Getting scenery objects into Railworks

[cnw1970]

I was just wondering if there is a tutorial somewhere for getting finished scenery objects ready for Railworks after they are done on 3D Crafter. I have several buildings that are ready that I would be more than happy to distribute on here. I just need a little lesson on getting them into Railworks, which I'm sure involves the asset editor that I have no experience with. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

[thebigroyboyski]

If you go to http://thegradecrossing.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1 you will find a lot of very useful tutorials.
The site is run by PapaXpress. The tutorials are by himself and other members of RCAP/ Virtual Rails and are very well written and easy to follow

[jpetersjr]

Getting scenery into the sim is actually a quite simple process, but first you need to double check your textures to make sure you won't run into any problems later, here's how.


If you need help on getting your finished scenery into RW, I'd be more then happy to help walk you through it, but first though, I need to know if your textures are sized to the power of 2, such as 512x1024 or 1024x1024 or 512x512.

Have to make sure your textures are sized correctly or RW will crash when trying to fill out the blueprint.


Once you check this let me know and I'll guide you through the next step.



...Cheers...


Big J


Also, are your textures set to the correct brightness. I find that 1 diffuse and 1 ambient and 0 out the rest does the best job, since if it's textured too brightly the textures will appear to glow once in the sim.

[jpetersjr]

Alright, after you export the object from 3D Crafter the first thing you need to do is set up your source folder.

Such as this,

Program Files (86)/ Steam/ Steamapps/ Common/ Railworks/ Source/ cnw1970/ Asset/ Name Your Item Here/

Once you make your Provider folder in the Source folder you will then in that folder make a folder called Asset. Then in that folder you will make another folder with the name of your items set, such as my folder Riverland Lines Buildings, you will create your folder name how you want it.

Next you will click on the new folder and enter into it, in that folder you'll make another folder called Textures

You will place your IGS below the texture folder and place all your textures, (exported and packaged textures from Crafter or whatever program you're using) in your textures folder.

It should be set up like this.

Inside your source folder 1.jpg

You will place your textures in your textures folder, it should look like this.

Inside your source folder 2.jpg

[jpetersjr]

Next step, filling out the blueprints and putting the item into the sim.


Now, you're going to exit the Source folder and scroll down to Utilities in the Railworks folder.

Click on Utilities and click Yes, then click on Blueprints.

Now you're going to double click Source then double click on your Provider Name to enter your source folder. Double click Asset, double click on your folder, whatever you named it, I named mine Riverside Lines Buildings.

You should be looking at a menu like this, right click on your IGS and select Create Scenery Blueprint.

Inside your source folder 3.jpg

Here's what you need to select.

Getting an asset into RW 1.jpg

You're going to click Create Scenery Blueprint and then it will open the blueprint, this is the area that you must fill out completely for your item to work in the sim.

You will be looking at this.

Getting an asset into RW 2.jpg

Now, you're going to fill out the name of your object in the blacks titled Name and Browse Information/ Display name. It should look like this once you've filled it out.

Getting an asset into RW 3.jpg

Now that that's done it's time to move on in the next post.

[jpetersjr]

Now in blueprints, you're going to scroll down to where it says Category and you're going to click it and select what your object is, my object is a house so I select Domestic Building. It should look like this.

Getting an asset into RW 4.jpg

Now click on Description and type in a description of your item in the black, it isn't required but I like to add a description of what the item is.
It should look like this.

Getting an asset into RW 5.jpg

Now, scroll down to Render Component and click on it, you will now see two more blanks that need to be filled out.

They will be titled as Geometry ID and Collision geometry ID.

Type what's writted in the Geometry ID Blank into the Collision geometry ID Blank. It should look like this.

Getting an asset into RW 6.jpg

Now that all that's done it's time to export the item into RW, if your textures are correct it should export perfectly, but if they're wrong in sizing (Power of 2) it will crash and not export, now let's hope all of your textures are correct and don't have any of these in it ( ' ) if it has that sign in the texture name it will crash, so make sure you don't have any comma's or special characterstics in your texture names.

Now, time to export.

Right click on your blueprint name over to the left of the screen and you should see this menu.

Getting an asset into RW 7.jpg

Now move your mouse corser onto Export and it will open up a menu. You will then click on Export or Forced Export, I usually first click on Forced Export and then exit the blueprint and then open it back up again and export it again selecting Export to make sure it shows up in the sim.
Click on Forced Export.

Getting an asset into RW 8.jpg

If everything was done right in the texture creation after filling out everybit of this it should export perfectly and then say export Successful, if it failed it will say Export Failed, let's hope your export is successful.

[jpetersjr]

My export was successful so I see this, hopefully you're seeing it as well.

Getting an asset into RW 9.jpg

Now I'm going to exit the blueprints, then open the blueprint back up and simply click Export.

You should now know how to get back into the blueprint editor to export the item again to click Export and this will make sure that it will show up in the sim. Now I'm going to open up RW and preview the new house in the sim, you should also open up RW when you're finished and preview your new building in the sim, if you have any problems exporting it leave me a PM and we'll try to get it figured out.



...Cheers...


Big J

[Chacal]

Great tutorial John.
Are you sure the collision geometry is necessary?
Collision detection has a huge performance impact.

[jpetersjr]

I've tried it before without it and the item didn't want to show up, so I believe it is needed.

[cnw1970]

Thank you so much, your directions are very easy to understand!!! I'll have to wait a while to try it out, as I took on quite a few double shifts at work for the next week. I'll try to check out my texture size after work tonight. Thanks again!!!!!

[Chacal]

I've tried it before without it and the item didn't want to show up, so I believe it is needed.

Something else must have been wrong, here's from my simple cube:

Code: Select all

               <GeometryID d:type="cDeltaString">Chacal\Test\[00]Test01</GeometryID>
               <CollisionGeometryID d:type="cDeltaString"></CollisionGeometryID>


[jpetersjr]

I guess you were right Chacal, in the old editor version if I didn't put in the Collision Geometry ID the item wouldn't show up in the sim, but now it appears without it.

I do wish however I could figure out how to make a usuable Collision Geometry ID item though so I could rig my cars up that if a train hit it there would actually be a train wreck, or a destroyed car.

[Chacal]

The collision geometry is used so that the PhysX engine can detect a collision and notify the game engine.
The game engine decides what to do in that case.
In the case of the TS2015 engine, it does very few things:
- wagons or locos colliding under a certain speed with correct couplers: couple them together;
- some cameras : avoid collision geometries (e.g. nr.2 camera, but not nr.8 camera);
- animated passengers on platforms : avoid collision geometries;
- any other collision: derail and end scenario.

I may be forgetting other cases.
I have never actually tried to collide trains into things, actually I've been trying to avoid it.
:)