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.

 

 

How to Update from old Materials to new PBR/FBX

 

Using Photoshop CX6, Blender 2.79, and Substances Painter.

 

You must have the mesh file as you need to re-export it as a FBX and change the material(s) names.

 

The first thing to do is make a new version in CM, edit the config to trainz-build 4.6 and add this line:

 

mesh-table-lod-transition-distances

 

Not having that line will give an Error.

 

Submit edit and fix any Errors now then make a working copy.

Next edit the name.lm.txt and make all .im into .trainzmesh.

Here's the old one:
version 1.0
offset=0.01;
calcPoint=center;
multiplier=1.0;
animationCutOff=0.05;
renderCutOff=0.00;
attachmentCutOff=0.05;

mesh("0.05")
{
name="5004wheel_bogey.im";
}
mesh("0.4")
{
name="4wheel_bogey_low.im";
}
mesh("0.8")
{
name="4wheel_bogey_med.im";
}

mesh("1.0")
{
name="4wheel_bogey.im";
}

and here the new:

version 1.0
offset=0.01;
calcPoint=center;
multiplier=1.0;
animationCutOff=0.05;
renderCutOff=0.00;
attachmentCutOff=0.05;

mesh("0.05")
{
name="5004wheel_bogey.trainzmesh";
}
mesh("0.4")
{
name="4wheel_bogey_low.trainzmesh";
}
mesh("0.8")
{
name="4wheel_bogey_med.trainzmesh";
}

mesh("1.0")
{
name="4wheel_bogey.trainzmesh";
}

Now do the same to the files but go from name.im to name.fbx Windows will give a warning about file type.

Last thing is add in the PBR textures but you have not made them yet so copy in a placeholder set, ether use one from a down load or the samples from N3V on the Wiki, only need the right size.

My sample I am do as I type this needs a name.m.pbrmetal 1024x1024, I have a sidemain.tga, removed the Alpha and made it all red, deleted sidemain-aidemain.texture.txt, due not need, keep sidemain.texture.txt.

Copy over a normal and a pbr.

Make a copy of the Blender file and save as new name.

To be continued.


Converting from old textures to new PBR

 

The new PBR textures look much better than the old ones but you can only use them in TRS2019 as it has to be a FBX mesh and Trains Build 4.6 to work.

 

You can not just replace the old textures you need the mesh file as you have to change the Material name and export it as FBX.

You may need to re-do the UVmap(s), PBR dose not like overlapping UV's, you have to bake an AO, you could get away with that in the old textures. Also your RBG numbers must be between 50 and 240, not the full 0 to 255.

PBR has 3 textures vs. old 2. Your old color texture needs the Alpha channel removed and all lighting info, that is remove any AO or shadows.

The Normal textures are the same, do not use an Alpha unless you need parallax. You should set Shader Quality to Ultra to turn on parallax.

The config.txt needs a few changes for FBX, namely Trainz Build 4.6 and your mesh name from name.im to name.trainzmesh and add this "mesh-table-lod-transition-distances".

I will be posting a three part how to.


 

 

Some notes on PBR

 

Things that can go wrong (I have done all of these):

 

Setting the trainz build at 4.5, no error, mesh will show but PBR is off, set to 4.6.

 

Typos: name.trainmesh  should be name.trainzmesh also name.m.pbrmetalmask should be name.m.pbrmetalmasked.

 

Having PBR ARN with old windows glass (nonPBR) and the numbers showed up on the glass, replacing with PBR m.glass fixed, this was in first Dev. build.

 

Getting the PBR channels in the wrong place can give all kinds of odd things, had one where as you zoomed in or paned part of the mesh would disappear, like it was cut by a knife.

 

Adding PBR to ARN is simple, you only need to add two new textures, a normal and the pbr, bouth need no data, just plane. You do have to redo the material for all the digit plans in the mesh but can use the same normal and pbr texture for all digits. The folder with the numbers is the same as before.

 

I have found that must of my content needs to have new UVmaps before up dateing to PBR. This is due to overlapping UVs. Also I find I am using lighter colors.