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ryansf (8 posts)
Sep-01-01, 07:59 AM (EST) "Channel Tunnel" I have recently finished the Channel Tunnel but I can't get in to work in Train Sim. How do this? Also, I wish to post in on Train-Sim.com. How do I package it for distrbution? Thanks. Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Channel Tunnel RvA1 Sep-01-01 1 RE: Channel Tunnel Boweavel Sep-01-01 2 RE: Channel Tunnel driver89 Sep-01-01 3 RE: Channel Tunnel Euston Sep-01-01 4 RE: Channel Tunnel sniper297 Sep-01-01 5

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RvA1 (254 posts)
Sep-01-01, 09:07 AM (EST) 1. "RE: Channel Tunnel" I know very little about putting routes together and even less about distributing them. But I do know you need at least one activity in the route to get it to show up in the sim.Hopes this helps.Roger Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Boweavel (343 posts)
Sep-01-01, 09:21 AM (EST) 2. "RE: Channel Tunnel" The is a peice out of the readme file for the new Port Ogden and Northern Version 3 route, hope it helps...About the Activities.
I included some activities for the simple reason that the game program takes it's starting point from the player service path start points in the activities, and if you don't include at least one you can't even explore the route, because there's no starting point. The more activities, the more start points. Also, these are open ended activities, with no real set goals, and you'll get the "failed to complete" message no matter what you do, and who cares. I need a program to tell me whether I did what I wanted to do the right way? I put a bunch of cars on various sidings and spurs, so explore the route to find some of them, and make up your own work order. Kind of like explore route, except you have more cars to interact with than just the ones in the train you start with. All the consists I used were the stock ones that came with the original game for compatibility, because almost everyone has a different set of custom cars and locos. So if you can use the activity editor I highly recommend changing mine or making your own to include such things as Kevin Combs' SW-1200 switcher and some custom hoppers that really look like coal cars. If you're looking for a by-the-numbers-do-it-exactly-this-way-every-time-and-get-rewarded-with-a-attaboy-ending-screen type activity you won't find any here. Think of my activities as kind of like explore route, except with a bunch of cars on the sidings.
Hope you enjoy,
Jim "Sniper" Ward.Pinched and posted by Boweavel
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driver89 (242 posts)
Sep-01-01, 11:53 AM (EST) 3. "RE: Channel Tunnel" The first thing to do in winzip is to package the directory that contains the main route info. This directory contains your carspawner, tracktype, signal data ect.
The other directories you will need to copy in their entirety are the TD directory, and the Tiles and World directories. These directories contain all the data on your routes concerning land, location of buildings, location of track etc.
One other file you will need to include is (and I forgot to do this) is the terrain.ace file. Apparently this file is created only in custom routes and does not exist in original routes. This file is located in the TERRTEX directory.
That's it for your zip file, the person downloading the route then has to copy over the files from the other directories such as sound, shape, TERRTEX, traffic ect.
This leaves on question I know, and that is should I include my activities and paths ect. I did not and I don't reccomend that you do unless you only use the default loco's for the route. If you want to make sure that you include in the readme file exactly which trains and which carriages etc. that you have running on the route or the person using the route will get error messages.
Also in the readme file don't forget to tell people which files you used from the other directories. For example, my route uses files from all of the other routes so that I can have a mix of buildings and stuff. Therefore someone using my route would need to copy the directories from all the other routes instead of from just one.
One final note concerning custom buildings and stuff, if you have added these, you can include them in the zip file but this will add greatly to the route size as the ace file for these seems to take up to a meg depending on the complexity and size of the texture maps. Personally, I have a high speed connection so it doesn't bother me but someone with a regular modem would certainly prefer that there were not too many custom buildings.
That's it. I know that quite a few of the routes that are posted on train-sim.com include quite a few other files. This is fine for routes with simple scenery, but if you do intend to add a lot of other stuff, (for example to make a city you certainly need more shapes than the route editor creates by default) you will find that a zip file can rapidly approach 50 mb and up.
