Cinematic Camera

[SouthernPacific-Mike]

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

A couple of days ago I contacted RSC Support Staff to obtain some support regarding the Scenario Editor. Unfortunately, that so far has not been successful, in fact RSC stated the best source for help would be from the online community. Recently I have endeavored to construct a Train Simulator (TS) 2013
Halloween theme scenario. During my planning phase, I identified the need to use the "Cinematic Camera" to make the scenario more immersive and communicate other relative information to the user. I can find the
"Cinematic Camera" in the editor and even place it in the environment. Unfortunately however, there is no explanation on how to really use the tool in the TS 2012 Creator Manual and no revised manual has been released as of yet.

I have examined several of the "Sherman Hill" scenarios in an effort to understand how this tool is used, but still was not successful. Therefore I am requesting your assistance in this matter. I need to know the following:

1. After placing first "Cinematic Camera" at my desired location within
the scenario, how do I get it to trigger and display a Text message to the
user?
2. How do I connect different "Cinematic Cameras" together?
3. Can you set a "Cinematic Camera" to trigger the movement of an AI
train? If so, how is this done?
4. Is there a command reference (COMREF) document, that is a list of
the different commands (and what they do and how they are used) the program
will execute? For example in ARMA II, you can use the command
"flyinHeight", in this format "This flyinHeight 40". "This" is the vehicle
(Plane or Helicopter) and "40" is the height above the ground in meters you
want the craft to fly.
5. Can you change the weather via a trigger? And how is that done?
Thank you for your time and effort.

V/R
Mike

[robbit]

I am sorry I cannot help but I want to follow this thread because I never knew what the cinematic camera was for and how it was used. Still no nothing about it

[artimrj]

As far as I know, only RSC can use it in their scenarios, they did not make it for is to use. I have explored several LUA script files in scenarios that have them but can not make them work. RSC has a different scenario editor than we have, like they are the only ones who can make Career scenarios also.

[wackyhuman]

LUA is being used for a lot of stuff, including behaviours of engine parts, like smoke stacks generating smoke. It is internal to RS and RS developers. Don't think we'll get access to that part of the program

[mrennie]

LUA is being used for a lot of stuff, including behaviours of engine parts, like smoke stacks generating smoke. It is internal to RS and RS developers. Don't think we'll get access to that part of the program

There's a lot you can do in LUA scripts that isn't reserved only for RSC. There are a lot of very useful functions that you can call, and you have the freedom to write the body of the functions that the game engine calls in your scripts. I've been doing it to set up some novel animations and special effects.

Also, smoke stacks (and lights too) are only partially controlled through LUA scripts (mainly to activate and deactivate them) but the real work is done in the blueprint editor where you set all the parameters of the particle emitters such as the timing, velocity, dispersion, colour, size, etc.(you also have to use a programme like Photoshop to create suitable textures with alpha transparency to paint the squares that form the emitted particles).

As regards cinematic cameras, I haven't had time to look into that yet, but I'll post again if I find out anything handy.

[SouthernPacific-Mike]

First, let me start off by saying I really and truly appreciate all of your inputs. It would seem that I’m having a communication problem with RSC, in getting them understanding what I'm asking. I thought my email has very specific, sufficiently detailed and in the correct terminology (see first post). I was also surprised that my first post was merely a computer generated response that still requires me to contact them again using the very same email. I thought I would share their responses with you all, as maybe it’s my lack of command of the English language that is at fault. I can appreciate that are some differences between our languages but I thought they were minor. For example, what we call an “elevator”, is in the UK is called a “lift” and what here is a “trunk” there is called a boot. And I will not go into what a cigarette is called there.

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Dear Michael

Thank you for contacting the Railsimulator.com customer support, your inquiry has been logged with a member of our dedicated customer support team.

Route creation tutelage is not the kind of support we offer Michael, your best source of help with this would be from manuals and fellow route creators on line
I could send you some basic route creation videos but I am not sure they would be relevant to your questions.

Please reply to this email rather than generating a new email, this will avoid any confusion, it also enables us to read the history of all correspondence in order to provide you with quicker assistance and better support.

Keep an eye on the Train Simulator 2013 website: http://www.railsimulator.com or Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/railsimulator for all the latest news and details about upcoming releases.

Regards

Rail Simulator Support
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I thought there was distinct difference between a “Route” and a “Scenario.” I thought a “Route” was a terrain map versus a “Scenario” which is a given set of circumstances or tasks on a “Route” for a user to complete. Is my understanding incorrect? It would seem that none of my questions were understood. So I continued to pursue this line of questions in the possibility that it was a fluke and I saw no other point of contact that seemed appropriate. I then received the next message.

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Dear Michael

Thank you for contacting the Railsimulator.com customer support, your inquiry has been logged with a member of our dedicated customer support team.

Tutelage in route creation is a little beyond our remit, if you are interested in creating content then perhaps you should contact our partner liaison manager.
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If you are developing your own content and would like to find out more about publishing content through us on to Steam, we have someone specifically to talk to you, our Head of 3rd Party Relations is always interested to hear from new developers about them and their projects.

If you'd like to get in touch, simply send an email to partners@railsimulator.com and provide as much information as possible about who you are, what you're working on and so forth. If possible, try including screenshots of your work as well so that we can get a feel for it. If it's a route, a map is always great to get a better understanding of what you're trying to build.

