Alter Direction of Objects

[BRClass66]

Is there any way to alter the placing of scenery objects (Buildings) in surveyor ?

I know there is a random setting,But at the moment on my route they are all placed East to West.
But wanted North to South without having to keep rotating each item ,as i have a
few to do to say the least.

Anything that could be wrote into trainzoptions or something ?

Regards
Brad

 

[JCitron]

Brad,

I wish there was a way. This would make placing items such as street lights and signs much easier.

Too bad there wasn't a fixed direction option so that all items placed, when this box is checked, will face the same direction. There could be a compass-like setting for N, S, E, and W as well as unlocked which would be random.

John

 

[RRSignal]

I had suggested this in the Suggestions Boxcar. Why this isn't default behavior, let alone an option at all, is surprising since the current system (non-randon rotation) is completely arbitrary and set by the asset creator. This is a key factor in what's taking my suburban/urban route so long to finish.

That said, you might be able to use copy 'n' paste to cut down on the workload a little bit. It's not much but it's something.

 

[sniper297]

You can copy the object, rotate the dial 90 degrees and paste;

or clone it, add an orientation tag to the mesh;


mesh-table
{
default
{
auto-create 1
mesh "Abandoned-Industry-Block-1B.im"
orientation 0,0,1.575
}
}

To rotate 90 degrees by default.

The numbers are in "radians" which is apparently some kind of math whiz trig stuff, no idea why the heathens couldn't use good old Christian compass degrees. I found a converter somewhere and saved it in my hack notes;
1.575 = 90 degrees
3.15 = 180 degrees
4.275 = 270 degrees

 

[Dermmy]

The numbers are in "radians" which is apparently some kind of math whiz trig stuff, no idea why the heathens couldn't use good old Christian compass degrees...

Radian is actually the most commonly used measure of 'degrees' in a circle, and pretty much the ONLY measure used in any mathematical application. Presumably since the computer is a 'mathematical application' rads win!

Andy

 

[Jananton]

Ah, a (nutty) professor indeed. :hehe:

Thank you sir for this short enlighting lecture on this subject.

Greetings from nighttime Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[BRClass66]

Sorry took so long to reply to you guys....but problems in the real world ...but all sorted and well...also reinstalling TS10 and also getting TS12 on aswell..

John I agree with you there should be away to place items N,S,E,W it would be so easy..

RRSignal spot on ,,,,as thats what im doing now

Sniper never knew that...so will keep that in mind for the future,as im doing a container yard with 50 plus different containers.but have used it on some buihings..... thankyou for the illustrations made it so easy to understand

But ill have to stick with putting all containers on a baseboard,then copying them all ...rotate and then paste.then move each in turn to be placed

Cheers for the help guys.

Regards,
Brad

 

[RRSignal]

Keep in mind with the orientation tag method is that it only works for your copy. If you give the route to somebody else, then all the assets will be oriented incorrectly. Also, it doesn't solve the problem with aligning the same object in different orientations i.e. if you place a container due North-South and another East-West and then change the orientation, both of the containers you've previously placed will have different orientations. What this all boils down to mean is that there is no *good* method to get around this limitation of Surveyor and it's a feature that desperately needs to be added.

 

[Dermmy]

Pretty sure that's not quite right!

I think you will find that the assets in a downloaded route will be aligned as per the creator's version UNTILL some user tries to move, rotate or otherwise alter one of the edited assets. At that point the local machine will reference the asset's config and say in effect 'Oops - wrong' and 'snap' to the default position. But unless the asset is moved in Surveyor it will retain the position given by the route builder. That is definitely what happens if you edit to allow height changes or tilt, and I'm pretty sure the same would apply to orientation......

 

[sniper297]

Nope. One of them things that makes you go "HUH!" but I just tested it with my clone of Abandoned-Industry-Block-1B,<kuid2:33404:506850237:2> and it does indeed snap back to east/west when I remove the orientation tag, add the orientation tag again and open the route again, they're all north/south again.

