Dirty Cars IN --- Clean Cars OUT

[davesnow]

Hi all. I am working on a new route which has a large RR industry. One of the services this industry provides is cleaning and re-painting rolling stock, i.e., RR cars which have changed roadnames, or become covered with grafitti. What I would like to do is bring a load of "dirty" cars in with my switcher... Then go back later and find this load of cars all "clean." Is there any way at all, using portals or a rule or whatever, to set something up to perform this task?

Put on your thinking caps! :hehe:

 

[JCitron]

Hi Dave,

I'm not sure if there are any cars built this way, but I wonder if ElDavo's Chameleon script might work to control the weathering effects of becoming cleaned.

I'm not a programmer so I wouldn't even know where to begin. Just thinking outloud, basically.

John

 

[cascaderailroad]

Real RR freight cars are either never cleaned (exterior), or are only cleaned at the data stencil areas. Passenger equipment is cleaned more regularly, and freight locos are cleaned somewhat, every couple of years, at a loco rebuild.

 

[davesnow]

Real RR freight cars are either never cleaned (exterior), or are only cleaned at the data stencil areas. Passenger equipment is cleaned more regularly, and freight locos are cleaned somewhat, every couple of years, at a loco rebuild.

Well, you better take a ride over here in Arkansas to the American Railcar Industries in Paragould because that's exactly what they do there.

http://www.americanrailcar.com/

I'm designing this route as it is here in northeast Arkansas. American Railcar will be included.

 

[Dap]

Dave,

I think it could be done. First you need to establish some parameters. You shove a string of cars into the factory. Do you expect that string to come out later in the session with new paint? Or do you expect a differnt string to emerge during the session. Kind of like you deliver a string today and then pick up a string that was delivered last week, cause they take that long to do their thing. If you drop off 10 cars, do you expect to pick up 10 cars or can it be random?

David

 

[Lots_Trains]

MMM Interesting

I'm doing a similar thing with my loco's put them in the wash clean them and they come out nice and shiney. I use pguys "qportal" works a treat. You have to do a few tricks with it and you have to have a range of dirty locos with seperate kuids. Works good in the never ending game.

Cheers

Lots

 

[AJ_Fox]

I would say it could be done using two synchronized Portals properly set up. You need at least in my opinion identical sets of rolling stock, one dirty to go in the 1st Portal and another of the same appearance coming out of the 2nd Portal clean. Have not tried this but sounds like it might work.

Cheers

AJ

 

[Xengeance]

There's also the possibility of some kind of texture-library system, similar to that Rolling Stock Livery asset floating around on the DLS. That way, rolling stock that supported a paint/wash facility need only call up a replace texture command via script. Although retro-fitting many existing assets with a 'weathered' alternate skin would be a completely separate project in, and of, itself.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that if you intend your rolling stock to simply dirty up as it's being used along the route, if they are separate assets that replace each other, how would they become mucked up on the fly, as it may be rather difficult to replace parts of a moving consist with their respective dirty equivalents? And wouldn't a gradual build up of grime be more appropriate, than the car simply just magically transmogrifying into it's dirty version? A car-switch method may not be as practical in that case as a texture-replacement effect, but it would be much less.... erm.... artificial. I don't mean to cast your idea in a negative light (in fact, I have been toying with the plausibility of this idea for the last few months), I'm just offering up some of the issues I've run across under the same scenario.

Without some sort of defined method of practice by the majority of the community, and a willingness to comply with those standards may inhibit the ability to implement a system without any such built-in support for such content via Auran. That being said, this CAN be done, it's just simply a matter of complexity and amount of people willing to make compatible content, whether new or retro-actively.

On a purely technical note, perhaps it is possible to 'overlay' a grime texture equipped with an transparency on top of the normal diffuse texture for a railcar using some kind of multi-channel diffuse map?

 

[davesnow]

Hmmm... I can see how this might be a bit complex. At least for my feeble and "computer illiterate" mind to deal with!

 

[bendorsey]

It might also be possible to do as a load (like the load for a hopper car). The load in this case is the dirty textures on parts that are slightly larger then the clean traincar and are not seen when the traincar is first placed on the route (or the route started). Eventually you run them thru a pretty much invisible industry that "loads" the dirty textures from 100 or 200 ft below ground. When you run the cars thru the washer the load is returned to its below ground position. Script files already exist to do this so its just a matter of making the dirty car load in gmax and exporting it, etc. Just a thought.

Ben

 

[Xengeance]

It might also be possible to do as a load (like the load for a hopper car). The load in this case is the dirty textures on parts that are slightly larger then the clean traincar and are not seen when the traincar is first placed on the route (or the route started). Eventually you run them thru a pretty much invisible industry that "loads" the dirty textures from 100 or 200 ft below ground. When you run the cars thru the washer the load is returned to its below ground position. Script files already exist to do this so its just a matter of making the dirty car load in gmax and exporting it, etc. Just a thought.

Ben

Don't most fuel/loco ash-enabled locomotives do exactly that without the need to pass through an invisible industry? One could simply script a car with a thread that monitors time passed in the session and gradually increments some sort of 'grime value' per so many seconds passed, which then applies an appropriately dirty texture and it's corresponding commodity level (a Level Of Dirt, if you will :hehe based on the value stored in said Grime variable. You could even set up triggers along the track to speed up or slow down the rate at which the grime value increases, such as near coal cutes or ballast piles.

 

[davesnow]

Well, it looks like there are some pretty smart Trainzers here. I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but glad I could provide some "food for thought! "

The way my route is going to be set up is thus: I run the switchers in my town (both UP and BNSF--- just like the real yard here, both BNSF and UP have switching yards here in Jonesboro--- there are also smaller switching yards in Paragould and a couple other towns).

The Class I A.I. trains pull into the yard and unload a number of rolling stock. There are something like ten factories and about a dozen or so grain silos in the northeast Arkansas area here that utilize rolling stock, not counting the American Railcar industry. Rolling stock will mainly include boxcars, grain hoppers, open gondolas, and tank cars. Most of the rolling stock "repainted" and repaired at American Railcar are the grain hoppers and tank cars.

Anyhow, after the Class I A.I. locos unload their cars and leave for other destinations, I will sort and distribute the rolling stock.

In relation to the American Railcar plant, I'll take the "dirty" cars there and drop them off. Later, when they are all cleaned up, I'll pick them up and bring them to one of the other yards. Soon another A.I train will arrive to pick up readied cars and move on.

Well, this is how I envision my route. Of course, like the old saying goes... "The best laid plans of mice and men.... etc. etc."--- I may not be able to make everything work out so well. There may be a lot of "pretending" to do!

Anyhow, I certainly appreciate all the thoughts and suggestions. The Trainz community is a great bunch of people.