Message Areas - "Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)"

Train-Sim.Com Message Areas

"Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)"

Email this topic to a friend
Printer-friendly version of this topic
Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)
Previous Topic | Next Topic Conferences MSTS Route Design (Protected) Original message
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-16-02, 12:23 PM (EST) "Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" I have searched and not been able to find any specific info on what the EXACT procedure for opening a .s file is. I want to add the animation for "freightAnim" to a freight car so we can fill our empties. I have been able to get the coal.s load to appear in the ta hoppers, and to get the coal tower to activate with the car, so all that's missing is the animation for the coal. I'm assuming from what I've read that this is linked to lines in the .s file for freight animation.If someone can either post the paramaters for the command line, or email them to me at jjc123@msn.com, we can get this done!Have to run off to work now...this will be driving me crazy all day. Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Table of Contents

Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... DKlemm Jan-16-02 1 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... JoeDiamond Jan-16-02 2 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... edwardk Jan-16-02 3 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... edwardk Jan-16-02 4 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-17-02 5 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-17-02 6 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... edwardk Jan-17-02 7 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Eagleknight Jan-17-02 8 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... TOPDOG5184 Jan-17-02 9 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-17-02 10 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... tro1086 Jan-18-02 11 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... danoz_g700 Jan-18-02 12 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-18-02 15 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... danoz_g700 Jan-18-02 13 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... kevarc Jan-18-02 14 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-18-02 16 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-19-02 17 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Eagleknight Jan-19-02 18 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Jan-20-02 19 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... kevarc Jan-28-02 20 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Eagleknight Feb-06-02 21 RE: Who wants to watch their coal h... Gandalf Feb-07-02 22

