvpoles was first put in the library. If you go back to one of the original threads discussing using the gantrys, you'll find a .zip file attachment that cures that issue. I had been intending to put a revised file version into the library, but got diverted into other things. (I also wanted to create and even simpler utility pole for a logging railroad that probably didn't even have a crossbar carrying it's wires from siding to siding.)Here's reference to the zip file that contains the necessary corrections: http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/40317a4201f4738a.zipThis is the thread where it was all discussed: http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID6/11434.htmlAlso in the discussions about gantry.dat placements, you'll read that there are some amusing things that the automated process comes up with when it works through switches and yards such as sometimes swapping an object from one side of the tracks to another. Still it's a time saver for poles, and probably for veggies too.As Jim had noted, the gantry placement process also places *things* at a level height relative to the tracks, so you can initally get some floating veggies or poles depending on the slope of the near terrain. That can be dealt with one by selecting one or more out of place object and using "F3" to adjust them vertically.Even crude tools can be useful.
Phil, no embarrassment needed. I should be the one, since my reply was only two lines under the zip attachment. Oh well, somehow I missed that one in the process and am just glad you all came up with the idea to do it. I just 'finished' (I think) probably 175 miles of poles in the time it would have taken to do ten miles manually, if that many.Just for the record, I think I may have found a completely unrelated use for the autogantry. Before you do anything, move your route out, then 'copy' it back to Train Sim folder and autogantry the entire thing. Go back through and if I'm not sadly mistaken, if there are any 'aberrations' in the tdb file, they will show up very clearly giving a good indication of where you might have problems in doing a tdb rebuild.The reason for saying this is everywhere I had 'problems' (besides the ghosts) were places that had given me fits in the tdb. I had two places where the poles refused to be placed, had to do it manually, and two tunnels where the poles were either way below even the tunnel, or halfway between tunnel and surface (or just randomly depth placed) rather than even with the track as it seems like they should have been. Same tunnels, btw that don't work correctly in the sim either, but that's another issue somehow.One other comical side effect. Having only a PIII 800 and 256mg of ram, I had pretty well limited myself to about 600 maximum objects to a tile to keep from 'crashing'. Finished one of the tiles, moved a bit and had 950 .. panic city! Very gingerly saved, had no problem, went in to the sim to see if it would even load, not even a change in fps Aha, now we can cram (within reason of course) At any rate, thanks again to all for your 'experimentations' and making the RE almost 'fun' as you said in the earlier post. Thanks Sniper for 'lending' your post and now back to regular programming. Also, just wanted you to know even though some of us haven't been answering/replying back like we should, we are following it through and enjoying every minute of it. Learned a lot from the 'short route' and seeing how everything works, since I'd never tried to autogantry at all previous to this.Thanks to all!RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com
You had me scared for a minute there, I thought you meant the TDB was being changed. I ran the 1forest.bat, opened in the route editor and deleted a bunch of forest regions, then ran the autogantry to place trees and bushes, saved, exited, looked at the TDB and TIT, same date.I've been foliating PO&N9 for the last couple weeks with this, and ran across one quad that I didn't autogantry, since it was the coal mine and I don't feel like digging underground to get sixteen zillion trees and bushes out. What I saw was that wierd thing where the signal trips get funky:So I groaned, saved, exited, checked in the game to make sure the signals were working correctly in spite of the twisted markers. Then I went back into the editor to figure out if there was a way I could fix them without trashing several week's work, turned out to be unnecessary, they had all fixed themselves. (?????) Not related to autogantry, I saw that in PO&N 5 or 6 a long time before I even knew there was an autogantry button.Anyway, I dunno what happened to ENR3005, he said he was gonna do a tutorial and he's not back yet. I hope he does return, be interesting to see what other brainstorms he might have, this one still astounds me with the quickness, quality, and improved framerates.http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID15/3860.htmlWhat I've figured out so far tho:Use tree and bush clumps instead of individual trees and bushes, packing them in a bit too dense is okay, just go back over the quad and delete all the extras. Clone the USdecidclump1.s and USdecidclump2.s (3 and 4 are billboards, not clumps), change the textures, alter the sizes, and make assorted tree, bush, and weed clumps to use.Using Shape File Manager I shifted the X axis to move the clumps away from the track, then take treeclump2 and shift Z 10 to 30 meters (sideways), and treeclump3 -10 to -30 meters (sideways opposite direction). I also vary the X axis shift, the end result is staggered tree clumps, set the interval to 60 to 100 meters, autogantry all 3, delete a few here and there. On most of these I shift the Y (vertical) axis -1 to -5 meters (depending on the size of the object) to allow for cruddy blocky terrain dips and valleys. (Still a constant irritation, spend hours clicking on track and hitting Y, everything looks perfect in the RE, then drive over that section and see all the gaps in the washboard that was a smooth level slope a few minutes ago.) Obviously any kind of steep terrain still requires forest regions or hillside trees, and when you do a quad that has a yard in it you gotta do some deleting and manual repositioning afterwards. Still saves an astonishing amount of time, I wish somebody had thought of this 3 years ago!
Run the 1gantree.bat to change scenery, check out framerates again.
If you exit the activity/explore back to the menu, you can ALT TAB out of the trainsim menu screen to run either 1forest.bat or 1gantree.bat, since it reloads the world files each time you restart the game from the menu screen, so no need to exit completely.This was originally a four tile test route for testing conventional signal configurations with two way AI traffic and limited freedom for the player, but I couldn't get the double reverse points to work correctly.
Anyone wants to fiddle with that, the idea is to make it so the player can drive from either the east or west yard to the industry in the center, spend as long as he wants switching cars there, then proceed to the other end whenever he's done and the track is clear. I can't get it to work right.Anyway, it's a good small route for trying out the idea, if you want to hack it go ahead and hack away, then rename the new .w file to .f or .g and run the appropriate bat to make it permanent. Same textures are used in both scenery methods, so it's a pretty fair comparison of what to expect. 
So I groaned, saved, exited, checked in the game to make sure the signals were working correctly in spite of the twisted markers. Then I went back into the editor to figure out if there was a way I could fix them without trashing several week's work, turned out to be unnecessary, they had all fixed themselves. (?????) Not related to autogantry, I saw that in PO&N 5 or 6 a long time before I even knew there was an autogantry button.Anyway, I dunno what happened to ENR3005, he said he was gonna do a tutorial and he's not back yet. I hope he does return, be interesting to see what other brainstorms he might have, this one still astounds me with the quickness, quality, and improved framerates.