Railworks America

Searchlight Simulations Horn Swapping Tutorial by bpetit

Section 1
Installing an .rwp file

Easiest thing to do is right click steam, and select Library. Mouse over to Train Simulator, and right click. Click properties. Then find the tab that says local files. Then click Browse Local Files. You're looking for an .exe called Utilities.exe in the Railworks Folder. Double Click on it. Navigate to the Package Manager tab. Click Install, and select your .rwp. Let it install, it might take a little bit.




Section 2
Swapping the Horn of an Individual Locomotive

Now, you know how to get into the Railworks folder via Steam. So, I want to change the horn on say the Sherman Hill ES44AC. In the Railworks folder, click on Assets. It is important that you know who made the locomotive and where it was installed to. In this case, Sherman Hill will be under RSC. Once you have found that folder. It will have an ShermanHillAssets.ap which can be opened with 7 Zip. Double Click to open the contents. Go to Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\ES44\Cab. Drag out the file called Class ES44 Horn Sound.bin.

If you know how to associate files with Serz.exe then continue if not then see the below section.



Right click the .xml file and open it with Notepad. I will stress at this point to make a backup of the .bin file incase you mess up. You are looking for

Code: Select all

<SoundComponent>
            <cSoundComponentBlueprint>
               <ProxyName d:type="cDeltaString">RSC\ShermanHill\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\ES44\Cab\Class ES44 Horn</ProxyName>



If you go through steam, and browse the local files again. It will bring up a new window. Navigate to
Assets\SearchlightSimulations

Should see a folder called NathanAirChimeK-series. Click on it. I'll use the K5HL_EarlyCast as an example.

Now you want to click the bar that has file path. Copy SearchlightSimulations\NathanAirChimeK-series\K5HL_EarlyCast to a new notepad document and add a \ to the front of it. Back in the horn's folder, right click K5HL_EarlyCast_HornControl.proxyxml

Click properties. Copy K5HL_EarlyCast_HornControl then in that new notepad document. It should look like this SearchlightSimulations\NathanAirChimeK-series\K5HL_EarlyCast\K5HL_EarlyCast_HornControl
Now copy the whole line.

Highlight, RSC\ShermanHill\Audio\RailVehicles\Diesel\ES44\Cab\Class ES44 Horn then paste it. It should look like this now.

Code: Select all

<SoundComponent>
            <cSoundComponentBlueprint>
               <ProxyName d:type="cDeltaString">SearchlightSimulations\NathanAirChimeK-series\K5HL_EarlyCast\K5HL_EarlyCast_HornControl</ProxyName>


Click save. Open with serz.exe to generate a .bin file and replace the old one. Load up Train Simulator to check if you did everything correctly. If not, then retry these steps.
Edit: Clearing the blueprint cache might help if it doesn't' work.






Section 3
Associating .bin and .proxybin with Serz.exe

Right Click the .bin file, Open with, Choose Default Program, scroll to the bottom and select More Options. Again scroll to the bottom. Look for another app on this PC. Click it. Navigate to the Railworks folder. Mine is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RailWorks

It may differ from mine. Click on serz.exe. Hit Open. You should get an identical file called Class ES44 Horn Sound.xml

.proxyxml, and .xml can be edited with notepad. Return to Section 2

Good stuff here. Additionally if you have RWTools you can eliminate messing with the serz. You go to the top left of RWTools tabs and open 2016 files. Go find the bin you wish to edit open it make the changes described about and then click on save the file. It will automatically make a a backup called a .bak file which will be right next to your new file. It will be the original in case you somehow bork your changes. You can keep making changes and it will keep making backups named 1,2,3 and so forth.

Could this also work with swapping engine sounds?

Brickrail782 wrote:Could this also work with swapping engine sounds?

If you're talking about engine sounds from any of the packs, no.

I was afraid of that. Oh well. On a side note, I was trying to swap the horn from the NS heritage units with the freeware CSX K5HLLR2 and I couldn't find the files in question.

NS Heritage is a little dicey because of all the .bin files. The one that replaces all horns for the locomotive is
Class ES44 Horn Sound.bin

Sorry, I don't think I was being clear enough, I meant to say that I can't find the file from the K5HLR2 horn folder itself, not the engine(s).

Is it installed? If so it will be under Assets\SearchlightSimulations\NathanAirChimeSeries\K5HLR2_3rd_Gen

Yeah, its there, but the required files aren't. The horn works with the CSX GEVOs though.

Brickrail782 wrote:Yeah, its there, but the required files aren't. The horn works with the CSX GEVOs though.

I may be in error but without looking I thought they were a free download. If you don't have them perhaps you didn't get them.

Brickrail782 wrote:Yeah, its there, but the required files aren't. The horn works with the CSX GEVOs though.

Awfully weird..here is mine.

buzz456 wrote:

Brickrail782 wrote:Yeah, its there, but the required files aren't. The horn works with the CSX GEVOs though.

I may be in error but without looking I thought they were a free download. If you don't have them perhaps you didn't get them.

They are, they just are applied to the CSX ES44AC/AHs by default.

I don't have serz .exe should I get it so I can change the horn

biddydog9000 wrote:I don't have serz .exe should I get it so I can change the horn

It's part of the core install of Railworks. It's supposed to be in the Railworks directory along with RailWorks.exe and the assets and content folder.

On top of that you should be using RWTools because it opens bin files and then automatically makes a backup when you save your changes so if you mess up you can always go back to the previous version that worked properly.