Resetting The activity editor

I have been reading in the book I bought "Sybex Official Strategies & Secrets - Microsoft Train Simulator" chapter 8 discusses creating activities. I want to investigate this and learn how to create activities, but the book says open your activity editor to the sample they give "freighttutorial.act", and it should look like this... and they show a picture. They say "find the activity area" (no problem, found it) and zoom in until I can see only that portion of the track (no problem) then it says I should see some small green circles with numbers and some larger purple circles. I see some very small green dots (about the same size as the black dots that mark switches and track end points, even zoomed all the way in) and a big blue dot with a red outline and a big blue dot with a green outline, but I see no numbers green/purple circles or anything. I assume the numbers I am supposed to see is the event numbers but I don't see them and my screen looks almost NOTHING like the picture in the book. I have set my settings in the view drop down to what the say to set them to, but still no results. I have also skipped the time ahead to the time of the activity expecting to see the train (like I have in so many other activity editor screen shots) and I tried to watch the activity with the VCR function but nothing ever happens at all. I did view an activity once with the VCR tool about 3 months ago and saw the train move along inside the activity editor as the time progressed but the train didnt move far and it just vanished. I have been unable to view an activity using the VCR tool since, the train never appears and starts to move. Is my activity editor broken??? and if so can it be re-set or re-installed without re-installing all of train sim? I'd really like to learn how to create activities but cannot make any sense out of my activity editor even with a "how to" book. As I said I have tried all the different view settings and I am aware of the time issues (forwarding to the activity time etc.) but these things have not made any difference. I really do not want to re-install Train sim ( I have a GOB and a half of routes and loco's and rolling stock installed and do not want to spend the next two months getting it "back to normal"Any ideas, help would be greatly appreciated.Nick

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

RE: Resetting The activity editor., armagnac, Aug-15-02, 07:02 AM, (1) RE: Resetting The activity editor., cnwnick, Aug-15-02, 05:53 PM, (2) RE: Resetting The activity editor., armagnac, Aug-16-02, 08:51 AM, (3) RE: Resetting The activity editor., cnwnick, Aug-17-02, 02:52 PM, (4) RE: Resetting The activity editor., armagnac, Aug-17-02, 07:35 PM, (5) RE: Resetting The activity editor., armagnac, Aug-17-02, 07:36 PM, (6) RE: Resetting The activity editor., kevarc, Aug-17-02, 09:14 PM, (7) RE: Resetting The activity editor., rdawes, Aug-26-02, 08:28 PM, (11) RE: Resetting The activity editor., CWA13000, Aug-18-02, 07:42 AM, (8) RE: Resetting The activity editor., cnwnick, Aug-18-02, 11:12 PM, (9) RE: Resetting The activity editor., armagnac, Aug-21-02, 10:39 AM, (10)

Conferences | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

What you see in the main Activities Editor window is governed by what is programmed in the activity itself, of course, but also what is activated via the View menu item. Click on any unchecked line in the menu to activate it; this will place a checkmark next to it.Now the features you're looking for should be visible, but there will be a terrific clutter of information that you may not need to see and that obscures what you do want to see. You can selectively remove information by deactivating it in the menu (clicking again on the checked line).The start point of the route is its left (west) end, and the start point of the train is a bit to the right (east). It's on Kalispell Lumber - Siding 2. Center that in the view window and zoom in.If you still don't see what you're supposed to see, then the activity file may be corrupted and you may need to reinstall it from the MSTS CDs.John Francis

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

First, let me thank you for your help John, then I'll respond to each part of your reply as best I can. <after reading my reply back to you, I decided to ad this quick little statement.
please don't interpret my scriblings below as negative or ungrateful, I assure you, where they may sound negative they are 100% frustration, and nothing more. >>What you see in the main Activities Editor window is
>governed by what is programmed in the activity itself, of
>course, but also what is activated via the View menu item.
>Click on any unchecked line in the menu to activate it; this
>will place a checkmark next to it.I have checked and unchecked everything in the view drop down and yes it can get quite cluttered while everything is active, however I still see almost none of the info that the picture in the book shows, even when I check the exact items the book tells me to for the tutorial they walk through. ???
>
>Now the features you're looking for should be visible, but
>there will be a terrific clutter of information that you may
>not need to see and that obscures what you do want to see.
>You can selectively remove information by deactivating it in
>the menu (clicking again on the checked line).OK I have a check mark next to everything (except Path points but I can see the view change everytime I select/deselect path points)I still se no numbers or the circles the picture in the book shows even when zoomed in really close.

