Railworks America

Hi guys, i'm trying my hand at reskinning for the first time for Railworks with RW Tools (I want to see if i can make the skins I want before I purchase a license)
and while I can get the .DDS file I need to pull up in photoshop to make a new skin, I am having a heck of a time getting it to convert back into a texture file for the program.

Am I doing this the hard way? Please tell me there is an easier way to do this than the way I'm doing?

Here's an example of what I'm doing



Can anyone give me some pointers? I really want to be able to make my own skins (which I will definitely share)

Hi,

Looks like you're almost there.
To There are several ways to get a repainted texture back into RW.

In RW_Tools, you can use the function "Convert .dds to .TgPcDx" in the Graphics Tools menu. This works best when you are still in the same edit session of the initial RW to dds conversion, because then RW_Tools will have memorized all path and file name settings and you can re-export the edited dds file back to RW with literally a couple of mouse clicks.

A second, more complicated, option is to save the edited texture file as TGA (with alpha), then run RWAceTool (which I think you can download at Railsimulator.com) to convert it into an ACE file. Create an exact duplicate of the folder structure of the model (for example Assets\GreatNortherner\GNRy\RailVehicles\... and so on) in the Source folder, place the ace file in the textures folder, and use the Blueprint Editor to export it (right click on the file in the BP editor).

Cheers,
Michael

You need the plug in for DDS files for Photoshop. This will let you save the DDS back from Photoshop to RW Tools, then you just convert it back to a tcgpcx or whatever it is file with RW Tools. The plug in is on the RSC web site.

I also recommend RSBinTool. You can download it from the Rail Simulator file section of the UKTS site. This will convert the texture files to DDS, and back. Then all you need is the Nvidia DDS plugin for the paint program you are using.

PapaXpress wrote:I also recommend RSBinTool. You can download it from the Rail Simulator file section of the UKTS site. This will convert the texture files to DDS, and back. Then all you need is the Nvidia DDS plugin for the paint program you are using.

I second the RSBin Tool it will import and export the texture file with ease and converting the DDS is a breeze with it.

Well for the past few days I've tried to download from UKTrainSim but the queue is always very very long and by the time its my turn to download, the page times out and gives me an error....

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a better mirror? i'm waiting again tonight 33/39 with 900,000+kb left in queue

I've kept RW Tools and Photoshop open for the past 5 days now because I want to see if these tools do what I need so I can create what I planned to, before I pay for a license.

I'm getting frustrated to say the least.... lol

Hi,

UKTS requires some patience, but as far as I know it shouldn't time out. It has been working fine more me since day 1, no problems with free or subscription downloading, even after hours of waiting time. Does your browser accept cookies from uktrainsim.com?

RW_Tools is in my opinion well worth the donation, especially if you also want to do route building or scenario editing/trouble shooting. If you only need it to convert textures, the already mentioned RSBinTool might be a good alternative though.

For Photoshop you can also find good alternatives. GIMP is I think among the most popular free graphics editing tools, and it is quite powerful too. There is even a version of the NVidia Plugins for Gimp, and I think a plugin for dds files exists too. If it doesn't, you can also use the freeware DXT2BMP program by Martin Wright to convert the textures (dds, tga, ace, bmp, ...), see here: http://www.mwgfx.co.uk

Cheers,
Michael

NCX wrote:Well for the past few days I've tried to download from UKTrainSim but the queue is always very very long and by the time its my turn to download, the page times out and gives me an error....

There are some files at UKTS that may be found on other sites, but ultimately it's up to the uploader as to where his/her files are uploaded to.
Some folks upload their work to UKTS only.

For the most part, there is no 'mirror' site to find those 'exclusive to UKTS' files.

Well I finally got it downloaded about 30 mins ago. My download took 5 seconds (ironic... considering the amount of time i had to wait lol)

anyway, I'll post back here if I have anymore problems. I think for the most part I am just going to edit textures, I would love to get into scenario creation but that seems to be higher than my station (get it lol)

anywayyyys lol got the texture imported and i'm editing it as we speak, I hope I get to test it tonight as I won't have access to my computer until monday :'(


Edit: I finished making a rough draft skin to see how well this first skin goes, got the tool to import it and it worked, but how do I keep it from over writing the originals and just make a clone of the original to over write instead?....

Here's what happened...



I am guessing I need to make a clone first then alter the textures of the clone to get a better result... My brain hurts...

Edit 2: (May 3rd)
I gave up trying to figure out how RW-tools clones assets (i figured out how but didn't figure out how to edit the clones)
so I ended up skinning the Souther Pacific F7 that comes with Railworks 3 (I got some more work to do on it but here's the result of nearly 10hours of painting, testing, aligning etc)