Rail Simulator Exports Available

This is going prety well. I’m pleased.

Kevm,

Yes, I forgot to do the translation from feet to meters in the export. I’ll do that now.

I’m not sure about the animation. I’ll have to look. Maybe it doesn’t require the final key-frame to be the same as the first? It could be a number of things. I’m just happy that it ‘sort of’ works, since I never managed to test the animation export in the sim itself.

I’ve updated the exporter and it will be available shortly (an hour).

I’ve added support for models in centimeters or feet, and proper texture placement (textures should be in a ‘textures’ sub folder).

I’ve published the new version of 3DC.

This version of the exporter requires that your ACE textures be located in a sub-folder ‘textures’ as is the standard practice for Rail Simulator.

I still have to think about the ‘pause’ in the animations. If anyone tracks anything down, let me know.

For those of you using feet/inches, there is an update to the exporters here: [img:vfl7s6h0]http://amabilis.com/forumattachments/a/tpc/f/5496093974/m/81810029241?r=86210129241#86210129241[/img:vfl7s6h0]
Updated Exporters

Oh… I forgot to mention… the 24 groups limitation is with Rail Simulator, not 3DC.

Hi.

I found this in the Animation section of document 4.07 Train Guidelines.

Wheels and bogies typically do not need any animation, as they are code driven. The
(main) wheels on a steam locomotive however do need to be animated, since a
whole array of pistons and rods rely on them. Animate them for a full 360 degrees
rotation of the wheel. The fail-safe way of going about this is to set their rotation
type to linear, have 17(!) keyframes (0 till 16) and create a key for each frame,
everytime rotating the wheel 22.5 degrees further. Once you have made 16 keys set
the out-of-range controller to ‘Relative Repeat’-�. The 17th frame (i.e. frame 16 when
starting at frame 0) will remain empty but is required for the exporter, otherwise a
jump may appear in the in-game animation.

Could be cause of jump?

Cheers

Aidan

I’ve already tried adding an extra frame (and even taking one out!) but still get the same pause after each rotation.

Quite happy to send you some files for you to try, Richard, if you let me know an email address.

Kevin

Hello,

[b:33tceqj8]Is it compulsory to use ACE format for textures conversion?[/b:33tceqj8]

I’ve started reading some KRS documentation and in ‘4.01 Art pipeline’, it says in the ACE Format chapter:
‘Any texture that requires transparency should be saved as a full 32-bit image, with
the [b:33tceqj8]alpha channel[/b:33tceqj8] containing [b:33tceqj8]only black or white[/b:33tceqj8] (not grey scale). If the image
contains grey scale alpha, the DX compression will simply quantise this down to 1-
bit, and the resultant alpha channel may be undesirable. With transparency,
remember to set the TRANS flag in the shader.’

[b:33tceqj8]I’m surprised that a transparency gray scale cannot be used in KRS, that’s why I ask the question of ACE format.[/b:33tceqj8]

A lot of their documents are based on max 8 and the photoshop ace plugin.

DXT 3 and 5 compression do not remove the alpha. DXT1 will remove the alpha.

After that it is all down to which shader you use.

I should have the animation working properly in a day or two. It shouldn’t be too difficult. It think it’s a job that I need to do and can’t be done by making changes to a model file.

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by Paul Gausden:
DXT 3 and 5 compression do not remove the alpha. DXT1 will remove the alpha.
[/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]
My worry is not that alpha could be removed but that no grey scale would be allowed with ACE.
Is it always true or only dependant on the photoshop ace plugin?
And I noticed that one step of the 3DC export includes a conversion to ACE.

I don’t know how the export works (I don’t have RS or the dev tools installed)

However – I did write the ToAce.exe program, which I think Richard is calling to do the conversion.
ARGB8888, DXT3 and DXT5 do not loose translucency information.

How the ACE file is rendered depends on the shader selected.

I have a small request for the next version of the exporter.. if i give a name to a group, for ex.-andgt; Rail.. into the igs file has to be Rail not rail <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –>

‘Name the ballast object ‘1_1000_Ballast’-� [b:19tahbwx](case sensitive)[/b:19tahbwx]
Name the rail object ‘1_1000_Rail’-� [b:19tahbwx](case sensitive)[/b:19tahbwx] ‘

Thanks <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by Paul Gausden:
I don’t know how the export works (I don’t have RS or the dev tools installed)

However – I did write the ToAce.exe program, which I think Richard is calling to do the conversion.
ARGB8888, DXT3 and DXT5 do not loose translucency information.

How the ACE file is rendered depends on the shader selected. [/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]
Thanks for the reply. I’ll test this in a few days.

Hi <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>
I have another small request for the exporter… to change the lod level from 1_0700 to 1_1000.. until the release of a version with an adjustable lod setting. <!– s;) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;) –>