Attention Content Creators

[johnwhelan]

barry & amigacookie,

Ok, fellows which is the correct English spelling of "learned" ???

Inquiring minds wish to know.........

Dave

BTW...I agree completely with the OP.

Learned or learnt? It depends on where you are. In the UK learnt is normally accepted as the most common but in the US learned is more usual. It's quite interesting that if you want to study early English then remote locations in the US are often the place to find it spoken as it was many many years ago. Same thing for using s or z when spelling a word there are minor variations but as long as you can understand what is being said I don't think it matters. There are differences in doubling letters as well. Does that mean we should have descriptions only written in UK English?

The French have some sort of authority for the French language but English goes more by what people use. Wind in the willows for example Toad and the others have a discussion about whether to teach some one or learn them.

To come back to the issue which isn't being debated my view is there are a number of assets on the DLS such as speed signs when a group description is fine. If its an asset such an a whistle or engine spec does it really need a full description? As long as the loco builder knows what to use?

I think there are sufficient assets on the DLS with descriptions on them that meet Timberdv's criteria to keep him happy with more being added every day. I think something along the lines of "It would be helpful to people if you were to add an description with the following in" would be fine. I know sometimes when creating I'm just so glad to have finally finished the thing and solved the problems up it goes spelling mistakes an all. How many of us actually write a config.txt file from scratch each time and carefully go over things for bugs? I know I don't.

What is an OP by the way?

Cheerio John

 

[mezzoprezzo]

barry & amigacookie,

Ok, fellows which is the correct English spelling of "learned" ???

Inquiring minds wish to know.........

Dave

BTW...I agree completely with the OP.

Learnt and learned are not the same thing..

Learnt is the past tense of the verb to learn and is used in the simple past (preterite). I learnt French at school.

Learned is the past participle and used in the perfect tense. I have learned to speak French.

A verb which behaves in a similar way is dream. Last night dreamt I was in an aeroplane. I have often dreamed of winning the lottery.

There is also my learned friend used by a barrister or solicitor in court to address or refer to another barrister or solicitor.

I doubt that very many people are too bothered though. We get the gist!


By the way, if we really want to be pedantic:

Barrie should have a capital B.

What, or who, is amigacookie - a form of spyware?


On topic, I tend to download only what I want. Decent thumbnails greatly help that process. I rarely, if ever, select assets with "one size fits all" thumbnails. I need to know what I am getting. It saves a lot of weeding out at a later stage.

Foreign languages are not a problem. Translation is easy and it's part of the fun of searching down good assets. Foreign third party sites are a particularly good source of excellent assets.

 

[PerRock]

Including a picture is all very well on scenery and locomotives, but what's the procedure for a loco part such as horn or enginespec?

You can't really take a screenshot of physics or sounds. :hehe:

That's where the description and name come in, to help identify which loco or locos the particular dependency might be suited to.

But surely you wouldn't skip over a horn etc. with a description because it has no screenshot?

Kieran.

Well seeing as thumbnails are required for the DLS you have to come up with something. I personally don't look to much into the thumbnails for 'invisible' items. However these are a few of the common ones I see. For hornsounds: a picture of the actual horn (even though your just uploading the sound) or a picture of the wave form of the horn (some folks you a stock waveform image). For engine specs: the usual seems to be some sort of graph showing the spec, I've also seen a picture of the motor it's self for engine specs (or engine sounds). The thing that annoys me with them is the people who use a picture of the locomotive the dependency came from, like for a K5LA (horn sound) a picture of an Amtrak P42. For 'invisibles' I could see a logo & title image for a thumbnail working as well.

peter

 

[H222]

An OP is the original poster, the first poster of the topic

content creators create for themselves, and timber, don't ever tell them what to do. I know of several who have left due to the forum (some of them have left up to 100 times) and you have to rememember they create what they want because they want it. Some may see it as a bore writing a 100 word description, and that's fair enough.

A better suggestion would be to allow the community to edit or add descriptions for themselves, similar to like critics reviewing content, which could be checked by the help desk to not be too inflammatory and somewhat informative

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

As a creator, I support the OP (opening post?).