We certainly aim to work with you to help you get your content at the right state and positioned in the right way that we can publish it on Steam.



Please reply to this email rather than generating a new email, this will avoid any confusion, it also enables us to read the history of all correspondence in order to provide you with quicker assistance and better support.

Keep an eye on the Train Simulator 2013 website: http://www.railsimulator.com or Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/railsimulator for all the latest news and details about upcoming releases.

Rail Simulator Support

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I don’t see where my request for information regarding the “"Cinematic Camera” object was a request for “Tutelage in route creation.” Nor do I see any where my other questions were addressed. If they have a different editor than we do, then they just need to say so. Although now I curious as to why RSC would use a different editor, than us, their customers. I can now understand the frustration that small independent developers go through. RSC needs to get their act together and then provide up to date information manuals. I don’t know about you all but I would like… No I need… some information and support here especially after the amount of funds I have devoted to the game. Am I wrong in this line of thinking? Is it also true a person cannot use the editor to edit Scenarios from the Steam Workshop?

[mrennie]

And I will not go into what a cigarette is called there.

(I'm English ... I know)

[mrennie]

Incidentally, I cannot see anything wrong as far as your command of English is concerned. I'd go even further and say that it's far above the level of English demonstrated by the vast majority of, supposedly, English-speaking users of the internet, if the standard of English I see on facebook and elsewhere is anything to go by.

Those automatically generated messages have actually improved compared to the ones we used to get. However, RSC have always stated that they don't provide any support for the tools, at least not to 3rd party users. It's always been up to us to begin with the manuals (and we should be thankful that there are manuals and other "developer docs") and then fend for ourselves, which has often forced us into studying existing examples and doing experiments, some of which could be regarded as "reverse engineering" - that's meant to be frowned upon (in their EULA) but it seems that RSC turn a blind eye to it if no harm is done.

I think the reason their responses talk so much about 3rd party creation is that they probably assume that if someone contacts them with a technical question like yours, it's because that person is doing so with a view to eventually collaborating with RSC in publishing some kind of user-generated content.

The upshot of it is that I personally don't see any point in sending technical questions to RSC support, because it's extremely unlikely that you would receive a useful answer. It's far better to ask Google or Jeeves or whoever.

[OldProf]

Most of what you've received from RSC support looks like "boilerplate": text that is written to be used most frequently as a smoke screen while one is trying to formulate an actual answer. For example, all messages to RSC support receive a first response that consists entirely of boilerplate, thanking the sender and recommending basic "fixes" for problems such as verifying the cache. The subtext is something like, "we've received your message and will get around to reading it and trying to help as soon as possible; meanwhile, here's some reading material to keep you busy".

The second response typically has actual content, but in your case it looks like just more boilerplate.

You're correct in saying that RSC has not provided a revised creator's manual (sounds like something that Jehovah would have read before doing what's described in Genesis, doesn't it?). Just looking at the timetable editor in TS2013 reveals numerous changes, but we're being kept in the dark so far and that is not unusual. My guess is that the programmers invent new features and figure out how to use them, but don't know or aren't yet ready to let us in on how they work. In other words, they've not only put the cart before the horse, but they don't know exactly how either works or what can be done with them, much less how much of a mess all of us users might make trying to use them ourselves.

We'll find out when they find out and are ready to initiate us into the new mysteries. Meanwhile, feel free to experiment, but be prepared for SBHH's and cache verifications galore. We're having fun, aren't we?????

[chrisell]

Stumbled across this topic - thought a link might be useful. I documented the cinematic camera over on the UK forums. Great potential but you can't use it because it requires a named event to trigger it - something that is greyed out in the scenario editor. But if you're curious : http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=126023

[Chacal]

I understand the argument about compiling and locking lua scripts for preventing cheating in career scenarios.
What makes no sense is why this would prevent any use of the cinematic camera.
(the whole idea of career scenarios makes no sense either but let's not go there)

Compiling into luac doesn't even bring a performance gain. It achieves only one result : it prevents sharing of knowledge, which goes against the whole idea of a community.

It is time to start actively writing to RSC support and ask that this feature be made available.

[chrisell]

This topic might be interesting - I'm going to start experimenting with this in the coming days and weeks and see if it's as (relatively) easy as it seems.
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 6&t=127205

[Chacal]

Great find! Problem solved, it seems.

EDIT: It works! Holy scripting cow it works.

Like everyone, after seeing this in RSC scenarios, I tried to hack my way into it but was stumped by the non-conventional MD5 file format. I must have tried all of the available MD5 generators on the net.
They say stupidity is close to genius. It's never been so true:

Just like everyone else, I soon realised that without ScenarioScript.luac.MD5 there is no chance of running a scripted scenario. Having worked on computers for more years than I like to think about, I have realised that, when all else fails, try something stupid. I copied ScenarioScript.luac.MD5 from a RW scenario to my scenario folder and, my scenario ran with a camera flying around as I wanted. I have tried this with a couple of different MD5 files and it has worked every time. Looks like (for my scenarios) RW is only checking for the presence of the file and not the content.

Imma steal all of this, clean it up and make a quick guide for our developer's guide.