WIP: Working US Semaphore Signals!

[GreatNortherner]

YAY!!

Finally, Semaphores!!! Still an early WIP, but they already work (sort of).




OK, before I get too excited -- this was only possible with a LOT of cheating.

These models are not animated. I tried that, but failed at understanding how to implement the animation into the scripts, let alone what and how many animations I even needed.

What you see is, in fact, objects of semaphore arms that have been set up to be the light nodes of the signal shape. "1_1000_green1" etc. This works because when the signal script calls for a new light "glow", all it really does is change the active light node, for example from "green1" to "orange1". What sort of object the model for these light nodes contains does not seem to matter to the game engine. In the case of the semaphores, "green1" is the arm in clear position, "orange1" is the arm in approach position, and so on.

This method will become outdated as soon as somebody comes up with a way of animating the three states of the signal arms of US semaphores, but for the time being it may be better than not having any semaphores at all.

Cheers,
Michael

[jpetersjr]

These look great. Do you think you could do a very early railroad crossing, a map waving a white flag I believe it was, from the 1800's and early 1900's before today's modern crossings.

[Csxgp38-2]

Thanks for these!! Maybe a wigwag is in order?

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

More progress. These work quite fine now, if one ignores the missing animations. The only "oops" moment came when I hadn't yet removed the flashing lights from the scripts, which caused dis- and reappearing signal blades.

Please email or PM me if you want these for your routes. I don't want to upload these yet, as I think this will be a constant work in progress, so they may need to be updated from time to time.

However, these are ready to go. A basic set of "?H ?T ?E" configurations is complete. I can also very easily do custom link setups if you need any (for example, one of the Great Falls yard exit signals looked something like this: 3H 13T 8E, where the exit links were on links 2 and 4 through 9.)

Cheers,
Michael







EDIT: Just did a few more signal configurations. These are mostly for yards. The two on the right would be most useful for yard entry situations, where one mainline or through track (top signal head) has any number of yard tracks branching off (restricting short bladed head at the bottom). The two ones on the left are then restrictive-only signals, these will never show an aspect more permissive than restricting. I also did a trackside version with short mast (not pictured -- just imagine the head to be mounted on the top of the gantry mast)

[TDHenderson]

Outstanding Michael! These are a great addition and I am sure will be used.

Trevor

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Is it possible for you to make a train order signal too?

We could really use that even on today's railroads as a stationary object.
They usually are double headed, i.e. two blades on the same mast but back to back?

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

Yes, a train order signal is already on the drawing board.

It will actually work, too! All you'd need to do is to bury a switch under the depot or platform, then link the TO signal to the switch, and then you'll be able to change the TO's aspect in the scenario by setting the buried switch.

Cheers,
Michael