Rail Simulator Exports Available

KRS has produced a documentation (ch 4.07) which is all 3DSmax oriented (whereas btw the 3DSmax plugin is not (officially) available).

I believe that the documentation that Richard is going to release will have details giving the corresponding values in 3DC for:
1) ‘6.4.2 Specular highlights’
2) In ‘6.4.3 Material features and restrictions’ ‘Use the first box of the UV Arguments to set glossiness. As a guide use 64 for train ‘skin’-�.’
3) In ‘6.4.3 Material features and restrictions’ ‘Keep the Mip LOD Bias between -2.0 and 2.0, as some videocards won’t
support higher or lower values. Ideally, leave this setting at its default 0.0.’
4) In ‘6.4.3 Material features and restrictions’ ‘Set the Z-Buffer Mode of any textures which use a greyscale alpha channel for
opacity to TEST ONLY.’
5) ‘8.1 Stencil Shadows’ ‘Also set the material ID of all polygons to 1.’ (maybe this one will be automatically processed by the export plugin).
6) ‘8.2 Soft Shadows’ : ‘Soft shadows are provided for your convenience in the MAX file softshade_shapes.max, with accompanying textures.’.
7) ‘9.2 Linking of LODs’ (Links to LODs and soft shadows). I understand 3DC export is doing some automatic work avoiding to have a model too KRS specific (like adding 1_0000 to groups).

Something I’m not sure:
‘4.2 Instancing’
‘all you need to do is export your wheels and bogies separately. Do this for one wheel or one bogie at a time. Be sure to place the object at (0,0,0) in your scene with (0,0,0) rotaton. Give the IGS file a logical name’
So there is an option to export wheels / bogies independently for use by different models but it can be included as elements of the hierarchy of the main object (in which case bogies / wheels are within the only igs file of the model).

Thanks in advance for the details you can give.

Yes, I used to think axles, bogies and bodies would be separate model files, but there is no template for axles, and the template for bogies does not specify a model shape file. It looks like everything has to be in one shape file, with a template for that, and a template for a bogie.

Ian.
<!– s8-) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_cool.gif" alt="" title="Cool" /><!– s8-) –>

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by ianm42:
Yes, I used to think axles, bogies and bodies would be separate model files, but there is no template for axles, and the template for bogies does not specify a model shape file. It looks like everything has to be in one shape file, with a template for that, and a template for a bogie.

Ian.
<!– s8-) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_cool.gif" alt="" title="Cool" /><!– s8-) –> [/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]

I’d agree with Ian. It does seem as you make one shape file and then use the bogie.xml files to tell the sim where the bogie position and wheel diameters.
A couple of things to note about setting up a steam loco is that the main driving wheels are classed as a bogie in the sim.
I’ve also found out that even if you have a 2 wheeled bogie on your loco, you have to set the relevant bogie.xml file up as if it was a 4 wheeled bogie. If you don’t the sim will crash straight to desktop when you try and activate it.
Had a lot of fun and games with that one!

Kevin

I finally succeeded to export the shape with no error.

I had to remove all subgroups (all group names are at the root level), except the bogies and wheels.

I hope it’s only a limitation of the current version of the export plugin.
If it’s actually a game limitation, it would be great if the plugin removes the unnecessary subgroups during the export execution in order to be able to keep the subgroups in the 3DC model.

[img:3gfehqi5]http&#58;//img75&#46;imageshack&#46;us/my&#46;php?image=image6qo7&#46;jpg[/img:3gfehqi5]
[img:3gfehqi5]http&#58;//img75&#46;imageshack&#46;us/img75/5360/image6qo7&#46;th&#46;jpg[/img:3gfehqi5]

Now, I going to take care of the rest to (hopefully) have a fully working test model for KRS.

There was a bug in the group counting. The next version of the exporter will allow up to 24 sub-groups per group.

I have added LOD exporting to the Rail Simulator export.

It currently uses the same LOD methods as the MSTS export.

There are some limitations. Your LODs must have the same number of groups, in the same position as the original model. I think this is the same restriction that was in the MSTS version.

I hope I can get this new version out in the next few days. I have a few other things that need to be done before the release. I’m working on non-Rail Simulator changes too.

I’m thinking that I may start creating ‘dummy objects’ so that groups don’t require an object and that LODs don’t require that all groups exist across all LODs.

This would make things easier. I’m just not sure if have the time for such ‘niceties’

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by Amabilis Support:
I have added LOD exporting to the Rail Simulator export.

I hope I can get this new version out in the next few days. I have a few other things that need to be done before the release. I’m working on non-Rail Simulator changes too. [/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]
Take your time Richard, <!– 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 DOM107:
1) a plugin that adds for a hierarchy a KRS texture name (for example ‘TrainBumpSpecEnvMask’). I would take then less time to change the object with the wrong shader than doing one object at a time.

2) [b:2bjc2o3i]Replace[/b:2bjc2o3i] througout a hierarchy one shader by another one (for example, TrainBumpSpecEnvMask by TrainBasicObjectDiffuse). [/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]

The first one is not a so good idea, a plugin which would default a rail simulator attribute on the whole object or a given hierarchy for a given primary texture is more useful.

I successfully exported a very simple model:

[img:3tfv3x7v]http&#58;//img249&#46;imageshack&#46;us/my&#46;php?image=image4ez7&#46;jpg[/img:3tfv3x7v]
[img:3tfv3x7v]http&#58;//img249&#46;imageshack&#46;us/img249/1494/image4ez7&#46;th&#46;jpg[/img:3tfv3x7v]

However, the preview in Asset editor doesn’t work (there is message that RailSim Launcher Application ceased to work).

Do you know any log to look at? It seems there is in KRS as much help / user friendly messages as in MSTS.

One thing I notice is that the axis point for the main body model is too high – it should be at rail top level. That will not stop it showing in Previewer, but the wheels will be half buried in the ground.

Some of the shaders you are using require an alpha channel in your textures. Is that set up correctly? Also, you have some specified without the .fx suffix.

It might also be useful to see what values you have entered into the blueprint. Also, do you Export before your Preview?

There is also a small bug/feature of RS that could be a problem here. Delete the file Blueprints.pak under …Rail SimulatorAssetsKujuRailSimulator as this sometimes is not as up to date as it should be. It will be recreated correctly next time you start RS.

Ian <!– s8-) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_cool.gif" alt="" title="Cool" /><!– s8-) –>

BlendATexDiff is not listed in ‘FX shaders’ chapter so it doesn’t have to be suffixed by ‘.fx’.
I use BlendATexDiff with one texture which has an alpha chanel (tga texture built with tgatool).

I tried export, preview… I believe all combinations of these operations.

I have simplied some more the model: the body is a cube with the materials using only TrainBasicObjectDiffuse shader.
When previewing, I can see the shape but it’s all black.

Later, I’ll have to use TrainBumpSpecEnvMask or TrainSpecEnvMask which is better for a locomotive (but it’s very long and tedious to change these attributes in 3DC as the material editor is at the element level and not at the model level).

I’ll try Blueprints.pak deletion (thanks for the tip).

If the model is now showing, but all one colour, then that could be the wrong setting of ToAce has been used. There is an RS Bin tool available from uktrainsim.com (File ID: 17703) which will convert back from .ace format and allow you to view what was created. If this shows all black, then try ToAce again, but with a different file format. I found that .bmp files need the RGBA format rather than DXT.

Ian

I’ve released a new version of 3DC which includes an updated Rail Simulator export. It adds exporting of LODs, permits groups with no objects, and corrects the counting of sub-groups so it uses Rial Simulator’s limit of 24 sub-groups correctly.

Here’s an example of the auto-LODs in action.

[img:2kgvnyir]http&#58;//www&#46;3DC&#46;com/images/AutoLODsExample&#46;gif[/img:2kgvnyir]

Not perfect, but pretty good I think.

This works with MSTS exports also now.