Are there any people on strips?
- Thread starter JCitron
- Start date
Do you have the Duchess add on (or possibly any other add ons) for TS2010 and TS12 ? If you do then this thread will explain things:
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...-remove-3-11061-passengers-from-a-route/page1
There is a convoluted train of one passenger asset obsoleting another which I believe is affecting the people monitor.
I've been thinking about this little project...
Is it possible to create these as station platforms except without tracks or the ability to load and unload passengers?
If this is the case, then I can reference the built-in passengers and use the platform-like attachment points. The issue will be to rotate them so the passengers all don't face the same way, except forward or in clusters.
Also are there any short fixed track segments available? I mean maybe 10m or so, nothing too long because I want to be able to put people on street corners and in front of stores.
John
Is it possible to create these as station platforms except without tracks or the ability to load and unload passengers?
If this is the case, then I can reference the built-in passengers and use the platform-like attachment points. The issue will be to rotate them so the passengers all don't face the same way, except forward or in clusters.
Also are there any short fixed track segments available? I mean maybe 10m or so, nothing too long because I want to be able to put people on street corners and in front of stores.
John
John, have you looked at the AJS Tram Stop (Compact)? I have placed a few of them on a paved area with good effect. Because they are tram stops rather than invisible stations, the people are at ground level. They are scenery objects and are therefore height adjustable. I did not attach any track to them (not even an invisible track) and the track guides on them are not visible in Driver. You can set the number of persons you want in the usual way and they use the Auran built-in passengers.
Scottish
Scottish
John,
It's very possible to create an "invisible" object which consists only of attachment points these points ("empties" in Blender) will govern the position, rotation, height etc.of the people assets depending on how the empties are placed when the invisible asset is built. The people, or indeed any other items of scenery you care to attach are set in the config.txt file so one basic mesh could be cloned in CM and varied as required. I have just tried this and it's very quick and simple to produce a scenery object to do the job - I had a crude one working in 20 mins from scratch !
Caveat - these are not spline objects, if that's what you wanted, but will be much better than placing people one at a time.
If you are a Blender user I can provide a sample mesh, config etc. or, if you are not then, I'm happy to delve into this a bit further and produce something. If you could give me you idea of a simple asset you would like that would help to start with.
Edit: I think you could also produce something similar by using a basic asset and PEVs Attachment Maker. In addition it may be possible to use a version of the platform passenger scripts to control how many people etc - I would need to check that out and, given that I'm not scripting expert, I may not be able to go that far !
Let me know.
Chris
It's very possible to create an "invisible" object which consists only of attachment points these points ("empties" in Blender) will govern the position, rotation, height etc.of the people assets depending on how the empties are placed when the invisible asset is built. The people, or indeed any other items of scenery you care to attach are set in the config.txt file so one basic mesh could be cloned in CM and varied as required. I have just tried this and it's very quick and simple to produce a scenery object to do the job - I had a crude one working in 20 mins from scratch !
Caveat - these are not spline objects, if that's what you wanted, but will be much better than placing people one at a time.
If you are a Blender user I can provide a sample mesh, config etc. or, if you are not then, I'm happy to delve into this a bit further and produce something. If you could give me you idea of a simple asset you would like that would help to start with.
Edit: I think you could also produce something similar by using a basic asset and PEVs Attachment Maker. In addition it may be possible to use a version of the platform passenger scripts to control how many people etc - I would need to check that out and, given that I'm not scripting expert, I may not be able to go that far !
Let me know.
Chris
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ray_whiley
Active member
Thanks for this additional advice - as I said, I had not tried the idea, but there would of course be no problem in leaving a short length of invisible track attached.
Ray - I looked at the cardboard cut-outs. They look just like that and are really low resolution in TS12. They also have
sound associated with them, like that of a big crowd for 6 people.They were great in their day, but we've moved on to better looking assets since then. It's like anything we have. In the old days we had giant TVs with tiny black and white displays, now we have giant TVs with big flat displays and crystal clear images.
