UKTS's China trains and route

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

UKTS now offers the long lost China assets, which were started under Rail Simulator way back and never seem to have been accepted and sort of faded away.

There are some good steamers and a GE U36C export engine amongst them IIRC.

I just started my download of the rolling stock pack but it takes at least 10 hours to complete . The locos looked very well made, but the colours could be a little more subdued from memory.
http://uktrainsim.com//filelib-info.php?form_fileid=29399
Anybody knows anything about these packs and possible US repaints for museum lines etc.?
Here is a gallery with the pack''s contents, 212 pieces.
http://www.uktrainsim.com/freewarepacks/index.php?p=Gallery&gallery_id=13
I noticed heavy duty 6 and 8 axle depressed center flatcars, a huge Schnabel transformer carrier, modern ore jennies plus some other freight cars that look generic US enough to withstand a repaint. Not the locomotives I remember, need to dig out that RW2 folder from the backups to look for what I collected back then.

What about the route assets, are these generic enough for US usage? We don't want Mao ZeDong all over the place, don't we?
http://uktrainsim.com//filelib-info.php?form_fileid=29410
There is no route assets gallery yet, but perhaps the route comes without them and uses only default and specified assets from Altenburg-Wildau?

[jpetersjr]

Hate to say but the big update busted the cab view on the QJ steam locomotive.

If your's doesn't appear with the cab view in the wrong spot I'll have to download it over and reinstall it, not sure if they would have fixed that version and offered it back to uktrainsim.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

As far as I can tell, there is only one Diesel locomotive included in UKTS' rolling stock pack, the DF4D. It is their pack #1, so perhaps more are to follow?

From our Russian friends I downloaded a gigabyte of assets, 3 classes of steam engines, 3 of Diesels and 4 of electrics plus numerous wagons and cars. All RW2 according to the readme.
I'll look them over and see if they are TS2012 worthy.

[jpetersjr]

When did RW get Russian steam locomotives?????

Funny, I don't remember hearing about any.

Where might I be able to find them at?

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Sorry, JPeters, they are the Chinese engines, JF and JS 2-8-2's and QJ 2-10-2's. Should have been more clear in my posting above.
Unfortunately the JF pack is corrupt but the other two unzip OK. So they might be broken? Testing them in a freeroam right now.

Chinese QJ Class 2-10-2 in Chicago Yard.

Screenshot_Chicago Yard_41.89780--87.89418_10-01-23.jpg (204.22 KiB) Viewed 937 times

That QJ looks mighty fine to me at first glance.
In the QJ we have a flat boiler backhead and that grumpy pair of driver and stoker from the UK Black 5 visible from the outside. Nice detail are the bare bulbed running gear lights that come on together with the headlights. Haven't seen those on US steamers yet. I like the elephant ears as well as the fully enclosed cab and skyline casing. Good attention to detail: the main drivers are blind, i.e. have no flanges. Also nice are the steam excaping from underneath and the small whisps of steam at the joints and valves in the piping.

I think the "1" view is supposed to put you in the cab instead of just in front of it, the "Shift-2" view has you leaning out of the cab window, the way most steam locos were driven anyway.
Will try to get the "1" view a little more backwards to actually see through the visored porthole. OK, that didn't help much, there indeed seems to be an issue with the shaders as different parts of the engine are rendered in "1" cabview when you try to look around. When the x-parameter of the cabview is changed to -7.5 meters you are in the seat, but out of the window, though I didnt change the y-parameter!. Also, the running gear is gone. Shift-2 is about the same position and the running gear is visible. Also, to judge by the way the view rocks when pressing "1" to get back into the cab, I think I am being "displaced". So there indeed seems to be an issue with the cabview. I can move over to the other side, which has me left of the fireman's seat, operate the brake handles, regulator, etc. and the gauges work.

Physics and operations can use a little tuning probably.

Taking coal in Ronceverte

Screenshot_C&O Alleghany_37.74918--80.46139_12-04-54.jpg (251.57 KiB) Viewed 925 times

Museum piece to park in Ronceverte to pull my Ronceverte & Western Alleghanies steam excursions besides the C&O Kanawha.

[jpetersjr]

Same problem I have.

Wish it's creator would fix it, would look great again if it was fixed correctly.

[Machinist]

Once JPeters has asked me to fix the cabview, it was a nightmare to find the links of developers (all broken) and download. After installed in a scenario everytime I was clicking in the engine the game was freezing (SBHH) and I gave up (also a lot of missing assets, probably of other engines of same developer, according to RWTools).