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic
Messages in this topic
DKlemm (1103 posts)
Jan-16-02, 01:48 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Gandalf;Use ffedit_unicode on the file. If the file is compressed when you run it, it uncompresses it. If it is uncompressed when you run it the file is compressed. Works on .w files as well.David Klemm
Illinois Central Route
Illinois and St Louis Divisions
Ver 0.6 uploaded
Working on Decatur IL
Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JoeDiamond (164 posts)
Jan-16-02, 01:49 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" You don't need to edit the .s file. All the FreightAnimation parameters are in the .wag file. The FreightAnimation parameter has three values. The first is the name of the .s file for the freight load. The second and third are the height offset of the shape when the car is full and empty.Joe Diamond Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
edwardk (46 posts)
Jan-16-02, 10:47 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" All right Gandalf. I wish I could provide additional information but I can't. Are you sure there is suppose to be an animation effect showing the coal being poured? Based on what I see in the wagon file for the tender, the freightanim function is basically for the load object, in this case, the coal. We could have this feature in one of the later versions, but I would not expect it in the first. Let me know if you need any help testing. Do you know if the car weight was any different?Man, I have to get my hands on TSM. I am wondering if there is a way to use other objects other than coal loads or gravel loads. For example, loading a simple object such as a dozer onto a flat car. There would have to be a way to control via the freightanim function, how the object is loaded. You would of course have to have a different structure as the pickup object.Edward K.
ekeenan@cts.com
Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
edwardk (46 posts)
Jan-16-02, 10:53 PM (EST) 4. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Joe diamond's post came before my first post. I now know what the other values are for within the FreightAnim function. I still wonder if another object can be used though.Edward K. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-17-02, 00:31 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" LAST EDITED ON Jan-17-02 AT 00:34 AM (EST)I got the ffedit to work, and your'e right..I can't find anything about freight animation in the .s file. But the sim does show the coal "filling" the tender. I have set my coal level to "0" an an activity, pulled up to the coal tower and watched the coal fill the tender to the top. I just can't figure out why it will work with the tender and not the hopper. You can change the last variable in the "freightanim" line and it will raise or lower the begining level in the hopper. When you get to the coal tower, you can see the tower animate and "fuel point" reads as "0%" just like the tender, but the coal level doesn't increase like in the tender.
I read another post about this from a while ago, and he mentioned a FOURTH value in the line. I'm going to try adding something in here and see if it works. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-17-02, 02:02 AM (EST) 6. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" I've been tinkering for the past hour or so, and still can't get it to work the way I want. If you change the car to a tender and place it behind a steam loco, the animation works. It doesn't work anywhere else in the train, though. If you change the pickup type from "fuel" to Freight" in the object and in the car, the tower animation works, but the freight animation doesn't. The other variable in the animation line doesn't seem to have any effect at all. I'm begining to think that the whole "animated freight loads" is just another dead end, like the turntables. The fact that the animation works when the car is used as a tender would seem to suggest that the basic code does something with "tender" files. Maybe that something is missing from "freight" files.What do you all think? Post here or email me..jjc123@msn.com. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
edwardk (46 posts)
Jan-17-02, 04:26 PM (EST) 7. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Bummer, I guess this is one of those features that is not complete because of it being pushed out. There is Version 2 to look forward to. It was a nice try.Edward K. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Eagleknight (29 posts)
Jan-17-02, 04:53 PM (EST) 8. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" I was wandering the same thing I was enhancing the Portogend 4 by adding your coal up by the copper canyon on the route and got it in. It has an option as freight -gravel and I wanted it to fill with gravel. But it won;t fill hopper cars? It would be really cool if I could load hooper cars one by one with gravel take them some where dump them then pull the emptys back up to the top of the grade. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
TOPDOG5184 (560 posts)
Jan-17-02, 06:24 PM (EST) 9. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Hi guys. Correction on the filling name. Go into the car(s) wag file and add the line "fuelpoint" that allows the car to collect pickup objects. I'll try it tonight and let you know if it works properly or if you have to adjust it. i.e. I was reading that the fuel point can be anywhere on the car. but to get it in the center you have to line up the fuelpoint with the centre of gravity line so as to use the center of the car(s). Just a little FYI so you can use the pickups. Craig Shortino Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-17-02, 11:10 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Been there, done that, Topdog. I think I've fiddled with every possible combination of values in both the intake line and the animation line. By adding the intake point to your car, you can activate the coal tower animation, so that when you pull up to it and push "T", the chute drops down and the sound activiates. The problem is, the animation on the car isn't activated. So far the only way I've been able to get animation to work in a hopper is by changing the car type to "tender" and placing it behina a steam loco as it's regular tender. It won't work anywhere else in the train. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
tro1086 (131 posts)
Jan-18-02, 02:47 AM (EST) 11. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Maby you would have to make a seperate 3D modle for the car filling up, like 0/4 full, 1/4 full, 2/4 full, 3/4, full, 4/4 full. Cars like the Hopper from Train Artisian already have 0/4 and 4/4 full, so you would have to make 2 or more animations for the car, depending on the detail you want to spend time on, but i dont know much about this stuff. But once you fill them dose the weight change too? Or dose it just stay the same as when its empty? I dont think its really worth it to try and do this if the weight dosnt change and you cant go and unload them anywhere.I hope that all makes sense to everyone, lolTrevor Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
