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"Route designers I need your opinion?"

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driver89 (149 posts)
Aug-01-01, 12:00 PM (EST) "Route designers I need your opinion?" I was wondering how much demand there is out there for new scenery object for your routes? I.E. things like stop signs, billboards, dump trucks ect..... I am finally getting the hang of designing 3d stuff for the game, and am nearly finished my first train. So I was thinking that scenery should be simple, or simpler, than designing a loco as there are no moving parts and stuff.
So I was looking for input from other people as to what they might like to see. (please nothing too complicated.)
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Table of Contents

Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Route designers I need your opi... DKlemm Aug-01-01 1 RE: Route designers I need your opi... ccyko Aug-01-01 2 RE: Route designers I need your opi... troub Aug-01-01 19 RE: Route designers I need your opi... ceo492 Aug-01-01 3 RE: Route designers I need your opi... jvizoso Aug-01-01 4 RE: Route designers I need your opi... JMSteven_W98 Aug-01-01 6 RE: Route designers I need your opi... JMSteven_W98 Aug-01-01 5 RE: Route designers I need your opi... DKlemm Aug-01-01 8 RE: Route designers I need your opi... JMSteven_W98 Aug-01-01 14 RE: Route designers I need your opi... HAC Aug-01-01 10 RE: Route designers I need your opi... driver89 Aug-01-01 11 RE: Route designers I need your opi... HAC Aug-01-01 18 RE: Route designers I need your opi... driver89 Aug-02-01 23 RE: Route designers I need your opi... DKlemm Aug-01-01 7 RE: Route designers I need your opi... NetworkSE Aug-01-01 9 RE: Route designers I need your opi... CPR_Malice_96th Aug-01-01 12 RE: Route designers I need your opi... driver89 Aug-01-01 13 RE: Route designers I need your opi... Euston Aug-01-01 16 RE: Route designers I need your opi... JMSteven_W98 Aug-01-01 15 RE: Route designers I need your opi... Euston Aug-01-01 17 RE: Route designers I need your opi... ianm42 Aug-02-01 20 RE: Route designers I need your opi... ianm42 Aug-02-01 22 RE: Route designers I need your opi... OkrasaGhia Aug-02-01 21 RE: Route designers I need your opi... driver89 Aug-03-01 24

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DKlemm (234 posts)
Aug-01-01, 12:05 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I'd like more. Things like park benches, trash cans, billboards with pictures on them, highway identifier signs(i.e. US51), playground equipment, park statues and so on.Thanks
David Klemm
Illinois Central
4 miles done, 56 to go!
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ccyko (153 posts)
Aug-01-01, 12:13 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I need a steel structure to place tracks on... like the 'L' uses... you can get pictures at "chicago-l.org" Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
troub (62 posts)
Aug-01-01, 11:39 PM (EST) 19. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" hehe. US 51! That's one I'm very familiar with. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ceo492 (72 posts)
Aug-01-01, 12:25 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I'd be happy to give you a whole list of things that I'd love to see. I also ensure that all my contributors get credit on our website (a nice blurb about you and your wonderful contributions).If you are interested in doing some work on these sorts of things, just drop me a line (kern.pegg@crystaldecisions.com).Kern Pegg - Route Designer
Western Coast Xpress Virtual RR
http://www.geocities.com/peggware/wcx_train/
Items for design:8 different stations along our route
Wheat pool grain facilities
Intermodal forklift-like four-wheeled loaders
Intermodal waterfront cranes (loading and unloading ships)
Intermodal freighter (ship)
Cruise ship terminal
Cruise ships (2 or 3 designs - princess cruise lines, holland america, rottingham)
Fuel processing plant (chevron) Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jvizoso (32 posts)
Aug-01-01, 12:29 PM (EST) 4. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Now then, I've never been to Japan, but I always thought that the place was full of advertising signs, big bright neon things, showing the japanese love of graphic art!
It's one of the things I would like to have seen in the Sim!jv Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (182 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:09 PM (EST) 6. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" There's a grain elevator in the game that you link with the Grain Cars using _FREIGHT_GRAIN_ as the Pick Up object type.I found it more interesting to use the shape on farmland though:

And there's a refinery object that can be linked with tank cars. The refinery isn't much to look at and you must be somewhat creative to improve it:
The oil tanks and refinery pipes look rounder in the runtime:

But it still would be nice to have more.Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (182 posts)
Aug-01-01, 12:30 PM (EST) 5. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" LAST EDITED ON Aug-01-01 AT 12:31 PM (EST)Using AutoCad and Rhino 3D for the wireframes and a digital camera with Adobe PhotoShop for the images I've created many items. (700+)As I near the completion of the combined objects process, I see there are about two thousand items in the shipping game - including benches and many lights.You can use the four existing billboards to hold your own images, so that opens up many things.I have done 150+ routes, mostly 40 miles or less in size, and while riding them these were items that came to mind as being needed:
Additional street signs "L-shaped" and standard. Using the "GUI_FNTS.DAT" file the images could create street names.Sidewalks (since there IS a 2xPedestrian crossing in the game). If you wanted to get fancy, follow MS instructions in the TechDocs to create a new interctive object that "people" shapes follow.We have hundreds of things in vegetation, but there are other uses for the billboard shape. How about a building skyline or a set of store fronts as a billboard. The idea is they're placed in the distance to add realism, but as a single entity they move much easier than multiple real buildings.You use billboard trees to make the horizon from the train look like it doesn't just end - so there are lots of things you can do here.How about "trim objects" that can be placed like walls (and that use the "StoreMatrix" option. In some of my routes, I manually bend each line in each triangle along a tile border to hide the "white space" of nothingness. It's not a bad idea unless you decide to expand that route. Now you're stuck flattening the border first.So a border object set (16/14/12/10/8/4/2 tiles) would be nice.How about animated water? The animation sequence could start at the object pivot point and work toward the shape's edges for the ripple effect. Set ripple properties like the MS PowerPoint slide gradient fill option: From center, diagonal, vertical, horizontal...You could also explore creating scenery objects that we "city dwellers" normally see but that aren't in the game:
Movie theatres, other places to eat, shopping centers (they would be created like the "Shelby Houses" item. A group of many items arranged in a long rectangle)The list is practically endless. Model railroaders will go to any lengths to make a route more realistic.Jim Steven, MCSE
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DKlemm (234 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:19 PM (EST) 8. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" LAST EDITED ON Aug-01-01 AT 01:26 PM (EST)When and where do you come up with all these ideas!!!!! : )How do I put image on the billboards? What software is needed?I looked at the gui.dat file but don't see how to use that to create street signs.What are the files I use to go with my route. The one to show the map and the one for the picture right above that?Also, tried emailing you and it comes back undeliverable. Sent it to JMStevens_W98@msn.com.ThanksDavid Klemm
Illinois Central
4 miles done, 56 to go!
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JMSteven_W98 (182 posts)
Aug-01-01, 02:05 PM (EST) 14. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" The reference to GUI_FNTS.DAT was meant for a future object. Creating a street sign in a 3D modeling program is simple since the shape is essentially a round pole with rectangles on the top. (Compared with something complex like a bridge or Cathedral)In "phase one" the shape creator can create some simulated lettering for the sign text. Blurry black/blue on white.In "phase two" the shape creator expands the "SD" file into an "ESD" file and links a "properties page" with the text on the sign. The file "GUI_FNTS.DAT" defines colors, faces and fonts used in the game. Creating a new "SIGNS.DAT" or similar, the shape author can link say 8 or 10 char text with a font category.
To address the billboard item, many people are already replacing the shipping texture files with their own variants. It's very common among engine designers and rail designers.Replace the ACE files used in one or all four of the billboard objects with your own. If the image has NO transparency, you can use a standard 32-bit Windows BMP file. If there are tranparencies, use a TGA file with an alpha channel. That's really all the game does when a shape changes from "day" to "night" or season to season: The transparent image areas are updated and the viewer "sees" something different.
Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
HAC (161 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:22 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Hi Jim..
So are we ever going to see any of those routes, or were they developed in-house so to speak...cheers
Harold Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
driver89 (149 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:41 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Harold,
Talking of routes, did you ever get the ficticous Canadian route I emailed you a week ago or so? If so how does it work? Your CP freight stuff looks great on it. Especially the large freight yard in the "Toronto" region.Cheers,
James. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
HAC (161 posts)
Aug-01-01, 03:48 PM (EST) 18. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Hi James..
Can you resend? I was updating my system and may have mislaid some mail..cheers
Harold Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
driver89 (149 posts)
Aug-02-01, 08:54 AM (EST) 23. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" sure, no problem. I will resend it later today.Cheers,
James
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DKlemm (234 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:17 PM (EST) 7. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Just thought of another one, grain silos! Not like they industrial ones that are in MSTS, but the ones you find on the farm. Those silver ones! David Klemm
Illinois Central
4 miles done, 56 to go!
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NetworkSE (5 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:20 PM (EST) 9. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I would'nt mind if someone would like to have a go at the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland as my new route could do with it...Regards Ian C Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
CPR_Malice_96th (72 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:45 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I second HAC's MotionJim are we ever gonna get to run on any of your routes??Tim Kent
CPR_Malice
Winnipeg, Canada Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
driver89 (149 posts)
Aug-01-01, 01:50 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Tim or Harold,
Do either of you happen to have any detailed info on the VIA LCE? Either good pics or tech data. (both would be great) I never did get the VIA Genesis Skin correct so I was going to build an LCE but can't find much info on it except crappy VIA Rail publicity shots.Cheers,
James. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Euston (68 posts)
Aug-01-01, 02:15 PM (EST) 16. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I won't get what I really want... Sorry, just going onAnyway - i would like to see some general lineside stuff, modern image, and British orientated if possible.Euston