But now... Jeez! I just recalled someone reporting this after SP-1 and Bingo! My scenario wasn't working just because the tender was not coupled to the steam! Now that I coupled them each other is working, I'll give a look also in the cabview right now...

BRB
Doc.

Ps.: Totally off topic.... do you have L. A. Noire? A Detective's RPG on Steam, just in case. Awesome headlights as I told ya is possible on RW3 (superimposed lights objects with alpha channel simulating the 3D effect). The Officer's flashlight (in the 40's decade) is brighter than the headlights (markerlights, in fact, I know) of Class 390 now a days (in RW3 of course) Just the background overture's theme is worth the game, amazing!

[Machinist]

Well... never saw a such weird thingy trying to position cabview like in this QJ engine. Something in the .Geo creating a wall barrier avoiding the free movement inside the cab. I got the same results of Mr. Kanawha: left view out of window, right view in the center of cab, and no boggies and other textures etc. I also tried type cams 1, 2, and 3 for no avail. The jumping thing is due to the position of cabview too much backwards, likely displacing say the Center of Gravity (that's a thing I've been seen for a long while when tweaking cabviews), so there is a limit you can move the cabview backwards till the odd jumping effect starts to happen (just in case, imagine they didn't find a chinese driver and employed a retired japanese super-heavy weight sumo fighter as engineer ).

Missing a lot of ban and sounds files also, but I guess this is not related to the problem. You can notice that even the developer itself couldn't get to make the cabview work from inside (BTW a very nice and detailed cab interior, what a pitty!), this is why he has set the cabview (1) as is (with the missing interior visual of body, when moving side to side).

The physics are strange also, I mean a lot of fixes needed in this engine (including missing sounds), so except for the beautiful exterior visual isn't worth go further in the hack attempt to "save" (new fixes) the steam for use. It's drivable, as is... anyway, it's up to creator make the fixes.

Cheers,
Doc.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

I pulled out the old RW2 install and put the QJ locomotive on the tracks. No problem, RW2 cab with x=-6.4 meters is OK. I suspect -7.5 is too much and puts you behind the model, hence the violent "warp" to what I presume the outermost x,y,z position of the model.

So something must be wrong under RW3/TS2012. Doc is right, only the builder with access to the original source model can correct this, other than some serious bin hacking which is probably not worth it.

FIY: the JS 2-8-2 suffers from the same problem.

Will look over the cars next.

[Machinist]

I pulled out the old RW2 install and put the QJ locomotive on the tracks. No problem, RW2 cab with x=-6.4 meters is OK. I suspect -7.5 is too much and puts you behind the model, hence the violent "warp" to what I presume the outermost x,y,z position of the model.

When you say 6.4 (the original default value for "z" axle) is OK with RW2 installation, do you meant you can see the full in cab pannel with instruments? 6.4 in RW3 places the view out and ahead of the front window.

Would be nice if in your (preserved) RW2 install you could check the loading problem when the tender is not attached to the steam. Someone reported this new behavior after SP-1. Even in RW3 I was used to tweak lightings and cabviews with engine placed in scenario, and only then add a tender and couple it to the engine. I never got before this behavior of scenario failling when loading with SBHH, this is why I didn't realise that was the problem the first time I tried to fix the QJ.

Even still within the model (ie clearly under the roof and before the rear windows), in some steam loco's I've noticed since a long time that the whole engine warps if you set the cabview too much behind (say more than 1.5m) of original position (that's curious and funny). So I had to sacrifice a better view of the instruments to avoid the odd effect (try and error, inch by inch, till be successfull).

And also, the child driver object's position (7.0m) is fully within the cab, however if you set the cabview z position to the same 7.0 it will show much more ahead of driver (and fireman also) position. Setting the cabview z to 8.0 or even 8.5 places the "eyes" of cabview at the same 7.0m (beside the driver). Never saw such weird thing in any other locomotive I enhanced. It looks like something in the geometry is not allowing you to go beyond certain limits (though witihin the limits of cab's model yet).

Cheers,
Doc.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

I suppose the cabview is a box with smaller dimensions than the loco model. It should fit in the loco's physical cab more or less.
Perhaps the Chinese buillders of these models made the cab's "box" too small in the x-axis (lengthwise), hence the violent lurging when you position the view outside of this box but still within the loco model presumably?

Perhaps under TS1021 the requirements for rendering have been toughened as it probably worked under RW2?

I'll try to work out wether this is true. If the bounding box is wrong, only some serious bin hacking can correct the cabview.

First need to get a good file of the JF, perhaps the cabs are interchangeable and one of them is OK?