That's why I said "clone", first problem is with older stuff like the above mentioned industry block, there's no mesh table to add the orientation tag to, so it has to be updated to 2.9 and have the mesh table added before that will work at all. Second problem as the test just proved, without the orientation tag every instance of that object will rotate back to the original orientation. So for that to work you would need to use the clones, and upload the clones if you intent to upload the route. If it's many repetitions of a few buildings it would make more sense to do it that way, if it's many buildings with few repetitions the copy - rotate - paste would probably take less time and effort.

 

[Mike_Brown]

Whilst on the subject of placing objects, is it possible to include an "Alignment" tool, and possibly also a "Distribution" tool? Very handy for placing a series of items, eg houses, containers, etc.
Also, why do so many objects only move vertically in 1 metre steps - it makes life very difficult when placing a new object on already settled topography. And yet another moan - how good do you have to be to rotate an object by 0.1 degrees?
(Or should this be another thread?)

 

[jlp1551]

When changing height, hold the shift or ctrl key while moving the mouse. That will give you 0.1 and 0.05 increments. Use the shift or ctrl key for rotation too. There seem to be a bunch of little tidbits to make life easier while working on a layouit.
Have fun!!

 

[Dermmy]

Nope. One of them things that makes you go "HUH!" but I just tested it with my clone of Abandoned-Industry-Block-1B,<kuid2:33404:506850237:2> and it does indeed snap back to east/west when I remove the orientation tag, add the orientation tag again and open the route again, they're all north/south again.

Correct - but that's not what I suggested!

If you pack a route and install it on another machine I think you will find the altered asset will load from the obs (or gnd?) file which will put it exactly as on the builders machine. The 3rd party machine wont effectively look at the config till the 3rd party user attempts to move the asset. Assuming 95% of 3rd party users never alter the position of the assets no-one ever knows! As I said before I am not certain if this applies to orientation, and it may not, but your 'test' doesn't disprove the hypothesis. On YOUR machine the asset is gonna load from the config, so change orientation, height, tilt, whatever in the config and it changes on your route....

A huge number of assets on my routes have custom modded height and tilt tags which are not in 3rd party users versions of the same asset and they DO load on 3rd party machines exactly like they do on mine - right up till you try to move it, when it snaps to 0 height, 0 tilt....

 

[RRSignal]

Pretty sure that's not quite right!

I think you will find that the assets in a downloaded route will be aligned as per the creator's version UNTILL some user tries to move, rotate or otherwise alter one of the edited assets. At that point the local machine will reference the asset's config and say in effect 'Oops - wrong' and 'snap' to the default position. But unless the asset is moved in Surveyor it will retain the position given by the route builder. That is definitely what happens if you edit to allow height changes or tilt, and I'm pretty sure the same would apply to orientation......

Right before I posted that, I tested that with a scenery object in TS12 and can confirm that the orientation tag doesn't stick. To wit, I placed one object, saved the route and session, added the orientation tag so as to turn it 90 degrees, and checked: it it did rotate the object 90 degrees. I then placed another copy of the object and it appeared rotated 90 degrees as well. I saved the route and session and then deleted the orientation tag to see if at least the second object would stick: It did not, and both copies were rotated to normal. In other words, the orientation tag does not stick.

This is not surprising. While the route file contains location, altitude and roll, the orientation tag effectively modifies the mesh itself (which is why it's located in config) and thus alters whatever is stored in the route; the route settings are mutable and not absolute.

The problem with cloning is, while that allows one to make a local change, it: 1. effectively prevents redistribution of the route (unless you want or are able to redistribute one or more cloned local objects); and 2. is extremely inefficient, since each incarnation of the same object differs only by orientation tag - but effectively creates a whole new object.

 

[Dermmy]

I'll pay that

I'm gettin' old - the orientation tag is in the mesh container so nope it won't 'stick', it will run home to the config every time.

Cloning won't work either - except on the local machine - so it's back to random rotate and hope for the best unless the route is my-machine-only...

 

[Mike_Brown]

When changing height, hold the shift or ctrl key while moving the mouse. That will give you 0.1 and 0.05 increments. Use the shift or ctrl key for rotation too. There seem to be a bunch of little tidbits to make life easier while working on a layouit.
Have fun!!

Many thanks - extremely useful. Why aren't these things documented anywhere, or am I simply blind?