It always struck me as the height of laziness and a lack of courtesy to end users not to add an informative title, thumbnail and a decent description if the asset is going to be distributed. Doesn't need to be a long description, just enough to say what the asset is meant to be. The Trainz "system" is already opaque enough for many users, we creators don't need to make it unecessarily harder for everybody.

It might be different if the asset was made for your own private use, but even there, I personally prefer to keep adding thumbnails/descriptions.

 

[JCitron]

What would be helpful too is if the descriptions were available within Trainz Surveyor as well as Content Manager. With a gazillion assets installed, let alone on the DLS, it's sometimes difficult to remember what something is, or figure out how to use it. If the description appeared as a pull-out or fly-out when an asset was clicked in Surveyor, this would be very useful. Some content creators, such as Boat for example, have gone as far as including an HTML link and detailed instructions when clicking on the properties. This is extremely helpful but far and few between. Having the capabilities to pull up the already created description, right off the info-window in Content Manager, would be most useful and more friendly to the content creator since the information is then typed only once.

John

 

[davesnow]

As a creator, I support the OP (opening post?).

It always struck me as the height of laziness and a lack of courtesy to end users not to add an informative title, thumbnail and a decent description if the asset is going to be distributed. Doesn't need to be a long description, just enough to say what the asset is meant to be. The Trainz "system" is already opaque enough for many users, we creators don't need to make it unecessarily harder for everybody.

It might be different if the asset was made for your own private use, but even there, I personally prefer to keep adding thumbnails/descriptions.

Well said, Deane! VERY well said! I agree totally.

'Nuff said!

Dave

 

[ZecMurphy]

Good Afternoon All
First off...

As far as we are concerned, all content should have the 'username', 'description', 'license', etc tags in English. If you then require a local translation, you should be using the localized tags (e.g. 'english-de', 'description-de', etc) to create translations. In future, we may start to enforce English on the 'English' tags.

A check of the TRS2006 CCG has the following:

usernameThe human-readable English name of this asset.
Language versions are available.

I do not have older versions of the CCG on hand, but I would expect this to be the same in them. The description is much the same.

In regards to having a thumbnail and description, both are technically requirements of uploading to the Download Station. However, this doesn't ensure that they are accurate/relevant. However, as a creator, you should be providing accurate and relevant descriptions in your content. Your thumbnail should reflect the asset, or asset set (e.g. on a steam locomotive, I generally use the entire locomotive, tender, and bogies; and use this across all assets; for physics and hornsounds I either use a generic thumbnail or an 'art' based thumbnail, such as a picture of a whistle or horn for hornsounds).

We may look into enforcing this more in future, but for the most part the relevance of these is up to the creator.

Regards

 

[timberdv]

Thanks Zec for clarifying the procedure.

Dave ( timberdv )

 

[Barry]

Can't speak for others, but I do.
Already learned the basics; I make all my content in Blender.
My first project.
Most of the other stuff.

Thanks for your info and appreciated your reply.

Barry

 

[LoGrant54]

Thanks for posting this timberdv.

I would like to add a detail to it.

Ref, Rolling stock. PLEASE specify the EXACT gauge. Not doing this causes many problems for the narrowgaugers because there are so many different gauges. i.e. 10 1/4 inches, 18 inches, 1 ft 11 inches, 2ft, 30 inches, etc.

 

[gfisher]

Might I add a minor point to this discussion? I choose for my own reasons to continue working in TS2010 and much of the content being uploaded to the DLS is compatible with that trainz-build, ie 2.9 to 3.3. I have found however that all to often, particularly it seems with reskins, that an asset which is listed in CM as trainz-build 2.9 and therefor useable to me will upon downloading turn out not to be useable because one dependency, like a whistle, or and engine spec, will turn out to a 3.7 item. It would be nice if somehow the trainz-build requirements were made consistant, or if not at least flagged in the description. (Yes I know, I can go into the config and try substitutions, and I do if I care enough, but most of the time I just say the #### with it.)

 

[n8phu]

Good point George!

