Okay, so now I have re-posted the ZIP file for the Grain car; download it with the same link as before. Or you can just click here:
http://wpandp.com/RRT3/Cgran.zip
Hawk, this is now ready for the big show, go ahead and add it to your site! Thanks.
Those of you that downloaded it before, all you need to do is swap out the PK4 file with the one in this ZIP.
Rolling Stock skinning ideas
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WPandP
Re: Rolling Stock skinning ideas
Okay, here is the early evidence of the feasibility of multiple-car cuts. This makes each car icon in the train list get represented in-game as 2 cars. How is this done? Well, each car is composed of a BODY, two or more TRUCKS, and some number of BOGIES (wheels). There can only be one BODY, but you can have more than one TRUCK... so, I've simply taken the car's BODY file, renamed it TRUCK1, and hex edited all the Y-values of the points in the car to move forward by half of the car length. Then, I did the same thing for TRUCK2, but moved the points backward by half a car length. At the moment, I'm using one of the car's original TRUCKs as if it were the BODY, because it still needs a BODY to connect the trucks to.
The result is an apparent train of 13 cars plus a caboose. The milk car in the middle is just a regular single car, but compare what's on screen to what is in the train list. What I still need to figure out is why the train bunches up so much on right curves but stretches out on left turns, and I also need to figure out why the cars don't flex as much as they should when going around curves. They do bend a little, perhaps enough to be convincing, but I'd prefer a little better tracking through curves. I'm going to keep at it, and hopefully figure out these issues.
The result is an apparent train of 13 cars plus a caboose. The milk car in the middle is just a regular single car, but compare what's on screen to what is in the train list. What I still need to figure out is why the train bunches up so much on right curves but stretches out on left turns, and I also need to figure out why the cars don't flex as much as they should when going around curves. They do bend a little, perhaps enough to be convincing, but I'd prefer a little better tracking through curves. I'm going to keep at it, and hopefully figure out these issues.
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nedfumpkin
Re: Rolling Stock skinning ideas
Yes, very nice, and exactly how do you expect me not to fall in love with this?
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WPandP
Re: Rolling Stock skinning ideas
Update on Cuts of Cars:
I've done all that I can think of, but it appears that there is some sort of hard limit to how much a truck can flex or rotate, when tracking around a curve. The wheels aren't really attached to the rails, as they would be in real life; rather, the wheels are attached to the truck, which is attached to the body, and the body attaches to the track at its center point. Thus, the degree to which the trucks rotate is some kind of function based on the curvature of the rails, and it is very imprecise. To see what I mean, you can just look closely at the EP2 Bipolar, when it goes through a tight curve; it will come off the tracks a bit.
There is no apparent fix for this, all we can do is get it to approximate as best we can, and this approximation is done by shifting the truck's center of rotation forward or back. The other thing that must be done is to take the first and last trucks and "embed" them in with the car body, as part of the process of redefining the original Body as one of the Trucks. See the attached diagram. By hex editing the Y-values of the points in the Body, the whole car can apparently shift forward or back; with the whole "box" of the boxcar pushed forward by half a car length, that "box" plus the first truck then become Truck1. This means copy/pasting in the points that define the original Truck1 into the original's Body.3dp, as well as the triangles that define the faces.
This method results in a pair of cars that ride on two trucks (at the ends) which do not swivel, and two trucks which do swivel (the center ones, now called the Body, are always tangent to the track). The pivot point for the new Truck1 and Truck2 is roughly about where the bolster for that central truck would be. This seems to work fairly well, and it works best for shorter cars; the longer the car, the more exaggerated the angular error is.
I've done all that I can think of, but it appears that there is some sort of hard limit to how much a truck can flex or rotate, when tracking around a curve. The wheels aren't really attached to the rails, as they would be in real life; rather, the wheels are attached to the truck, which is attached to the body, and the body attaches to the track at its center point. Thus, the degree to which the trucks rotate is some kind of function based on the curvature of the rails, and it is very imprecise. To see what I mean, you can just look closely at the EP2 Bipolar, when it goes through a tight curve; it will come off the tracks a bit.
