Trainz TRS19 Surveyor Inquiry Regarding The Bulk Asset Update Replacement Tool

Trainz members,

In the TANE product (Surveyor mode) there was a tool that could delete a certain percentage of assets from a route.
Bulk Asset / Update Replace - where one could randomly delete selected scenery objects at a set percentage.
One could also randomly rotate any objects replaced.

One has noticed that this feature does not exist in the TS19 product, or is there another way of deleting bulk assets from the route ?

In the TS19 product it looks like that you can only replace a selected group of assets in bulk with another type. Is this correct ?

With reference to The Cornish Mainline and Branches (TS19 version) this layout certainly runs reasonable on my PC computer (with graphic settings set on low).
I have a low end old PC computer.
As an experiment I would like to delete at least 50% of the vegetation in a cloned route to see if the graphics frame rate performance improves.
The Bulk Asset Tool would of been handy to do this task.

In TS19 Surveyor mode (Cornish Mainline Route) is it possible to move the trees and certain vegetation to a selected layer in the route and be able to inhibit them ?
(Not showing in the layout when run in driver mode).

davies_mike57

Strange, because Bulk Update/Replace tool and the option to delete a set percentage of objects is still there in both my current builds of Trainz Plus. The last time I used TRS19 (SP4), at the end of last year, it was also present. It was never a Trainz Plus only feature.

You will find it under the Tools menu.

The delete option does not work with splines or (if I recall correctly) track objects (e.g. signals, etc) but works fine with scenery assets such as trees, buildings, etc.

Objects can be replaced with other objects of the same classification - e.g. scenery objects with scenery objects, you cannot replace a building with a spline.

What build of TRS19 are you using?

Hi pware,
Thank you for your reply.
My current version of Trainz TRS19 is Steam build 117026.

Maybe the software won't let me use the feature with cloned payware routes ?

With the Bulk Asset Update/Replace Tool button pressed the window shows up but the additional tabs randomly delete scenery objects does not show in the window as it does in the TANE version.
Strange
Mike Davies

You have to select an asset to update, before the option gets visible.

Peter

Thanks Peter,
Asset selection first and now works ok, also one has to make sure that the route layer is unlocked to do the mods.
davies_mike57

Is there any way to type in an asset KUID, like say a missing tree? The route knows it is missing but must know where they go, so if you could type it in and then select a replacement, it would be very handy. Or is that a suggestion/wish list thing?

davies_mike57 said:

With the Bulk Asset Update/Replace Tool button pressed the window shows up but the additional tabs randomly delete scenery objects does not show in the window as it does in the TANE version.

Click to expand...

I could of course be wrong, but that may have been a recent change. It depends of the type of asset you have selected. I cannot remember if the delete option ever appeared (or worked) when splines or track objects were selected but it certainly is still there and works when non-spline scenery objects are selected. It does not work with splines, track objects and textures. I have been able to delete textures by replacing them with the standard TRS19 Grid texture.

After a bit of experimenting I have noticed that the option to delete will be removed from the tool if you have selected a mixture of asset types (e.g. scenery AND a spline, or scenery AND a texture). I discovered this by using the selection tool to randomly click on assets in a scene. As soon as I accidentally missed clicking on a tree, for example, and a clicked a texture or spline instead, the delete option disappeared.

As far as working on cloned payware routes, N3V have no problems with this (and neither should the tool) for the more recent DLC payware items. I do recall a past post where they (N3V) stated that the ability to clone and edit older payware routes has not yet been implemented.

Forester1 said:

Is there any way to type in an asset KUID, like say a missing tree? The route knows it is missing but must know where they go, so if you could type it in and then select a replacement, it would be very handy. Or is that a suggestion/wish list thing?

Click to expand...

I suspect that it is a suggestion/wish list thing. My general solution is to use the Delete Missing Assets command and then decide if something has to be added to fill up any "gaps".

That is what I thought, but if you think about it, it would just be replacing all the instances of one kuid with another in that route. All location references would remain the same, so it would seem like it would be reasonably easy to program. Easy being a relative term, I am sure.

Yes, a "like for like" replacement could be simple to program (I am certainly no expert) but there may have to be many exceptions to that and those exceptions could easily be "show-stoppers". A very tricky issue!

My opinions.

pware said:

Yes, a "like for like" replacement could be simple to program (I am certainly no expert) but there may have to be many exceptions to that and those exceptions could easily be "show-stoppers". A very tricky issue!

My opinions.

Click to expand...

It would be a feature I would also like to use. Tricky or not.

If you know the kuid of the missing tree then it's easy. Find the tree you want to replace and open the config. Add these lines using the kuid of the missing tree.

obsolete-table {
0 <kuid:51536:50005>
}

Open your route and you should now see the replacement tree. Delete missing assets and once saved you can delete those lines from the asset or revert it to the original.

Be very careful with the delete percentage of assets option, I found this out the hard way and removed a pine forest when I attempted to thin some pines on another part of a very large route. On the section of the route where I wanted to thin the trees down a bit, I had way too many pines along with a good balance of other oaks, maples, and birches. I did a low percentage of the pines and deleted that number. This worked and then I went for more not realizing I had forgotten to set the option for the current baseboard.

With the route well over 190 miles long and spanning pretty much the geography of eastern New England from northern Maine to Massachusetts, I never noticed that the vast pine forests in the north had been decimated. The hills and mountains were bare, with only stragglers left behind as if the forests had been clear cut. If I was modeling northern New England in 1920, that might be okay, but this wasn't what I planned or intended. The problem is I never noticed I had done this because I wasn't on the other end of the route at the time. The good news is I was able to recover this route after nearly giving up on it when I discovered my backups not too long ago.

The other thing that occurred I think is a bug, or maybe should be included in an update.

On another route, I decided to change some of the oaks for something else. I had been using the The-Bulk-Asset-Update-Replacement-Tool for various things on this route one day. I had replaced some trees, thinned down others, and went to replace another oak tree with something different. Each time I make sure I clear the queue of old assets before I work on the new one, but I forgot about the delete-percentage checkbox setup. That greyed over with the queues were cleared, but the value remained set and I never noticed that. I added in my oak tree to update with the other and hit the begin button. Instead of replacing the tree, it deleted them instead! Since I saved just prior to performing this and I was able to recover from my error.

Ouch! Point well taken John!
@Stagecoach - Very creative way to do this! I may have to try it with some Pofig and McGuirel trees.

Found this by experimenting:

How to delete spline objects, or other spline items in bulk in a route.

I found the best way to completely delete a chosen spline in a route is to:

First: go into Content Manager - Content tab
Second: temporally disable the spline.
Thirdly: go into Surveyor Mode and open up the route to be modified.
Fourthly: Delete any missing assets by using the "delete missing assets tab", this action will take out the spline points in the route map.
Fifthly: Save the route, and exit Surveyor Mode.
Sixth: In Content manager enable the spline so that other routes can still use it.

Now when the modified route is run in Driver Mode the chosen removed spline (or multiple selected chosen splines) will not be shown anywhere in the layout.

davies_mike57

Great tip sir, thank you!