I agree completely - which is why I never used these in my 2004 days and hadn't bothered to look to see if they were still in 2010 (I don't have 2012). There were a lot more people and animals like this in the old days - a bit like the old 'flat', cast metal model soldiers (which no doubt now command a high price on the collectors market scene!)
Talking of small screens, I still have my original Apple Classic, with a nine inch screen, somewhere in a cupboard - I wonder if it still works?
Ray
Chris, I am in the early stages of learning Blender and would like to study the mesh and config to see how to produce an asset of this type. I have in mind groups of people to place as scenery items (not splines), using individual people assets already existing. Is there any chance that I could have a copy of your trial mesh and config?
Scottish
Hi Chris,
Thank you for the offer. I'm going to try the easier route of PEVs attachment Maker. I have Blender, but got awfully overwhelmed by it!
If you want to give this a try, it's pretty simple. All is needed is strips of people, not splines which would distort them, these strips can be height adjustable and roll-able so people can be placed in queues on hills, ramps, sidewalks, etc. The strips can have people facing the same direction, some in clusters, others in clusters with spaces in between. They don't all have to be very long either because sometimes people congregate in front of stores, theaters, and other places.
In summary, the purpose is to make the world look more alive. Right now an occasional car driving along the High Street isn't exactly a sign of life. The alternative of placing individual people is a pain because of the way Trainz works in Surveyor. Having them on strips allow placing a clump at once.
John
MSGSapper has just released several assets named "SAP Parked Modern Cars," on the DLS. These cars are on invisible strips of three & seven cars. I have played around with the mesh, and it is very easy to substitute people for the cars. If you know how, you are able to place the figures facing different directions. As a side note, use people from the same creator as they will usually be proportional, and all facing the same direction. The same goes for cars, they don't orient parallel or same direction. have fun
John
John
Hi John,
It looks like a number of us are getting hooked on the idea of people groups. Chris has given me his trial files and I have now created an invisible mesh with about 30 attachment points and can now produce groups of people by loading into this mesh existing people assets (the new type of 3D people). I have now started to look at the possibility of using Auran's passengers with the generic passenger station script (or part of it) to place the people on the mesh. I am a beginner at both Blender and scripting so I will have to see what develops.
Let me know how you get on.
Scottish
It looks like a number of us are getting hooked on the idea of people groups. Chris has given me his trial files and I have now created an invisible mesh with about 30 attachment points and can now produce groups of people by loading into this mesh existing people assets (the new type of 3D people). I have now started to look at the possibility of using Auran's passengers with the generic passenger station script (or part of it) to place the people on the mesh. I am a beginner at both Blender and scripting so I will have to see what develops.
Let me know how you get on.
Scottish
Hi JonnyC1,
Please give us a clue. How do you make the figures face in different directions.
Are you talking about the orientation of the attachment point when making the mesh, or using PEV's attachment maker, or some other method in the config file?
Scottish
Use the orientation tag of the attachment mesh for that figure. The mesh is already included in the asset, there isn't a need to add any attachments unless you want to add a closer people spacing. If you use PEV's Asset-X the process is simple, otherwise you need to go Trainz Wiki for instructions. Remember to include the new kuids in the kuid table.
John
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The cars in MSGSapper's config are added using the Effects container/attachment, which is the method I have used with my trial mesh. When the orientation tag is included in this Effects container to turn a figure, it is throwing up an error. I know that it can be used in the mesh table with the main default mesh but it does not seem to be supported in the Effects container. Unless I am getting confused, it is not listed as supported in the wiki on the Effects container.
Am I not understanding your advice? You don't mean that the orientation tag should be put into the figure asset file, do you? This would alter the direction of the figure if it was used on it's own.
Scottish
I was unaware of the error when attempting to orientate, as I have not done so with this asset. The work around is to clone the people asset, and use the orientation tag in that kuid.
