TANE vs. TS12 for CC

 

Making content for TANE is deferent form making for TS12 so here's what I have found so far.

 

Overall color is not the same, that is the RGB numbers that look good in TS12 may not look right in TANE, this is due to all the older Trainz before TANE had the sun to bright(from N3V). I know that I had to fix a lot of RGB numbers found on the Internet did not look good.

 

Alpha channels should be used on almost everything. I just did an update on some A and B units where I added an alpha to the A unit and not to the B unit and in game it showed up a lot. With the alpha you get a much darker color. If you make something new with out an alpha you can end up with a "ghost"  mesh that is blueish.

 

Animations can look wrong in CM but good in game. Some are no longer where they should be. Some but not all of my bogeys show the wheels outside the frame in CM and when you place them in game but it you zoom in on them, the wheel pop back to where they belong and stay there. This was something to do with how they were made but I have not found out yet what is wrong.

 

A very odd one that I have found was on my Alco PA1's. In TS12 one part looked normal but in TANE the same part had a dark spot on it, like it was in shadow, this was only on the sunny side, the other side looked normal. After a lot of work I got it fixed by lowering the poly count.

 

Here's the good and bad part with the "spot" highlighted.

 

 

 



 Update: this was a bug and has been fixed.



 



Setting up ARN in TANE part 2

 

Having done some more Alco PA1 updates with ARN I have found out that:

 

 If you set up the number range as 01-16 you will get the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15. That is if a number starts with "0" the "0" will not show up.

 

If you need running number that start with a "0" you have to hide an extra digit plane inside your   mesh and in the config.txt you add an extra number.

 

 

What I was doing was a NH PA1 that had running number from 0760 to 0786. 

 

Try 1 set 0760-0787 and got number 760 to 786.

 

Try 2 removed diget3 in the mesh and added the "0" in Photoshop, the fonts did not match at all.

 

Try 3 added in digit2, put back digit3 and set config at 10760-10787 this worked and I got the 0760 to 0786.

 

I also found that every time I export form Blender I have to edit the .texture.txt files for the digit textures.

 

Some times you have to put running numbers on a curved surface, tank cars and pressed steel car end. To get them to fit you can make the digit plane "bend" by cutting or other ways in Blender so that you can move the ends in more so that it looks something like a "V" or "U". 



 

Setting up ARN in TANE

 

What's new:

   TANE has an ARN built-in so you do not need a script so it loads and runs faster. It will let you use a range and/or a list of running numbers. You can have the same number on more than one car/loco this is so the number on a steam engine can also be on the tender or a two unit loco can have both units with the same number. TANE will not allow texture replacement of a 32 bit texture with a 24 bit one, this is one reason why NumberIt may not work. There is a limit of only 2000 numbers witch is better than NumberIt's 1000. You also have to have one more number than you need as the last or highest number will not be shown. If you have say 4 running numbers and you use place more than 4 cars/locos you will get repeats.   

 

Set up of config.txt

Not a lot to add and you should check the Wiki.

 

fonts                                   1
fonts-path                              "car"

 

This is where and how many fonts you have, this is the same as has been in Trainz from UTC to TS12.

 

vehicle-running-numbers
{
 running-numbers    "290-293"

}

 

This is where you put your numbers, this one gives 290,291, and 292 the last 293 will never be used.

 

vehicle-running-numbers
{
 running-numbers    "290,291,292,293"

}

 

This gives the same thing.

 

vehicle-running-numbers
{
 running-numbers    "290-293,299,300-311"

}

 

This gives 290,291,292,293,299,300, 301 and up to 310.

 

Font number folder

This is the same as older Trainz and NumberIt, it must be named "car_alpha_numbers" and inside it has 10 alpanumber textures and the matching .texture.txt files. The names must be right or it will not work(on the Wiki, in the old CCG, or look at a working car in CM). 

 

Body folder

This is almost the same as the old ones. You can have up to 6 textures here starting with digit_6.tga, that is the last digit in the running number, the order is digit_1, digit_2, digit_3, digit_4, digit_5, digit_6. So if you need a 7 digit number you will have to put the first digit on your main skin texture the same as a road name. The first sample above uses digit_4, digit_5, and digit_6 only. The textures must have a BLACK alpha channel, this is new and Blender will not make the .texture.txt right.

 

The fix is to not set the alpha in Blender, set it as if it did not have one, after export open each .texture.txt, it will look like this:

 

 

Primary=digit_6.tga
Tile=st

 

Edit it to look like this:

 

Primary=digit_6.tga
Alpha=digit_6.tga
Tile=st

The file name must be "digit_6.texture.txt" if you get a file name like "digit_6-digit_6.texture.txt" then you have the alpha set wrong and it will not work as the name is wrong and you can not edit the name as it is in the .xml and the .im CM will give an error(I found this out the hard way).

 

Help full hints

When you make your car/loco put in the running number as text the right size, color, and position, you can then fit the texture plane of each digit to just fit over the number digit, move it very close to the side it is to be on.

 

The size and shape of each number can be changed by the size and shape of the digit plane, this saves having to use two sets of fonts.

 

The first time you try this just get one side to work then you can copy the other side and the ends.


 

 



Stripes cont.

To make stripes that have wider spaces than the stripe I use a deferent method. I make line and dot like before but the dot is bigger and I only make one, I then use the rectangular marquee tool to make a copy and move it up same as before, this is much faster than changing the brush size over and over.

Safety stripes (AKA zebra or chevron), found on diesel switchers and road hood mostly.

What you need is a good photo to go by as there is no standard as to size, color, or location. I have done some that have small strips on the foot boards and bigger ones on the hood. All of them are at an angle witch makes using a one pixel line imposable as it looks very bad in game.

I start out by adding a center guide line over the end view of the loco and guide lines where I well be cutting, that is the tops, bottoms, and sides.

 

 

Next you need to make a guise as to size, if you can find a photo that is head on you can re-size it and get the right size. So this is what I make.

 

 

 

Note that I made them horizontal first.

 

Next I make them at 45° and so that you can see what is behind them.

 

 

 

This is where you find out if your size is right and if you have the right number of stripes( I did not have the right number in the sample above).

 

Next you cut the stripes to fit one side only.

 

 

Last step is to copy and flip the other side.

 

 

 



 

 

 

Stripes

Note: I have been using Photoshop for 20 years so all references will be to PS CS6.

Stripes are not hard to make if they are straight, curved are a bit harder. You need good photos to see where they go and how wide they are. Generally the stripes line up with some part of the body. The size of the stripe would be in inches but we have to use pixels and you can not convert from one to the other as you can not have anything smaller than a pixel. If it looks good is all you can do.

Number one thing to do is make your stripes on a new layer.

To make a number of stripes the same size and spacing.

I put in two guide lines at about where the top and bottom ones should be. Next I draw a short line at the bottom guide line at a size I think will work then add a single brush point of the same size on top, repeat for the number of stripes you need. This may need to be done over with a deferent size brush to get the right number of stripes to fit the guide lines. The two Photos show what it looks like but I did change the color of the points. This is much faster to do than type how to do it.

Top is 5pix bottom is 6pix.

Starting up agan

I have been very busy and have not made a post in a long time.

I am now on Win 10 and using Blender 2.77a, I also have a new GTX960 and a SSD. The SSD was do to my boot drive not booting and I lost a lot of my work files but not all.

Blender 2.77a has a lot of new things in it but just about everything is in a new place.

TANE, I am now only working to make things for Build 4.3 and up, support for TS12 at Build 3.8 is due to stop very soon. The work flow for TANE is not the same as before, when you "Clone" in CM you get a New Asset with that name and when you Open in Explorer you get a file name that has the KUID number in front of it.

NumberIt has to be set up so that the digit_6.tag (and the others) has an Alpha channel, this is due to TANE texture replacement has to have the same bit size(I.E. 32bit with 32bit). The other thing to look out for is the name of the .texture.txt and what is in it.

Should be: digit_6.tag   with a black Alpha channel

and in inside:

Primary=digit_6.tga
Alpha=digit_6.tga
Tile=st