[WIP] NS EX-CNW patch

[ConrailHeritage]

Ok, so I like to railfan in Virginia, and lately a couple months ago I saw tons of EX-CNW patched NS sd-40s going to Juanita to be repainted into NS livery. And I decided, as a beginning painter, I should start small. So I have repainted the engine, and am going to release it, except for one thing: I can't turn it back into a .tgpcdx folder. I use gimp (I cant afford anything else), so they turn into bitmaps. How do I turn it from .bmp to .tgpcdx file? Thanks.

[buzz456]

Get DXTBmp. It's a freebie out there and get RSBin Tool from the library here. Open the texture that you want to replace in RSBin Tool. Then save your BMP from Gimp and open it with DXTBmp. The RSBin image will say it's DXT3 or 5 probably. You need to save your texture in the same format. The easiest thing to add for a alpha channel is just make a dark gray template the same size as your image. (85%) or so and then when you have it in it's window save them as a DDS. Go to RSBin Tool and tell it to 'Import' DDS under the DDS Tool tab. This should change the texture there into your new paint. Do a 'save as' after making a copy of the original and Shazaam, your new texture should show up in game after a re-start. If you already have your object in a scenario just say quit and then play again. You don't have to start the whole game over for texture changes.

I think I have that all in order. Holler if that's confusing after you try it.

P.S. The darker you make the alpha the less shine and will darken the colors a bit the lighter the shinier it will be. That's just kind of experimental. Let me know when you get the basics done and I'll give you a couple of other alpha tips.

[ConrailHeritage]

Do a 'save as' after making a copy of the original and Shazaam, your new texture should show up in game after a re-start.

Well, I did that, put a pop-up appears saying: "It appears this file is read-only. Please Try Again with a different file!"

[buzz456]

Do you have RWTools? If so go into options and one of them is make all RW files read write. If not right click on the file and go to properties. Change it there to read write. It's way easier in the long run to do it globally through RWTools.

[ConrailHeritage]

Ok, Thank You very much, now a very important question: How do I get the files into the trainsimulator game? I have edited the bin file so the name was changed, but now I cant get it onto the game! It is in the kuju folder, but I cant find it on the game!

[buzz456]

Did you just change the name of the file or did you go into the bin file and change content there? And do you have RWTools?

[ConrailHeritage]

Did you just change the name of the file or did you go into the bin file and change content there? And do you have RWTools?

No, I went into the bin file and changed the name and path in there. Am I supposed to change the .bin file name? and yes, I have rwtools (or at least 15 trys left)

[buzz456]

You want to do something like edit \oldlocomotivename\ and replace all with \newlocomotivename\ The name on the outside of the bin normally doesn't mean anything. If you are using serz you have to remember to update the bin file by dragging the xml over the serz. You can confirm that's done by checking the time. If you do it with RWTools it does it for you AND makes a backup if you screw up. All you have to do there is remember to save.

[ConrailHeritage]

Ok, they are in the game, and are working.... except for one thing: they still have the word "Union Pacific" and the UP logo on it. Which files am I supposed to repaint, as ingame, the engines look like this:

2013-12-03_00004.jpg

What they look like in gimp:

UP_SD_40_1_colb.jpg

UP_SD_40_2_colb.jpg

[buzz456]

OK here's another painting trick. One by one just add .xxx to the end of each texture until the unit in game shows missing textures. That's the one you need to replace with yours.

You're close.

[XDriver]

Find your Logos.TgPcDx. Open in you paint editor and make the alpha all black.

image

logo.jpg

alpha before

al.jpg

alpha after

al 2.jpg