danoz_g700 (33 posts)
Jan-18-02, 12:21 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" hey i've been trying to do the same thing but i have not got as far as you have if you could tell me how to make it so that the coal tower activates with the car i would like that. thanks,
Daniel
THE ACTION RAILROAD Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-18-02, 09:58 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Daniel, all you have to do is ad this line to your .wag file: IntakePoint ( 1.759 4.0 FuelCoal )Add it right after the brake section and before the Sound line. now when you pull up to the hopper and stop, press the "t" key and the chute should come down. You should see the words "Fuel Point 0%" in your "F5" display. If not, you're not positioned correctly. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
danoz_g700 (33 posts)
Jan-18-02, 12:26 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" and will this work with any coal tower that is active?
Daniel
THE ACTION RAILROAD Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
kevarc (109 posts)
Jan-18-02, 03:07 PM (EST) 14. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" And if you want I have some pics of the rotary dumper and an over head view of coal transfer facilities to the Rodemacher Power station in Boyce LA. The one was taken from the top of the stack. Very windy up there. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-18-02, 09:59 PM (EST) 16. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Sure, send the pics along. My email is jjc123@msn.com Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-19-02, 00:31 AM (EST) 17. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Here's a new thought. How does the sim know how much coal a given tender can hold? It's not specified in the .wag file, only in the .eng file. Ithink this is the missing link. The sim must look for this value and respod accordingly. The problem is how does it do it and where does it look. I tried adding the line "MaxFreightMass ( 18000lb )" to a loco and filling the hopper, but it didn't work. It didn't crash the sim, either which inclines me to think this may be the direction we need to go. Still get the tower animation and "Fuel Point 0%", though.Somehow, the game must be able to get this info to calculate how full a tender is. Anybody else seen any "weight" vlues floating around anywhere in other files? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Eagleknight (29 posts)
Jan-19-02, 11:51 PM (EST) 18. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" If you put the intakepoint in the .wag file then the chute goes down but the car does not actually fill up? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Jan-20-02, 02:30 PM (EST) 19. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Yupp!! Kinda makes you want to find a tall building or a high bridge, doesn't it. I still havn't given up, though. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
kevarc (109 posts)
Jan-28-02, 03:22 PM (EST) 20. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Sorry it took a while to get back, but I think trying to animate a rotary coal dumper would be in league with animating the turntable. You would also need a rotary coupler on one end of the car.I do not have any dimensions for the dumper at Rodemacher. Next time up there I will try to get some.Now you could still model it as at older plants where you would uncouple the diesels from the consist because the live rails in the dumper could not handle the weight of the loco. There was a relief track that looped around the dumper. A cable system was used to spot the cars into the dumper. These cables had dogs that would catch the cars and move them. This was the system used at Champion Coal Prep. plant south of Pittsburgh when I worked there in the late 70's. At this plant coal was brought from different mines to be cleaned and sent out for use.To model an older plant you would uncouple from the loaded consist, move to the other side of the dumper and pick up an empty consist.
Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Eagleknight (29 posts)
Feb-06-02, 08:17 PM (EST) 21. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" Is this a lost cause. Have you figured anything new out gandalf that will let us fill hoppers or are all of us still stumpped. Maybe with the new patch there is some light at the end of the tunnel perhaps?? This idea is still great though! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Gandalf (156 posts)
Feb-07-02, 02:19 AM (EST) 22. "RE: Who wants to watch their coal hoppers fill? (or how do I edit an .s file)" I'm sorry I haven't ben in here to much lately. This whole thing was giving me a headach and I decided to just run trains for a while and play around with sound editing...just to do something completely different. Heres the update...It looks like this is another turntable. I can see lots of evidence that Kuju intended this to work, but I just can't get it all to work. I am pretty sure the freight animations are coded in the sim, not the .wag files or anywhere we can get to. The reason I think this is because of the Max value for coal in the .eng file. THere is no line in any of the .wag file for this. I have tried adding the line in various configurations and places in the .wag files, but still get no animation. There is also the option in the Activity editor to "make a pickup" that is seperate from "pickup up cars" or whatever it is. Kuju obviously intended this to work at some ppoint, or else why would they have put the options for pickup types in the ACtivity and Route editor? Now you can get a pickup object to activate by adding either FUEL_COAL or FREIGHT_COAL to your .wag file,,depending on how the object is set up in your route editor. It just does not animate the coal laod the way it does in the tender, unless you change the car type to TENDER in the .wag file and place it directly behind a steam engine in place of it's regular tender...then the animation works fine.As for the new patch, I installed it last night and was up till the wee small hours crashing my computer at every keystroke, it seemed. I have reinstalled TS senza patch. Don't want anything more to do with the damned thing.I havn't stopped working on the coal loader...well actually I have been thinking about it a lot, I have not actually done any modeling yet. I have been researching and looking at various prottypes. If anybody knows a good source on info, please let me know.Happy training!!JohnP.S. Having email problems all week, post here, I promise I won't wait so long to come back in here! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Lock | Archive | Remove

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic