test

 

Every thing you need to know about plans

Every thing you need to know about plans

 

First off any plan you find can have errors on it. I was given a job to scan in a box full of odd size plans to put on an internal web, it was all changes made to a new diesel engine that was all made on a computer. That I remember was move a hole to a better place and a parts maker made 50 covers with the two logos in the wrong order. Things like this happen all the time and correction plans are made and put with the other plans.

 

The maker plans are also very big, 40" wide by what ever and a scale of 3/8" or 1/2" to the foot.

Most of what you can find are reduced by photo or scanner. New plans that are made by computer can output to any size, a big help, but if it was made before 1970 it was not made on a computer, after 2000 all most all would be computer made.

 

The following is for U.S. locomotive and rolling stock.

 

Original  plans:

 

You can find but costly and very big to work with.

 

Steam locomotives - normally shown with wheels and valve gear as center lines and diameter, no detail on side view. A lot of the piping is not shown as the pipe-fitters new what went where. Lots of sub-plans.

 

Diesel/electric locomotives - may or may not have bogeys.

 

Bogeys -  side views for most can be found, top and front views very hard to find.

 

Freight cars - makers plans only show what they made not all the parts that they put on. So you find the body but no doors, brake gears, and all the other parts.

 

Passenger cars - the same as freight cars but always with a top view of the interior.

 

Railway Service cars (non-revenue and MoY} - same as freight cars but harder to find.

 

All cars show the bottom view as seen from the TOP, look out for this as it can get confusing.

 

You will find a lot of cutaways and cross sections.

 

Copy's  of originals :

 

Found in Cyclopedias and trade magazines.

 

All printed copies can have have up to a 2% error, that's around one foot for a 85' car. You can also get the size wrong in ether X or Y direction.

Railroad Cyclopedias cab be found on-line, CD's and used books. Note, most do not show lettering or color.

Model Railway Magazines: First model railroad magazine came out in the 1930's and there have been a lot of them so I will only cover Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman.

Both used plans made by users and staff and a lot of them from cyclopedias but they look better as the cut-a-ways are not there. Most printed after 1960 are good but the older ones can be missing things you need like the wheels.

All the newer ones normally all lettering, running numbers, and colors.

Size: Most are to model scales, S, HO, and O. RMC did try to use N but only for one year, to small to use. S scale fit better so most common.

Here is an old plane and you can see why you can not make a detailed model with just them.

Newer one.

 

I made this in TANE and is on the DLS.

Classification books: Your bigger railroad had them and I do not know just how they used them but you can find scanned ones on the internet. Most look hand drawn and do have good info. I have used them to make content.

Other: You can find plans in train books and on the internet. Look out for things that never got made, I know of a 4-8-6 plan to replace the 4-8-4 (Lima I think).



Going from Blender 2.79 to 2.83.2

 

So I made the jump from Blender 2.79 to 2.83.2 a bit ago. The first jump, 2.80, normally has bugs and it had a new GUI. Did not take to long get the hang of it.

 

Things you need to know: You can only export FBX not XML so you can not make a .im mesh.

 

Exporting FBX: this is the setup that works

 

 

If you give it a name it will save it but not as default.

 

Setup for PBR name.m.pbrmetal

 

Setup for PBR name.M.glass and name.m.pbrmetalmasked



 



Using PBR and UVmaping

You now need to assign a PBR material to your mesh. How you assign depends on what program you use, so you will have to look that part up.

 

Trainz has only 5 material types but for roiling stock I have never used more than 3.

 

TRS19 only uses PBR all older content get converted to PBR, this takes up very little room, one common normal map, one common pbr map per old texture type, and one green and white texture used for all missing textures, this is why you get green/white mesh from FBX. Note that if you have a missing texture in your PBR it will get replaced with the green/white one (had this on last car with ARN as I missed one normal file and got numbers with a checker board look).

 

All PBR used for Trainz are metal/roughness and are ether a set of 10 or 11 data files used to color a mesh. The data is saved as 3 textures in RGB or RGBA as ether name.tga or name.png. At a power of 2, can be square or 1:8, max size is 2048x2048 aka 2K, a 4K will not give an error but will be downsized to 2K by CM.

 

Most used one. name.m.pbrmetal used for most things, metal, wood, plastic, rock and so on all on one material.

 

Name.m.pbrmetalmasked used the same as m.pbrmetal but has a Alpha channel used as a mask, has to be used to make ARN.

 

Name.m.glass used to make glass or other transparent things.

 

Name.m.pbrmetaldetail used to make finer detail, I have not used it as most of what I make dose not have finer detail, painted steel and painted wood.

 

Name.m.clutter only used to make clutter mesh, I have not used,

 

Good place to go to:http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Material_Types

 

Each texture has to have texture.txt with it, the Blender FBX exporter will make them but not right. best way to make is to copy a known working one, edit it and "save as".

what it look like:

 

File name: normalskin.tga

 

inside:

 

Primary=normalskin.tga

Tile=

 

File name: pbr.tga

 

inside:

 

Primary=pbr.tga
Alpha=pbr.tga
Tile=

 

My car has PBR textures set up just use skin.tga, normalskin.tga, and pbr.tga. This way you do not need to make the PBR textures yet, just edit them for now.

 

Next you need to make a UVmap, there are programs just for that and most 3D programs also have it built in. What it dose is flatten your mesh out, like unfolding a cardboard box so it is flat. This way you do not have the same data used for more than one pixel, very bad with PBR, did not mater in old way. Some times you can overlap where you can not see it from the out side. The size should be the same for all faces but you can be off up to about 2x.

 

What this looks like:

UVmap

 

skin.tga

 

skin with UVmap on top

 

As you can see this makes lettering a lot easer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Mesh

 

Some basic things about Trainz meshes.

Scale: Trainz uses a scale of 1:1, that's 1ft.=1ft.

3D space: +Z is up and -Y is the front and the "ground" base board is at Z=0 (note that no mater what shape the base board has it is always Z=0, this is why you can place a box on a hill side and have a gap at the bottom.

 

First thing that you need to make are some attachment points. All kind "traincar" have to have 5 attachment points, 4 of them you make and 1 is a default that you do not make, it's X=0,Y=0,Z=0, Trainz will use it as a fallback for some things others must have the right name.

So in order you must make  and name a.limfront, a.bog0, a.bog1, and a.limback. If the order is wrong you will get an Error it use to be a derail.

 

The two a.lim ones are the coupling bounding boxes that Trainz adds and the two a.bog are the bogeys and how the car/loco fallows the track. You can have any number of bogeys but the body will turn and fallow a,bog0 and a.bog1. (a.bog3, a.bog0, a.bog1, a.bog4) is good and (a.bog3, a.bog1, a.bog0, a.bog4) is not.

 

In Blender you add an Empty for FBX and name it.

 

Here are the names and xyz in feet/inches:

 

a.limfront  X=0, Y=-21'11", Z=2'9.6"

 

a.bog0      X=0, Y=-15'4", Z=1'4"

 

a.bog1      X=0, Y=15'4", Z=1'4"

 

a.limback X=0, Y=21'11", Z=2'9.6"

 

Note that all have X=0 as in Trainz the trains only "see" the center line of the track and the bogeys fallow that. My bogeys are set up so that the center of the wheels is at Z=0 so the attachment point is one half the diameter of the wheel, 33"/2=16.5" rounded off to 16".

Next make a box, size about 10'x10'x40' centered at X=0, Y=0 and the bottom at Z=3'4.94".
You can now export the box and the 4 attachments as FBX into your work folder saved as 40ft_boxcar_body.fbx. You can then import into CM, "submit edit" and it should be a working boxcar, the top will be green and white.

 

 

Setup

 

I am going to show how to simplify the config and the work file.

 

Blue is what was done in last post, RED is to be deleted.

 

 

username                                "40ft PRR X31b boxcar"
kind                                    "traincar"
mass                                    20657
engine                                  0
enginespec                              <kuid:-1:42004201>
category-class                          "XB"
description                             " 40ft 50ton boxcar as used by Pennsylvania RR, Class X31b, built 1939.This car has seaeon snow."
author                                  "Whitepass"
contact-email                           "whitepasstrainz@gmail.com"
license                                 "n/a"
category-region                         "CA;US"
category-era                            "1930s;1940s;1950s;1960s"
trainz-build                            4.6
fonts                                   1
fonts-path                              "car"
use-coupler-sounds                      1
mesh-table-lod-transition-distances 

season-selector
{
  season-range                          0.25,0.75
 
  branch-true
  {
    season-range                        0.25,0.5
   
    branch-true
    {
      output-season                     0
    }
   
    branch-false
    {
      output-season                     1
    }
  }
 
  branch-false
  {
    output-season                       0
  }
}

vehicle-running-numbers
{
  running-numbers                       "61100-62770"
}

thumbnails
{
  0
  {
    image                               "boxcarprr.jpg"
    width                               240
    height                              180
  }
 
  1
  {
    image                               "40ft_boxcar_art/40ft_boxcar_art_icon.tga"
    width                               128
    height                              64
  }
}

mesh-table
{
  default
  {
    mesh                                "40ft_boxcar_body/40ft_boxcar_body.lm"
    auto-create                         1
  }
 
  fram
  {
    mesh-asset                          <kuid:58422:100060>
    mesh                                "frame.lm"
    auto-create                         1
  }
 
  winter
  {
    mesh                                "winter/snow.lm"
    auto-create                         1
    mesh-season                         1
  }

 

}

queues
{
  load
  {
    size                                7
    initial-count                       0
    product-kuid                        <kuid:-3:10013>
   
    allowed-products
    {
      0                                 <kuid:-3:10013>                                              
      1                                  <kuid2:30671:9040500:1>
      2                                 <kuid2:30671:9040690:1>
      3                                 <kuid2:30671:9080810:1>
      4                                 <kuid2:30671:9080510:1>
      5                                 <kuid2:30671:98702901:1>
      6                                 <kuid2:30671:94805601:1>
    }
  }
}

bogeys
{
  0
  {
    bogey                               <kuid:58422:100464>
    reversed                            0
  }
}

kuid-table

{

  0                                     <kuid:58422:100464>

  1                                     <kuid2:30671:9040500:1>

  2                                     <kuid2:30671:9040690:1>

  3                                     <kuid2:30671:9080810:1>

  4                                     <kuid2:30671:9080510:1>

  5                                     <kuid2:30671:98702901:1>

  6                                     <kuid2:30671:94805601:1>

  7                                     <kuid:-1:42004201>

  8                                     <kuid:-3:10013>

 

  9                                     <kuid:58422:100060>

}

kuid                                    <kuid:58422:100463>

 

 

We will be putting most of this back, why you made a backup.

 

What your work folder should look like:

 

Delete the folder "car_alpha_numbers".

 

Open the folder named "40ft_boxcar_body" shown below and delete all red files.

Next open the file "40ft_boxcar_body.lm.txt" see below.

version 1.0
offset=0.01;
calcPoint=center;
multiplier=1.0;
animationCutOff=0.00;
renderCutOff=0.00;
attachmentCutOff=0.1;

mesh("0.01")
{
name="xx_boxcar_body.trainzmesh";
}
mesh("0.4")
{
name="low40ft_boxcar_body.trainzmesh";
}
mesh("0.8")
{
name="med40ft_boxcar_body.trainzmesh";
}
mesh("1.0")
{
name="40ft_boxcar_body.trainzmesh";
}

 

Delete the red and save.

Last thing is to rename the mesh file "40ft_boxcar_body.trainzmesh" to "40ft_boxcar_body.fbx"

Windows will give you warning about changing file type that is what you are doing.

DO NOT TRY TO IMPORT to CM at this time, you need to make two FBX mesh's first.

 



Replacing the bogeys.

 

The PRR boxcar has odd bogeys so we will replace with  KUID2:58422:1025:7 the most common kind.

Trainz bogeys are setup two ways, wheel center at Y=0 (what you should do) or Y=-diameter of wheel(rail head), both work the same.

 

All you need to do is edit the config.txt.