Also by keeping the route size down, it makes it a lot more convinient for people to download updates to the route. After all the only thing that really changes as you add to the route is the world and tiles directories Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Euston (225 posts)
Sep-01-01, 02:37 PM (EST) 4. "RE: Channel Tunnel" For an autoinstaller:http://www.clickteam.comas used by Chrisell, with his Dutch trains.Euston

http://clix.to/trainsim Click here for WCML route pictures
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sniper297 (317 posts)
Sep-01-01, 08:28 PM (EST) 5. "RE: Channel Tunnel" Hey, Ryan! How's the old boy? How's everything in Dear Olde Blighty? Got your editor running, obviously, so you got over a whole bunch of hurdles already, so don't quit now. I just did a search for the keyword "idiots" in the activities forum, and sure enough the idiot's guide to creating an activity is still there, so if you want to create a simple activity and have trouble figuring out the activity editor you might give that a try. As far as packaging and distribution, I'm still using the old dos batch files cuz the learning curve on those install maker utilities looks just as steep as the editors to me, so it's probably gonna take me a couple months to choose the easiest looking one and figure it out. You want to use one of mine, go ahead and download "gitstufd.zip" (sorry, that's not really considered a vulgar expression over here, and it never occured to me that someone from overseas might see it, and we colonials have always been a little vulgar anyway) and edit it according to the instructions. If you're using all the objects from all the routes you might not need to edit it at all, but essentially you need to:
1. Most important, copy the whole directory for your route and paste a copy into a folder named "backup" if you haven't been backing up all along.
2. Delete the folders in your route for \Envfiles, \Shapes, \Sounds, \Terrtex, and \textures.
3. Do a "tools, find, files or folders named, *.bk .
Select all and delete all, these are disaster backup files created by the editor, and unnecessary if the route is working right. New tip from the FAQ at microsoft (first time in 10 years I actually got useful info from an FAQ)Q: How can I reduce the amount of disk space required when distributing a route?
A: First make a copy of your route, ready for stripping down before archiving. Look for backup files and delete these (search for files with an extension of .bk).
You can make further reductions by removing certain terrain buffer files. Under the route's Tiles directory are many files that end with _n.raw and _e.raw extensions. These contain the terrain normals (for lighting) and geometry error values (for dynamic terrain geometry). Select these _n.raw and _e.raw files and delete them. In Windows® Explorer you can order and then select all of these files by size; however, be careful not to include any other files (e.g. _f.raw files).
When any route is loaded, the _n.raw and _e.raw files are checked--any that are missing are recreated. Therefore, when this copy of the route (with the now missing _n.raw and _e.raw files) is loaded, these files are recreated.This will get your route down to mostly just what is unique to your route, just the files that nobody else doesn't already have. Now run your batch file or setup, and check to see if the route is back to it's original size, and play the activity(s) to see if it will run without any error messages. If it's OK, go thru the deleting the folders again (if you don't make any changes in the route editor you won't have any new *.bk files, but since it found the missing *n.raw and *e.raw files and made new ones you'll have to delete them again) and zip it up. As a double check I delete the entire route folder at this point (still have the backup, right?) and run the zip extractor and the install again, and play it again. Everythings OK, make notes on exactly what I did to install it and write a readme file to instruct the end user how to install it. And don't worry if you don't get everything perfect, did you see the first version of the Port Ogden and Northern? In spite of all that, the very first day a bunch of guys figured out what was wrong with it, posted a work around for the bad install, and helped me fix it for version 2. That's another good idea too - if you have enough disk space download some of the routes here and see how the other developers did it, everybody's working for free here so steal ideas left and right. We promise not to get mad and throw your tea in the harbor. Give it up, buddy, I want to drive the Chunnel!Jim "Yankee Doodle" Ward
Chicago,
In The Colonies
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