John
I can't see another way to use the orientation tag as it seems only to be allowed for the "main" mesh. Cloning the asset and changing that should do the trick but then, of course, you are into copyright issues.
Scripting may be the answer to allowing user control over orientation, but that's not my field! Another challenge for you
?Cheers
Chris
Update on my progress so far in creating groups of people. I have carried out some successful first trials on 2 different approaches to this.
The first method is to produce different meshes as a base to mount small or large groups as one object using single person assets aliased from other kuids available. The figures can face in any direction by deciding in which orientation the attachment points are made in the mesh. For example they could be say 4 or 5 figures facing each other in conversation, they could be a queue of figures of some quantity (eg say 20) generally facing in a broadly similar direction such as waiting to buy tickets or enter a theatre, they could be a very large group (eg 50) facing in random directions milling about in a station concourse, they could be facing generally in the same direction such as passengers on a platform. The dilemma is trying to decide what options to proceed with and make the meshes to suit, and what individual figure assets to use to make the groups.
The second method I have been able to produce uses the same meshes as above but instead of using individual figure assets. it is a scripted asset that loads the built-in passenger asset library in the same manner as a passenger active station. Because the meshes have been made with the attachment points facing in other directions, the figures now face in other directions. Also, by using the generic passenger station script, the number of people can be changed using the normal station set-up HTML screen. The asset is height adjustable and the height of the passengers above the invisible mesh base can be adjusted. This asset solely loads figures on to the mesh base plate as a group and does not have any track or triggers associated with loading or unloading vehicles. It is only a way of producing groups of people for scenery purposes. The same questions arise, how many meshes, what quantities of figures in the groups, how should they be organised (small group, large group, queues, random direction etc etc)
There is still a lot of work to do in developing these successful tests.
Scottish
The first method is to produce different meshes as a base to mount small or large groups as one object using single person assets aliased from other kuids available. The figures can face in any direction by deciding in which orientation the attachment points are made in the mesh. For example they could be say 4 or 5 figures facing each other in conversation, they could be a queue of figures of some quantity (eg say 20) generally facing in a broadly similar direction such as waiting to buy tickets or enter a theatre, they could be a very large group (eg 50) facing in random directions milling about in a station concourse, they could be facing generally in the same direction such as passengers on a platform. The dilemma is trying to decide what options to proceed with and make the meshes to suit, and what individual figure assets to use to make the groups.
The second method I have been able to produce uses the same meshes as above but instead of using individual figure assets. it is a scripted asset that loads the built-in passenger asset library in the same manner as a passenger active station. Because the meshes have been made with the attachment points facing in other directions, the figures now face in other directions. Also, by using the generic passenger station script, the number of people can be changed using the normal station set-up HTML screen. The asset is height adjustable and the height of the passengers above the invisible mesh base can be adjusted. This asset solely loads figures on to the mesh base plate as a group and does not have any track or triggers associated with loading or unloading vehicles. It is only a way of producing groups of people for scenery purposes. The same questions arise, how many meshes, what quantities of figures in the groups, how should they be organised (small group, large group, queues, random direction etc etc)
There is still a lot of work to do in developing these successful tests.
Scottish
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Thank you, Scottish for taking my idea and making this possible. This is exactly what I had in mind (the second option anyway). By all means, take your time at it and I'll gladly beta test the public on my route.
John
Thank you, Scottish for taking my idea and making this possible. This is exactly what I had in mind (the second option anyway). By all means, take your time at it and I'll gladly beta test the public on my route.
John
John, offer to beta test noted.
At the moment I am playing about with the script and need to decide whether I should try to disable the feature where people are added automatically to the group at intervals in the same way they are on station platforms. Because there are no people leaving the group to go onto vehicles, the group size would slowly grow until all the attachment points are occupied. It could be interesting to have a slowly growing group.
Scottish