 

Old config.txt at the bottom:

bogeys
{
  0
  {
    bogey                               <kuid:58422:100464>
    reversed                            0
  }
}

kuid-table
{
  0                                     <kuid:58422:100464>
  1                                     <kuid2:30671:9040500:1>
  2                                     <kuid2:30671:9040690:1>
  3                                     <kuid2:30671:9080810:1>
  4                                     <kuid2:30671:9080510:1>
  5                                     <kuid2:30671:98702901:1>
  6                                     <kuid2:30671:94805601:1>
  7                                     <kuid:-1:42004201>
  8                                     <kuid:-3:10013>
  9                                      <kuid:58422:100060>
}

Just replace the RED text with <kuid2:58422:1025:7>

To edit you can start CM find the car and do an "Open/ Edit Config File Text". Then do a "Submit Edit". If you do not have that bogey installed CM will download it as it is on the DLS, you get two files.

Every thing in the kuid-table is what the car needs to work and all can be replaced by things on the DLS or Built-in, do not use payware as if you do only ones who can use your content are the ones who have the same payware. Using content from the internet bad as finding it can be a pain and it could end up unavailable. If you plan to us the DLS all content must be on it or Built-in.

How to make a US 40ft car

Using FBX and PBR

should work with most 3D and Paint programs.

 

 

You will need TRS19 or newer, a 3D program that can export FBX and any paint type program that has layers and channels.

 

 

First thing is to download this: kuid:58422:100463 (this is the newest boxcar I have made)

 

You can use this as a template for a 40ft car, it can be a box, stock, reefer, flat or gondola. This car was made with the under frame as a mesh library so you can use it and only need to make the body so you can make just a test box and see it as a railroad car.

 

 

Next make a folder for all your work, I used "New trainz to be made". I have subfolders for each type car or loco where I keep all drawings, photos, mesh and paint saves, and copy's of the file that will go into Trainz.

 

Next in Trainz CM find kuid:58422:100463:

 

 

Next you Clone my car:

This gives you a copy of my car with your KUID number. It will not show yet as it is open for edit.

Now you do first edit of config.txt.

 

This will open the config.txt for editing. change the fallowing that are in red:

 

username                                "40ft PRR X31b boxcar"

 

author                                  "Whitepass"
contact-email                       "whitepasstrainz@gmail.com"

 

Save and close then do a "Submit edits" and you then have a new username, author, and email(yours). Your new content will show up in CM under "Today". Next is to copy to your hard drive by "Open"/"Open in Explorer" (do not know what for Mac). You go up one level in Explorer so you see the new content, it will have the new KUID number in front of the new username. Copy this file to your hard drive into the work folder you made. Then add it one more time, Windows will add a -copy2 to the end, this is a backup copy you will be using.

                

 

 

 

 

 



 



How to start

 

You need to know Trainz and CM before you can do anything. Learn how your paint program works and do some re-skins. Then learn what ever 3D program you have, do all the tutorials, you may never use most of it but you need to learn the interface.

You should set the red underline like shown in TRS19, this turns on parallax witch you should check for, I did not and had to fix some things and re-upload to DLS.

 

 

For your first export into Trainz just make a box and get it to show in game, that can be a lot harder than it sounds.

 

Animation is the hardest thing to do so put that off for two or three things made first.

 

How I start new content:

 

This can be hard some times, What to make.

 

Next thing is to do research what you plan to make. I have lots of books and magazines plus Google and long list of web sites. You are after plans and good photos.

Photos: before 1861 there are only 5 known railroad photos. Early Photos only recorded blue light so red looks just like black, some thing to look out for, color came in around 1930's but did not become common tile med 1950's. There are a lot of off color photos on line.

Plains: a lot of old plans are just gone and a lot have thing that do not match the photos. You may need a flat bead scanner.

Making content for TRS19 and up

With FBX and PBR

 

 

About me: I'm 74 and have been making Trainz content for about 20 years, started in Trainz 1.0, been a Beta tester for UTC,TRS2004, TS10, TS12, TANE and TRS19. I was part of the group that made content for TRS2004.

 

About Trainz: N3V posted that they had 70 build out there. How thinks work and look very some with each build so you need to change with them. LOD first came out in TRS2004 and most did not use it so now N3V has made it required so some time they are going to make PBR required to.