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JMSteven_W98 (182 posts)
Aug-01-01, 02:14 PM (EST) 15. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Hi Tim!I do hope so. Most of what I've done has been a traning exercise in route editing and looking for bugs and limits. The train yard I'm completing will be posted soon. It's the one I posted images of on the other board's Photo Gallery. The yard has a WYE at one end for turning around trains up to 25 cars long, a set 5 passenger sidings, 5 freight sidings, an engine area and two in/out of service sidings off of the main line.The main problem with my routes is I use a combined object list and I created many of my own SD files. My route editor object selection list is around 2,000 items long.Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Euston (68 posts)
Aug-01-01, 02:17 PM (EST) 17. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Hey Jim, if you have SO MANY files, and 150 routes (how long have you had this game?) could you release some (freeware). I would be happy to host any UK ones.Euston

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ianm42 (182 posts)
Aug-02-01, 03:47 AM (EST) 20. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" I have just created my first model for downloading. Its the good old UK Type K6 Telephone Kiosk (which is now being exported around the world).It should be available at http://www.trainsimfiles.com sometime later today.Ian M.
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ianm42 (182 posts)
Aug-02-01, 05:29 AM (EST) 22. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" The UK Type K6 Telephone Kiosk is available for download now at http://www.trainsimfiles.comIan M. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
OkrasaGhia (20 posts)
Aug-02-01, 05:25 AM (EST) 21. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Any type of generic clutter. Need not be very complex or large shapes. Simple things that can be used to detail the scenery. Simple objects can then be combined in the route editor to make more complex looking things with much more variation than if you try to build a finished complex shape. I'm thinking of such things as barrels, poles, crates, concrete slabs, blocks of stone or wood a.s.o.

//Okrasa
Chief Engineer


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driver89 (149 posts)
Aug-03-01, 05:25 PM (EST) 24. "RE: Route designers I need your opinion?" Ok, so a day or two later and I've had a go at building some scenerey. Nothing complex but here it is, So far as you can see there is a cola machine, a stop sign, 2 road signs, a coors billboard, and a rusty barrell. I would have made more by now but my train modeling has been taking up a lot of time.Is this some of the stuff you are looking for?Cheers,
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