Converting Locos and Rolling Stock to Static Objects

[NJCurmudgeon]

How difficult is it to convert locos or other rolling stock into static scenery objects or 'signal' objects? And, does it help performance to do so? I know it can be done - someone changed a passenger car into a "signal" object that I could place on a track like a signal or switch back when I was using Trainz 2009.I don't recall how they did it now. I have a busy yard where all the rolling stock doesn't necessarily need to be drivable/loadable/coupleable, etc. Performance bogs down for all the obvious reasons in that yard, so I was wondering if I could replace some of the cars with static ones that would tax the system less.

Thanks!

G

 

[dnevans8]

As well as others, bobsanders has many examples of rolling stock as static objects. If you search in CM for author - bobsanders you will see them and if you download the rolling stock and the "signal" version you will see how he does it.

 

[xcrossi]

Hello:
There are rolling stock splines but he calls them something else and I can't remember what.
I'm looking thru all my stuff now

 

[cascaderailroad]

You can change almost anything, to be another type of asset, ie a commodity steel coil into a static asset ... etc by changing the "kind" line in the config file ... always experiment on a clone, and never alter the original asset !

 

[rweber95]

Magicland (#58843) has made some railcar splines for scenery purposes. Set your CM Search parameters to Author - magicland, Category - Track and Name - rail.
Also chris_thecarguy (#69181) has made a few box car splines.

Bob Weber

 

[xcrossi]

Magicland (#58843) has made some railcar splines for scenery purposes. Set your CM Search parameters to Author - magicland, Category - Track and Name - rail.
Also chris_thecarguy (#69181) has made a few box car splines.

Bob Weber

Thanks for heads up.
I think there is one more RS spline author..I remember a mix of boxcars, I know I have them

 

[mikeaust]

A couple that you may like to check out, used a lot by Philskene.
boxcar kuid2:58422:24001:1
gond rusty kuid:44066:24012
cheers,
Mike

 

[dnevans8]

As well as bobsanders who I mentioned in post #2 I have also seen examples of rolling stock assets and the corresponding "signal" version (or trackside) by paulsw2 and johnwhelan. Again you could download two corresponding assets by them and compare how they make the different kinds of asset.

 

[teddytoot]

For the splines I have content from Magicland and Wiley4 (US), and Magandy and myself (teddytoot) (UK). For track object single vehicles I know of Sniper297, Johnwhelan and Bobsanders. Elvenor had some pure scenery items that needed careful placing. They could probably be converted to track objects.

 

[pcas1986]

Remember that logos tend to be "poly heavy" so I would look for those that use LOD and use the lower poly version. You can also discard any interior attachments.

 

[johnwhelan]

As well as others, bobsanders has many examples of rolling stock as static objects. If you search in CM for author - bobsanders you will see them and if you download the rolling stock and the "signal" version you will see how he does it.

Bob reskins my meshes. If you have access to the meshes its a lot easier. The scenery versions are raised by 30 cms so they sit on the track, a conventional wagon has at least two meshes the wagon and the wheels, since the scenery wheels don't move they can be included in the primary mesh. There is an overhead per mesh of roughly 500 poly equivalents so by cutting the number of meshes down you gain performance. In the case of my scenery meshes adding the wheels in means its worth while going to three levels of lod rather than two which again helps performance. Also scenery objects use mesh table lod which is slightly more efficient than lm.txt type but you lose control over when it switches.

Cheerio John

 

[JCitron]

I've done that with a few assets for my own use.

You change the locomotive or train car a type scenery - copy the codes from another scenery object such as a house for example, and remove everything that isn't needed such as engine specs, and non-functional items such as horn sounds.

Turn the bogies to scenery items also because scenery objects can't have bogies and you'll need them to put the wheels in place.

Once this is done, place a piece of track down and plop your scenery objects. I place and adjust the loco or train car into location first then fit the fake bogie underneath. It takes a bit of fiddling to get this right, but once it's done they look great. I did this for a museum I setup, or rather a siding with a couple of train cars and a loco attached to it.

John

 

[dnevans8]

Bob reskins my meshes. If you have access to the meshes its a lot easier. The scenery versions are raised by 30 cms so they sit on the track, a conventional wagon has at least two meshes the wagon and the wheels, since the scenery wheels don't move they can be included in the primary mesh. There is an overhead per mesh of roughly 500 poly equivalents so by cutting the number of meshes down you gain performance. In the case of my scenery meshes adding the wheels in means its worth while going to three levels of lod rather than two which again helps performance. Also scenery objects use mesh table lod which is slightly more efficient than lm.txt type but you lose control over when it switches.

Cheerio John

John - When I went back to look for other creators of trackside versions of rolling stock I did notice from bobsanders descriptions that he uses your meshes hence why I quoted you in post #8 above and because I found many of you versions that I have and many more on the dls. I believe the OP was only looking for ways to convert rolling stock to a trackside version rather than reskinning hence my suggestion to download a trackside asset and a rolling stock asset to see how you and others had made the change. From what you say it does seem to involve quite a lot more than just changing the type in the config.txt file.

While I seem to have your attention I would also like to thank you for your excellent assets.

 

[johnwhelan]

John - When I went back to look for other creators of trackside versions of rolling stock I did notice from bobsanders descriptions that he uses your meshes hence why I quoted you in post #8 above and because I found many of you versions that I have and many more on the dls. I believe the OP was only looking for ways to convert rolling stock to a trackside version rather than reskinning hence my suggestion to download a trackside asset and a rolling stock asset to see how you and others had made the change. From what you say it does seem to involve quite a lot more than just changing the type in the config.txt file.

While I seem to have your attention I would also like to thank you for your excellent assets.

I tried to keep the same side and end textures in the texture file deliberately and I think these dimensions go back a long way Paul Hobbs I think did the first one or two or possibly Blue, and there have been lots of reskins so if you are working in UK assets open the texture file up and check the dimensions of the wagon side / end. It's probably possible to clone my newer wagons / vans then copy in just the side and ends from the older ones to create scenery versions or even ones with lod.

I think its the photographic texture files that make most of these so really its the photography that's the most important part and finding colour photographs of side views of wagons is the hard part. If you see one please take a photo straight on the side view not angled taking up as much of the image as possible to give more detail to play with in the photo editors. I'd like to lay my hands on a seven plank at the moment as we've come across a number of private owner wagon books but we need a blank seven plank or one we can remove the writing on as we did with the five plank to do them justice.

Cheerio John

 

[NJCurmudgeon]

When I have more time to play with Trainz, I will be trying some of this, but I wanted to acknowledge and thank everyone for their replies - good stuff! Thank you!