Merging various assets into one - is it possible?

Hi all,

I'm looking for a time saving feature - stations on my UK Southeastern route are fairly standard in reality. A simple copy and paste with just 90 degree rotation options doesn't save any time at all. Was wondering whether there is a way to merge various assets into one asset, import that and then rotate it accordingly?

The kind of thing I'm talking about is shown in the shot below. If I could pick up that and rotate and paste it wherever my stations would be done in a matter of seconds!



Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

Cheers,
Paul

You can copy a group of objects in the "tools" slide out tab at the right hand side of the screen in surveyor. Click on the red square to select the area to be copied, draw the dotted line around the area then click on the green arrow and use the mouse to go to where you want to copy it to. When you have it in the right place right click in the area. Before placing you can rotate it in increments of 90 degrees using the compass in the same section.
Note: the original and the copy must be close to North, South, East or West to begin with.

You could create a new asset in a 3D tool like Blender. Create a simple triangle, as the asset needs to have a silly mesh. Add a bunch of attachment points at the various locations that you want to have the related asset and attach them in the config file. Now all the assets act as one asset which you can rotate all at the same time around the center of this new created asset.
A lot of work and investigating for something you might do once or twice, but if you are going to use the same setup many, many times, it sure is worth it. Does require you to learn a few things about Content Creation though.

paulper said:

Hi all,

I'm looking for a time saving feature - stations on my UK Southeastern route are fairly standard in reality. A simple copy and paste with just 90 degree rotation options doesn't save any time at all. Was wondering whether there is a way to merge various assets into one asset, import that and then rotate it accordingly?

The kind of thing I'm talking about is shown in the shot below. If I could pick up that and rotate and paste it wherever my stations would be done in a matter of seconds!



Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

Cheers,
Paul

Click to expand...

Paul, I think I know what you mean. I build my stations from scratch and they finish up heavily detailed; and I don't want to be wasting time rebuilding the same station again.

So I spent some time copying a complete route that I'd built, then deleted the baseboards which didn't have any stations. When I was sure I had what I wanted, I copied and pasted each one onto a clean baseboard, then deleted the rest and saved all my stations as a new route.

When I had some free time I copied and pasted each one at different 90 degree rotations.

Now when I want to bring them into a new route, I just merge the baseboard into it. Then copy and paste them onto the route, and when finished I delete the merged baseboard. I can do this over and over again.

Cheers,
Roy

oknotsen said:

You could create a new asset in a 3D tool like Blender. Create a simple triangle, as the asset needs to have a silly mesh. Add a bunch of attachment points at the various locations that you want to have the related asset and attach them in the config file. Now all the assets act as one asset which you can rotate all at the same time around the center of this new created asset.
A lot of work and investigating for something you might do once or twice, but if you are going to use the same setup many, many times, it sure is worth it. Does require you to learn a few things about Content Creation though.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the responses.

I think this is the only option for what I wanted to achieve. It's a shame we're limited in-game to copy and paste with 90 degree rotations unlike individual assets.

Will download Blender and give it a go.

Cheers,
Paul