 

[johnwhelan]

Might I add a minor point to this discussion? I choose for my own reasons to continue working in TS2010 and much of the content being uploaded to the DLS is compatible with that trainz-build, ie 2.9 to 3.3. I have found however that all to often, particularly it seems with reskins, that an asset which is listed in CM as trainz-build 2.9 and therefor useable to me will upon downloading turn out not to be useable because one dependency, like a whistle, or and engine spec, will turn out to a 3.7 item. It would be nice if somehow the trainz-build requirements were made consistant, or if not at least flagged in the description. (Yes I know, I can go into the config and try substitutions, and I do if I care enough, but most of the time I just say the #### with it.)

Well if we all went back to TS2010 that would solve all the DLC dependency issues as well, we could use the S&C .ja files. I like the idea, even TS12 without the service pack perhaps? There are definite issues with using different versions of Trainz especially for scripts.

Cheerio John

Cheerio John

 

[BuilderBob]

content creators create for themselves, and timber, don't ever tell them what to do. I know of several who have left due to the forum (some of them have left up to 100 times) and you have to rememember they create what they want because they want it. Some may see it as a bore writing a 100 word description, and that's fair enough.

Of course it is - if they are creating for themselves. But if they are creating it to be out in the public arena for others to appreciate and use, then that becomes a different task, and one of the changes required is to describe it properly. I believe most creators would go through a process of polishing their creation before showing it to the world, and I think it's reasonable to propose that that polishing should include a proper description and proper thumbnail. Why put it out there if it's going to be difficult to identify?

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

Sorry but that does not work have been labeling my latest content that it was TS12 only in the description since getting many emails from people trying to load them into the the wrong versions and since then the amount of emails from people saying Oh I down loaded your such and such and I know its meant for TS12 only but would you please help me getting it running in 2009 has gone through the roof.

Might I add a minor point to this discussion? I choose for my own reasons to continue working in TS2010 and much of the content being uploaded to the DLS is compatible with that trainz-build, ie 2.9 to 3.3. I have found however that all to often, particularly it seems with reskins, that an asset which is listed in CM as trainz-build 2.9 and therefor useable to me will upon downloading turn out not to be useable because one dependency, like a whistle, or and engine spec, will turn out to a 3.7 item. It would be nice if somehow the trainz-build requirements were made consistant, or if not at least flagged in the description. (Yes I know, I can go into the config and try substitutions, and I do if I care enough, but most of the time I just say the #### with it.)

 

[johnwhelan]

Of course it is - if they are creating for themselves. But if they are creating it to be out in the public arena for others to appreciate and use, then that becomes a different task, and one of the changes required is to describe it properly. I believe most creators would go through a process of polishing their creation before showing it to the world, and I think it's reasonable to propose that that polishing should include a proper description and proper thumbnail. Why put it out there if it's going to be difficult to identify?

cause that part of the process is boring? how many programmers hate doing proper documentation.

Cheerio John

 

[cascaderailroad]

Some undocumented assets are fantastic ... and if you use that as a basis decision of not to download them ... You, are the one who will be missing out !

I hate the only description of the asset as: "NG Track", or NG Hopper" ... What size narrow gauge ? ... Is it 18" 24" 30" 36" 42 ?

Or "Subway" There are 43 assets, all with the same non-discript picture ... What the heck is it ?

 

[LoGrant54]

Well, is it logs or boxed cargo? Cmon, man. gotta do better than this.
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Download (Helper)

Download Page | Add to DLcart

[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Box-cargo fo 43-08X[/TD]
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[TD="width: 1%"][FONT=Verdana, Arial]Type:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD="width: 99%"][FONT=Verdana, Arial]Product[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]Downloaded:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]217[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]File Size:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]1.15 MB[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]File Type:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial].cdp[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]Created by:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]pro100den[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]Date:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]30th December 2013[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]Version:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]TS12[/FONT][/TD]
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[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]KUID:[/FONT][/TD]
[TD][FONT=Verdana, Arial]<KUID:669517:60005>[/FONT][/TD]
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Description:
27 tons of logs are loaded into all types of gondolas and specialized wagons, gondola model 12-532 only without end walls.[/TD]
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[cascaderailroad]

Description says "Box Crago" ... looks like box cargo, smells like box cargo ... must be box cargo

What more descriptive do you want ?

It looks like box's covered with a tarp, in the photo.

Download it and see what it is, maybe its box's of logs ?