>
>The start point of the route is its left (west) end, and the
>start point of the train is a bit to the right (east). It's
>on Kalispell Lumber - Siding 2. Center that in the view
>window and zoom in. OK I centered it on Kalispel Lumber - Siding 2 and zoomed all the way but all I see is a blue dot with a green outline and a green slash that crosses the tracks just below the dot. >
>If you still don't see what you're supposed to see, then the
>activity file may be corrupted and you may need to reinstall
>it from the MSTS CDs.
>I thought it was a possibility that the activity was corrupt as well, and I guess it's still possible, however if that were true, would I still be capable of running the activity in the sim? The activity does everything the book says it is going to when they do the pre-edit walk through of the activity to explain the activity, It functions perfectly. This is what made me suspect the activity editor is having a problem, not to mention there is not even a trace of the train showing in the editor with the time advanced to the correct time and playing the activity with the VCR tool. BTW there is no hint of any cars engines or trains in ANY activity I load up to view with the VCR tool.
Thanks again, if you have any other ideas please enlighten me. Nick

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

LAST EDITED ON Aug-16-02 AT 08:52 AM (EDT)

I've just gotten the Sybex book, and it's really disappointing; why pay nearly as much again as MSTS itself to be told *less* about train operation than MSTS's documentation? No help at all about driving steam locomotives, no mention that I can find about penalty shutdowns and how to avoid them, and no index to the book to help looking for what you need to find. Sheesh!Anyway, now I can look at what you're referring to in the book.I followed the instructions up to page 218 and see exactly the same route, path, and service graphic as on page 219, including all the small and large circles and the numbers relating to them.I followed the further instructions up to page 221 and see exactly the same additional details (Siding Names and Service info) as well as the previously visible details in the graphic on page 221.I placed the mouse cursor over the siding where the graphic on page 226 shows, right click, and the same dialog box appears on my screen as in the book's graphic.Since I'm not editing the activity, I did not place the additional car on the track. But I gather you haven't gotten to the point of doing that either?What all this signifies is that the Sybex book does indeed show what a very recent installation of MSTS, with Microsoft's bug fix patch applied, shows on my computer, once I've followed the book's steps exactly.The problem you describe is that in your MSTS installation, the Activity Editor does not display certain elements of the freighttutorial.act route & path & service. Since, as you say, the activity works when you run a train through it, that should mean that those invisible elements are actually in the activity. So I agree with you, at least that part of the .act file is not corrupt and probably the whole file is OK. The problem must lie elsewhere.If I were in your situation, I'd do the following:First, uninstall and then reinstall MSTS from scratch. Logic may say that this shouldn't be necessary, but logic has nothing to do with it. The MSTS installation is *huge*, and some file somewhere in it may be defective in some odd way that causes your problem. Best not to try to figure it out, just do it.Next, install the bug fix patch from the MSTS site. See the second paragraph on http://train-sim.com/msts/forum.htm. If you haven't done this already, perhaps you might skip step 1 and see if the patch fixes your problem. If not, then reinstall and patch again.Now, follow the step-by-step instructions in the book once again, and see how it works out.If it doesn't work out, come back here. <grin>John Francis

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Thanks for your help. I was afraid the answer was going to be a complete re-install. I was just trying to avoid that as my train sim folder is up to nearly 7GB. Was hoping there would be some .INI or .CFG file or something easy to delete or modify that would reset the Activity editor back to default settings. There may in fact be corrupt or damaged files in the install as you say. I'm not sure what I am going to do at this point, I will probably look for a method to re-install just the editor.Thanks again,Nick