 

 

What you need to make content:

 

A mesh

A texture

A UVmap of the mesh

A config.txt

A thumbnail jpg

Programs you need:

A 3D program that can export FBX
A paint program that has channels and layers
A text editor

What I use:

Blender 2.79
Photoshop CM6
Substance Painter
Windows Note Pad
TEE (no longer available)
Windows Calculator

 

 



More on ARN and PBR

 

More on ARN and PBR

Some more things on ARN, now in TRS19 you can use PBR on your ARN. All you need to add is a normal.tga and a pbr.tga.

 

The normal needs just a flat color RGB of 135,135,255 will work just not a uniform color and NO ALPHA, the normal.texture.txt should look like this:

 

Primary=normdigit6b.tga

Tile=

 

You only need one, you can use it for all digits(if you are going for 3D numbers this will not work).

 

The PBR texture can also be used for all digits, looks like this:

 

Also not uniform color but dose have this in name.texture.txt:

Primary=pbrdigit6a.tga
Alpha=pbrdigit6a.tga
Tile=

Your digits in the "car" folder may or may not look good. You do not need to change anything but the PBR can look wrong in game. I find white numbers look way to white at 255,255,255 more like 185,185,185, this depends on color, size, and fount used.

 

You can now make the digits light up at night by making the red channel in the pbr.tga white, say 200,200,200. This is all you have to do, it will "glow" in the dark.

 

I had some with a alpha in the normal and it makes the numbers move inward, for me it was inward past the body side so it did not show up.

Size, I find I use 16x16 or 32x32 for digits, 8x8 is to small and 64x64 only for very large ones, like BN black and green.

ARN code uses file names not numbers so you can do limited other things like passenger car names but you can only do 9 names.

On the DT&I caboose I did, DT&I only had 6 cars, numbers 140-145 but the numbers show up in 2 fonts each in 4 places so that would be 24 mesh's and 20 numbers. I could not do anything about the numbers but could cut the mesh's down to 8. What I did was make the "number" be all three digits.
came out like this:
digit          text

0                0
1               140
2               141
3               142
4               143
5               144
6               145
7               7
8               8
9               9

The texture size was 64x32. You can not have a ARN start with "0" so in the config.txt I had 1-7 for the ARN.

 

 

 

 

 

Part 3

What the final UV map looks like, on top of the ID map:

 

Just the ID map:

 

 

And in Blender:

 

The frame UV map over it's ID map:

 

 

In Blender:

 

 

In TRS19 with first test, body done with SP, frame just ID map:

 

 





 



 

 

Part 2

Here is the top mesh:

I have also added the pbr.tga so that I have skin.m.pbrmetal and am replacing the old skin.m.tbumtex.
I made a temporary mesh by joining all the parts and then doing a smart UV Project to get the right size. Do not save this mesh!

I used this to size the layout plans I used in Photoshop.

 

This I save as the new skin.tga . It goes make UVmap, export UVmap, add it to skin.tga, save, re-open Blender(so it will see the new texture) and then do the next part of the mesh.

 

This is with only two mesh done(white background not showing here).

 

This is where I am as I post this.

 

 

 



Updating the car body

 

Updating the car body

 

My first try at updating a car body to PBR/FBX did not work and I have had to re-think how to do it.

What went wrong was the number of pixels I had to work with. In the old textures if you had overlapping UVmaps it was ok, it is not good for PBR most of the time, it works ok for like the inside of a car body that has windows but is only one color (black).

 

 

Trainz textures must be a power of two, that's: 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048.

 

4096 will not give an error in TRS19 but will not be used, it gets re-sized down to 2048.

 

Now take a 80 passenger car and you come up with one pixel is 2"x2" on a 2048x2048. Add to this a lot of detail and you run out of pixels, this is what I ran into, to fit all the UVmaps on one 2048x2048 for PBR the overall size would be about 40% smaller. So my fix is going to be use two 2048x2048 giving me about a 5% smaller, I can live with that.

 

 

So here is the car texture that was used with the UVmap shown on top.

 

What dose not work is the "X" like things on the roof and a lot of things on the black under body, makes the Bake of AO look bad as well as the PBR.

How to fix: I made the car body one mesh and did a new Smart UV project form it to see how much area it would take then quit Blender with out saving. Repeated the above but with just the car body top like an HO model and did this until I got a size that look good and save the UVmap.

Two Things to Look Out for.

 

 

After three days of looking I found out that a bogey config.txt set up that would work with the old XML/im will not work with FBX, this is in the mesh table setup.

