How to create fences

Hmm, that is certainly an interesting result. andnbsp;I hadn’t seen that anyone has noticed that, yet. andnbsp;I might try to confirm those results on my system, and I would encourage others who have the time to do so, also. andnbsp;One thing I [i:3alvs05g]have[/i:3alvs05g] noticed, though, is that the appearance of certain texture/texture elements sometimes varies between machines (The walkway on the roof of my caboose has a strange texture split/line on it from the cupola view, and it appears in a different place when I run it on a friend’s machine).

Mike, Thank you very much. Jeffrey.

Jeffrey, I’ve just been looking at PSP and the file structure isn’t as obvious as I thought it would be there. andnbsp;To isolate the the alpha channel:

1. Load tga image file.
2. Create a new image, the same size as the one you loaded.
3. With the new blank image selected, go to the Masks menu item and click on ‘load from alpha channel’.
4. To see the mask, click on the ‘view mask’ option in the Masks menu.
5. Again in the Masks menu, click on save to disk.
6. After you have saved the mask, open it again and you should get a greysacle image.
7. Save this image as a bmp file, which you can load to the ‘translucency map’ tab in 3DC.
8. Save the original tga file as a bmp one, which will strip off the alpha channel. Load this file to the primary texture tab in 3DC.

When you use the object in MSTS, you will need to convert the original tga file to ace format and use that.

For your fence, you will need to create an image map in tga format, with an alpha channel. The alpha channel, should be white where you want the fence to show and black where you want the background to show through.

I haven’t tried creating an alpha channel in PSP myself yet, but I think troub could help with that if needs be.

Mike

How can I use 3DC to create fences for MSTS? I would use 2D faces and bitmaps. How can I use Paint Shop Pro 7 to create bitmaps that have one color set to transparent? Jeffrey.

Jeffrey, have you tried loading one of the MSTS sample Targa (tga) files into PSP ? … that should show you the file strucrure required. I’m not familiar with PSP, but I presume it will let you display layer/channel information, one of which will carry the transparency information as a greysacle image.

I have also loaded the first part of a tutorial about using transparency maps on my web pages and this might help too.

[img:58p20u3s]http://www.btinternet.com/~mike.pye/transparency.htm[/img:58p20u3s]
<!– m –><a class="postlink" href="http://www.btinternet.com/~mike.pye/transparency.htm">http://www.btinternet.com/~mike.pye/transparency.htm</a>&lt;!– m –>

Mike

Mike, I followed your instructions on creating the alpha channel but when I try to load the fence into MSTS, I get andquot;Shape failed to loadandquot; message. As for creating alpha channel from images that you create, create a mask, choose SelectionsSave to Alpha Channel, choose a filename, save the mask file, load the mask file, and save the mask file to BMP file. Jeffrey.

Mike, I tried to create the fence but I think that MSTS doesn’t like 2D faces. I created a 3D box but when I placed the fence in the Route Editor, the fence is orange and black instead of orange and transparent. The fence is orange and transparent in 3DC. Jeffrey.

Jeffrey,

I’ve used a single 2d face successfuly while checking out some aspects of loco modelling, so, unless static objects are different, I don’t think it is that. I think the cruciform models used for trees may have some special requirements, but I presume you haven’t modelled the fence that way.

From what you say, it sounds as though the alpha channel is not set up correctly. If you would you like to mail me the texture map and the 3DC 3dc file and I’ll take a look at it for you.

<!– e –><a href="mailto:mike.pye@btinternet.com">mike.pye@btinternet.com</a><!– e –>

Mike

Jeffrey, your’e getting beyond my own limited experience now <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –> Three questions though:

1. Does the fence look as you want it to look in 3DC ?
2. Have you read Richard Borsheim’s MSTS 3DC Tutorial in the help system ?
3. Have you checked the MSTS notes in the Documents folder ? – although I think Richard’s tutorial extracts all the relevant information from these.

If none of these help, Ianm42 might be able to. He has successfully transferred static objects to MSTS.

Sorry I can’t be more specific on this one.

Mike

PS Just had an afterthought. I got that message when I frirst exported in the s file format. andnbsp;It was caused by not running it through the txt2uni.exe utility first. The 3DC export file is in text format and needs converting to unicode (See Richard’s Tutorial)

Jeffrey,

thanks for the files. The tga did not contain an alpha channel, so I’ve corrected it and mailed it back to you. It now runs in MSTS in place of the Scotsman okay <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Mike

Ian’s and Mike’s tutorials are on the 3DC site under tutorials.

Ian, Where is your tutorial on creating a 4-wheel wagon? Jeffrey.

Ian, I downloaded your tutorial on making a 4-wheel wagon using Paint Shop Pro 7 and 3DC Pro 4.2, and started to create the wagon but 8plankchassis.tga file is missing from the zip file. Jeffrey.

My tutorial on building a 4 wheel wagon explains how to create a .tga file with transparency in PSP7 and how to apply it to the model (sections 1 and 4).

Hope it helps.

Ian M.

Sorry for the missing file. I did add it to the zip as soon as I noticed, but Richard did not pick up the new version before he went on holiday.

Please pick up the tutorial again from [img:1vz0b0t3]http&#58;//www&#46;trainsimfiles&#46;com[/img:1vz0b0t3]
<!– m –><a class="postlink" href="http://www.trainsimfiles.com">http://www.trainsimfiles.com</a>&lt;!– m –>

Ian M.