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Hmmm. There *are* no default settings in the Activity Editor itself, except for whichever items are checked in the View menu.And if you uncheck everything in the View menu, even the Timetable Path, what's left visible (or should be visible) includes the location events, those little black circles along the line with the larger green circles around them. (Zooming in should make the green circles enlarge, while the little black circles stay the same size. Also visible should be the consists except for the player's own train, which becomes visible only when the time in the Play window (so-called VCR window) is the same as or later than the start time in the Player window.One thing I didn't think of: you could open freighttutorial.act again and verify that your copy does contain those location events. Click on Window and then Location events window, and see if location events are listed in it. There should be 18 of them. If some or all are missing, then your freighttutorial.act is not in its original form.You can inspect freighttutorial.act using a word processor or file viewer to see if the location activities are actually in it. They're supposed to be. Search within the file for EventCategoryLocation and you should be looking at the following or something like it:)
EventCategoryLocation (
EventTypeLocation ( )
ID ( 2 )
Activation_Level ( 0 )
Outcomes (
ActivitySuccess ( )
DisplayMessage ( "Congratulations! You have successfully completed the Freight Activity Tutorial. Click View Details in the Activity Evaluation Screen to learn more about how you performed." )
)
TextToDisplayOnCompletionIfTriggered ( "Congratulations. You successfully completed the freight tutorial. You can use these skills in other Marias Pass activities." )
Name ( "Successful end" )
Location ( -12582 14759 -823.085 495.992 10 )
TriggerOnStop ( 0 )
)(Hope the train-sim bbs software preserves the formatting!)This is location event 0, Successful end. It should be the first location event listed in the Location Events window.If you find this and other location events in the activity file, then they should make themselves known in the Activity Editor, even if for some reason they remain invisible there. Maybe you can sniff them out.The graphical marker for Location Event 0 *should* be visible near the west end of the route, in between Location Events 1 and 3. To find it, turn on the siding names and zoom in on the two Kalispell Lumber sidings until they are about an inch apart. Put siding 2 just at the bottom of the window. Location Event 0 should now be about 1" below the top of the window. That's where to put the tip of the mouse pointer onto the line, so a new circle appears on the line. Run the pointer slowly along the line in either direction: the new circle should move with it. Soon the new circle should jump slightly ahead of the mouse pointer, stay where it is though you're continuing to move the pointer, then jump to catch up with the pointer. One place your moving circle should stop is near Lon: -114.27316, Lat: 48.25285. If it does, stop moving the pointer and right-click; a context menu should appear. Click on Properties, and a Location Event Properties dialog box should appear; if we're really lucky, it will be for Location Event number 0, and its properties will match what you read in the act file (and above in this message). If not...Well, how about giving it a try? If the Location Activity is in the act file, and the Activity Editor can detect and edit it (even while not displaying it), then we know something we didn't before. Who knows, it might even be useful!In case you're wondering, I'm finding all this very interesting. And no, I don't really know much about what I'm doing, just exploring.John Francis

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

> (Hope the train-sim bbs software preserves the formatting!) < Nope, the indentations in the original are all gone. Hope the line breaks remain when others read this.John Francis

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I found the book to be a total waste of money. I went in and modified an activity and then moved on. I use Rich's as a guide but as I do mainline runs alot of the stuff I don't worry about. One thing I have found if to make a completely new path of use an existing one as a template. If you mess with an existing one you will through off the activities already using it.Kevin Arceneaux
gdapia

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I agree, I was very disappointed in the Sybex book. If I had known that it was just a step by step guide to the included activities, I wouldn't have bought it. I was expecting something that explained the locomotive controls, optimizing your hardware for the best FPS and how to use the various editors included with the sim.In fact I don't think that I've run more than a couple of the stock activities!!!

Bob Dawes

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

B-4 you uninstall and reinstall, try reinstall. If I remember correctly, I saw this Activity Editor corruption question B-4 and one of the answers was that it could be fixed by running the reinstall option on the cd. I have run this and it seems to rewrite the program files and not dump all the extra rolling stock, routes etc. You sound like you know more than I but in this thread I didn't notice anyone mention, tools/verify starting state, to make your service train show-up.I have always used verify and then one time I got ahead of my brain and forgot and then wondered why my train wasn't there. Maybe the "buffalo principal" doesn't work!! Good luck.

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I decided to try the re-install option on the CD praying that it would not drop all my add on's. Here's what happened. I chose to do a install over my current copy and did not remove my Train sim first. I first did an install and chose to install none of the default routes figuring they are already there, why waste the time re-copying them. Install went OK I didnt loose any add on's at all but even with the default route folders pre-installed the default routes did not show up in the route list. I had to re-install again this time installing the default routes. When I was done installing all my add on's were still in tact and all routes default and add on's were present, all loco's, and rolling stock were still in tact as well. The only thing I can see so far that needed to be re-done is the transparent driving aids needed to be re-installed. After all this I went into the Activity editor loaded up the activity and everything appears exactly as the book said it would. So for now at least my problem seems to be solved. If by chance anything is screwed up I can restore pieces from my backup I did before I re-installed Train-Sim (it took 4 hours to do a compressed back up of my 7GB of train sim into 6 1/2 650MB CD-R's)With any luck I will not have to do this again, and at least now it looks like I can investigate activity creation. I also think I will get hold of Rich Garber's tutorial as it sounds from the responses above it's probably better than the Sybex book.Thanks again everyone for the ideas and suggestions.Nick

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Glad it worked!John Francis

Alert | IP

[ Home | MSTS Forum | MSTS FAQ | File Library ] Copyright © 2002 by Nels Anderson. All Rights Reserved.