I'm In The Twilight Zone With My First Freight Car!!!

[TheKman]

Got my first freight car made. Needless to say, and I expexcted it, I got a mixed bag of tricks when I got the model into the sim for a test.
When making the wagon blueprint, I got hung up on the primary and secondary named texture sets. I didn't do auto numbering for the car just a single number. So the model it's self wasn't setup for auto numbering. I never did the process thinking I didn't need to because it's a single number. The car number is a bitmap along with the ACE for it. Looks like I might be wrong there.....

So at first the model woundn't export because it could not find the blueprint IDs for the texture sets. I also didn't do a named texture set blueprint again thinking I didn't need to because of just a single number.

Only way to export it was to leave both texture set blueprint ID fields blank. It exported, but skipped over all the textures.

So onto what the car looked like in the sim. Pics enclosed. Pics 1-4 show what I got in the sim. Pic 5 is what the car is SUPPOSED to look like. So looking at pics 1-4, a whole lot of stuff is missing. And no textures other than the color on the flat, and the rust on the coupler. (in pic 4, somehow a coupler ended up there.....)

1. Is the blueprint ID problem causing parts to go AWOL? I understand the missing textures, all skipped over.
2. Would I have missing parts if I didn't name parts correctly when I ran my car thru the 3DC Train Simulator Wizard. Some might say not to run the Train Simulator Wizard and due a straight export. I've seen examples of it done both ways so which is really correct?
3. For all I know, I have other problems I haven't encountered yet......

Thanks

P.S. Guys, sorry about all the darn edits I've done to the thread. This is what happens when a guy getting up there in age pulls a "all nighter" 4 days ago and is still paying for it! Mind gets fogged at times....

[mikeadams2k]

For parts of the model not showing up in the sim, several things come to mind. When you export the model, do you have all the parts selected? Also, some of the normals (faces) could be flipped the wrong direction. Is it possible you've exceeded the 256 object or 24 children limit? If this is the case, you can work around it by joining parts. Just don't join the wheels, bogies, or any other animated parts. Another thing to check is scaling. Make sure the scale of all parts is set to 1.0, on all axis before your export. I had an issue with textures not displaying correctly on one model I was exporting, until I set the scale to 1.0 on all axes.

For the model to be sunk in the sim, it could be the way model is positioned on the Z axis. The bottom of the wheels of the car should rest at 0 on the Z axis, which represents the top of the rails.

The coupler showing up where it is may mean the coupler pivot/receiving points are set to 0, or close to it. You can set these points visually in the preview editor and then tweak them in their respective matrices in the BPE.

Could you post a screenshot of the the model in the 3D program you're using?

[TheKman]

I can post screen shots from 3DC. I'm reasonably certain I grouped it wrong along with naming the groups wrong. And I'm also thinking the main part, bogies and wheels got jacked when I identified them within the Train Simulator Wizard.

I'm reworking the model. It's way too complex. I have no idea what the polycount is, but I know I have a petty intense model. So some areas are being redrawn to eliminate faces and edges. That does affect the poly count. I also forgot with it in a 3ds format the textures/ACE files can only be 8 characters or less. From what read awhile ago, that might be giving me a headache.

So it might be a day or do before I'm back with a update and more screen shots.

[BoostedFridge]

This is an awesome project! 70's-90's intermodal equipment is very welcome!

There are definitely some 3dc experts on the site, so don't be shy in posting issues or questions.

[cnwfan]

Very nice! This will be a welcome addition.

[pwillard]

One of the gotchas with 3DC is you need to pick a MAIN object that everything else is built in reference to (as in, top of hierarchy tree). Then, THAT object needs to have its X,Y,Z widget "shifted" so it is at location 0,0,0. the difference in distance from the center of the main object and its Axis widget location is "how far it is positioned" above track height.