 

 

Old way:

 

mesh-table
{
  mesh1
  {
    mesh                                "6wheel_bogey.lm"
    auto-create                         1
  }
 
  mesh2
  {
    mesh                                "6wheel_bogeyg.lm"
    auto-create                         1
  }
 
  shadow
  {
    mesh                                "6wheel_bogey_shadow/6wheel_bogey_shadow.im"
  }
}

 

 

This is what I edit it to:

 

mesh-table
{

  wheels
  {
    mesh                                "wheels.lm"
   auto-create                         1
  }

   mesh1
  {
    mesh                                "frame1.lm"
   auto-create                         1
  }
}

 

IT WILL NOT WORK the mesh's will show but NO animation.

 

The fix:

 

mesh-table
{

  default
  {
    mesh                                "wheels.lm"
   auto-create                         1
  }

   mesh1
  {
    mesh                                "frame1.lm"
   auto-create                         1
  }
}

 

For FBX you have to have a "default" but it dose not have to be the mesh that has the animation.

 

The other thing I have found out the hard way is name.m.pbrmetal with a normal texture that has an Alpha channel for parallax will NOT work unless you have Shader Quality set to Ultra and that it only goes down or into, it can not go up or out.



Up-dating a Bogey to FBX Animation

 

You should know how to use Snap in Blender (right shift +S).

The old name.im animation used Lattice, FBX has to use Empty, THAY LOOK THE SAME but Trainz knows witch is witch.

I start with the old Lattice on there own Layer, do not un-link them.

Select b.r.base (the one that dose not move when animation runs) and Snap the Cursor to it, then  Add a new Empty, I make it bigger, it will be at the same place as the old one, give it a b.r.name.

Do the same with the other Lattices. It should look this.

You can now delete the old ones.

Next add new wheels, select  one of the wheel Empty and Snap the Cursor to it then select the new wheel mesh and us Snap Selected to Cursor.

Now duplicate the wheel mesh and do the same to the other wheel, note the second mesh will have the same UVmap and textures as the first.

Do the linking same as before and animate as before.

New for Blender FBX is Select all and do an Apply Scale and Ration.

On a 4 wheel bogey you may not need to do the last step but for 6 wheeler you must, found that out after a lot of testing of bogey with 6 wheels not working in game, some wheel sets wrong size and wheels rotating around the wrong point.

Export next, then put into CM and Submit. Now Open for Edit as you must change the name of the kin file to anim.kin, it will be your mesh name.kin.

Re-submit and do a test run. The one I was doing did not work, if this happens go back and un-link every thing, make new Empty's, give new names, re-link, re-do animation, and so on, this worked for me.

Updating wheels is harder as you have to do animation with FBX. So do the edits for the wheels same as the frame. I make a new material with a new name (wheels.m.pbrmetal) and only pick the color texture for now, normal and PBR will be from Substance Painter (SP). Note that the wheels do not need much of a normal or AO but you have to have them.

Clear all animation links.

Re do UVmap.

Make an ID map.

Export only one set of wheels, that is 2 wheels and axle.

Open in SP.

This is after backing.

 

In SP add Steel Rough with a color selection.

Note that line in the red circle is do to UV projection change to tri-planer.

Add in painted steel.

 

Note the white rim do to ID map being off one pixel, fixed in Photoshop.

In game color check.

 

After making the green channel litter for the panted steel.

Next up animation.

 

 

Next I make the LOD's, the old ones could have a deferent UVmap and export all as FBX.

I use Substance Painter to "bake" and make new PBR textures and Photoshop to fine tune them, what looks good in SP may not look good in Trainz.

 

in game

PBR

 



 

Next is delete old material name and add new name.m.pbrmetal and add in the three textures, color, normal, and pbr.

The order is important and the only settings you need color set to color, normal to normal, and pbr to hardness.

I duplicate all the mesh parts to a new layer and join them into one mesh.

Delete old m.onetext it will come back due to joining.

 

Now you make the UVmap, type "U" and use second option.

 

then

Set as above.

 

Go to UVimage/editer and there is your UVmap, you may have to edit the name as Blinder likes to add a .001 at the end, Trainz will see that as a missing texture.