There is no apparent fix for this, all we can do is get it to approximate as best we can, and this approximation is done by shifting the truck's center of rotation forward or back. The other thing that must be done is to take the first and last trucks and "embed" them in with the car body, as part of the process of redefining the original Body as one of the Trucks. See the attached diagram. By hex editing the Y-values of the points in the Body, the whole car can apparently shift forward or back; with the whole "box" of the boxcar pushed forward by half a car length, that "box" plus the first truck then become Truck1. This means copy/pasting in the points that define the original Truck1 into the original's Body.3dp, as well as the triangles that define the faces.
This method results in a pair of cars that ride on two trucks (at the ends) which do not swivel, and two trucks which do swivel (the center ones, now called the Body, are always tangent to the track). The pivot point for the new Truck1 and Truck2 is roughly about where the bolster for that central truck would be. This seems to work fairly well, and it works best for shorter cars; the longer the car, the more exaggerated the angular error is.
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WPandP
Re: Rolling Stock skinning ideas
Okay, here is a Christmas gift for you all!
My first "multiple-car" mod is ready. This is the Furniture Box Car, and around 1915 it starts to carry each load of furniture in two cars rather than one. I have added little orange dots above the car icon in the train list, which designate how many cars make up the "cut of cars". Mind you, these cars do weigh as much as two cars, so they will tax your engines that much more. In my testing, though, even the early engines had plenty enough power to handle the increased train weight. You earn as much as you always do for delivering a load of furniture, it's just that now you have to deliver two loaded cars to earn that revenue, rather than one. Of course, this also means you'll have pleasingly long trains snaking around your rails. See the screenshot attached: this is a train of 14 boxcars and one caboose.
Installing this mod will require that you replace your Furniture.cty file; I suggest saving a backup copy of this file in a different folder, in case you want to go back to using the normal single boxcar. The other files go where they go - see the ReadMe - and do not overwrite anything else. However, be aware that the highly modified files contained herein may make your game unstable; I've had some crashes when rotating the camera, for instance, which puzzle me. I'd appreciate your feedback, and let me know if you have any other issues.
Enjoy!
http://wpandp.com/RRT3/BfurnNW.zip
My first "multiple-car" mod is ready. This is the Furniture Box Car, and around 1915 it starts to carry each load of furniture in two cars rather than one. I have added little orange dots above the car icon in the train list, which designate how many cars make up the "cut of cars". Mind you, these cars do weigh as much as two cars, so they will tax your engines that much more. In my testing, though, even the early engines had plenty enough power to handle the increased train weight. You earn as much as you always do for delivering a load of furniture, it's just that now you have to deliver two loaded cars to earn that revenue, rather than one. Of course, this also means you'll have pleasingly long trains snaking around your rails. See the screenshot attached: this is a train of 14 boxcars and one caboose.
Installing this mod will require that you replace your Furniture.cty file; I suggest saving a backup copy of this file in a different folder, in case you want to go back to using the normal single boxcar. The other files go where they go - see the ReadMe - and do not overwrite anything else. However, be aware that the highly modified files contained herein may make your game unstable; I've had some crashes when rotating the camera, for instance, which puzzle me. I'd appreciate your feedback, and let me know if you have any other issues.
Enjoy!
http://wpandp.com/RRT3/BfurnNW.zip
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coruscate
Re: Rolling Stock skinning ideas
This doesn't replace the existing files that make up normal boxcars or even the standard boxcar, which if I understand correctly is just a catch all boxcar anyway?
I've tried a few earlier rolling stock mods and I'm eager to try this one out and start-a-skinnin'.
I've tried a few earlier rolling stock mods and I'm eager to try this one out and start-a-skinnin'.
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WPandP
Re: Rolling Stock skinning ideas
Correct- this just redirects Furniture to load into a car called "Bfurn" rather than "Box", handled in the .CTY file. All your other boxcar loads will be in normal single boxcars (until I get around to releasing other mods I guess!). All of my rolling stock mods work this way, so you can return to default cars just by changing the CTY file (in CargoTypes).