Flintstone/50 cent wheel removal tutorial

[ossie]

Flintstone (or 50 cent wheels as some of us Down Under call them) have often been a discussion point and cropped up again in Bernard's BEW projects thread. Just prior to the site outage through the week I started a thread to see how much interest there was amongst people for a tutorial on changing wheels and prior to it being lost in the outage I had some requests/messages. While a lot of the earlier models with bad wheels have been superseded by newer and more detailed models, there are still models appearing in the file library with old wheels and I know there are "collectors" in the community who like to keep everything and may wish to upgrade. Hopefully this information will be of assistance to anyone wanting to update wheels on older models.

While I'd invite anyone to try this tutorial and I'll try to keep the process as simple as possible, I would suggest that if TGATool2, DXTbmp, alpha channels, textures, image editing software, ace files, dds files etc are not terms/names you are familiar with then this may not be for you. I'm also sure that nearly 25 years down the track a lot of people have developed their own methods for doing this sort of work but this is the way it was taught to me and I've used it often, but if you have a better/clearer way of doing this, then please weigh in.

I've added some sections of text in brackets in the tutorial and while they don't directly impact on the outcome, it's additional background info that can be useful if variations to this method are needed/occur.

For the purposes of this tutorial we will be removing the 50 cent wheels and bogies from ATSF 5040 and replacing them with the wheels and bogies from CP 5567. ATSF 5040 (what I'll refer to at times as our "target loco") is located in the SLI.ATSF folder (from the SLI ATSF Super Set) and CP 5567 (our "source loco") can be found in the SLI_CPR_ENGINES folder (from the SLI CP Rail Coal and Sulphur set or the TS CP RAIL Trainsets Vol 1).

Firstly to ensure nothing valuable is lost, I suggest you rename your active TRAINSET to TRAINSET_keep (for example) and create a new TRAINSET folder. Into this folder you need to add the SLI.ATSF and SLI_CPR_ENGINES folders. You may find it "cleaner" to delete the rest of the locos in both folders so there's less files to work around during the tutorial. Whether you choose to keep them or delete them, to avoid confusion delete the CP_SD40-2b_5567.ace file as I'll be making the changes to the .dds version of that file and referring to it. (NB: at times in the tutorial I will reference CP_SD40-2b_5567.ace in relation to what is listed in the .s file, but the physical changes are being made to the .dds file).

The last thing you will need is a "blank.ace" or "blank.dds" texture. You can create it from any size texture although (possibly) the smaller the better. You need to add an alpha channel to it and name it "blank.ace" (or) "blank.dds" depending on which format you're using. There is a blank.ace file in the Bulkhead Flatcar set Tyler and I did some years ago, but again, if creating a blank texture file is something you don't know how to do, that might be a warning sign in terms of continuing with the tutorial. However, for anyone who hasn't downloaded the bulkhead flatcars and wants to press on, the download link is:

https://www.trainsim.com/forums/filelib-search-fileid?fid=84056

Prior to starting, I should also say that I do not consider myself an expert on shape files. There is still a lot about them I don't understand but I was lucky enough to have a person share their knowledge with me and that has added a dimension to the sim that has given me a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction in being able to update models when necessary. For anyone who doesn't already know how to do this editing, I hope you'll feel the same.

[ossie]

Open SFM and in the SLI_CPR_ENGINES directory, open CP_SD40-2_5567.s. Near the top of the file you’ll see the following section:


It’s important to understand the difference between the two shader states. TexDiff (0) relates to solid states, BlendATexDiff (1) relates to alpha channels and opaque/“invisible” sections of the model and become important when we start changing the prim states later in the tutorial. NB: You don’t need the red text in your .s file, tutorial use only.

(There is a method of “brute forcing” changes by just changing TexDiff to BlendATexDiff. On more simple models, that can easily remove unwanted sections but often and particularly on more complex models like locos you can finish up removing pieces you want to keep as well as the part you want removed).

Scrolling down to the images section of the file we want to change this:

To this:



What we’ve done above with the blank.ace references is to stop a large part of the model being displayed. You’ll also notice that I’ve numbered each of the texture lines from 0 – 6 to correspond with a particular ace file. Again this is important in the prim states but again, you don’t need the red text in your own .s file.

[ossie]

Now to the prim states. Scroll down a little below the section we’ve just changed in the .s file and you will see:



This is where the numbers I’ve highlighted previously come into play. Firstly, if you look at the brackets beside each of the tex_idxs lines you will see ( 1 0 ) or ( 1 6 ) etc (red arrows in pic above). The second number corresponds to each of our texture files listed above in the .s file and as an example, texture 0 in the source model is CP_SD40-2a.ace and texture 6 is PLATING.ace.

Texture 0 is the only one we need for our tutorial so to get rid of the rest, the named shaders TexDiff (0) & BlendATexDiff (1) are now important.

The last single digit on each prim state Default line is either a 0 or 1 (red dots in pic above). The first 3 are already set to 1 meaning they are opaque/invisible. If we look at the next 3 lines that relate to textures 5, 6, and 1 we need to change them from 0 to 1. Texture 2 relates to the GRILLS and is already set to 1 so no change is required. After making these changes our prim states should now look like this:

[ossie]

Save the .s file and if you want to have a look at the loco in ShapeViewer or the sim, you’ll notice we're making progress but we still have a lot more of it than we need.




The reason is that texture 0 or CP_SD40-2a.ace contains more details than just the wheels and bogies so we now need to remove the unwanted parts.

Open the texture file in either TGATool2 (for ace files) or in this case DXTbmp as we are editing a .dds file. With the file open in DXTbmp, we need to go to the Alpha menu then Create Alpha Template (and click OK if prompted). You’ll now see your new alpha template has appeared in the alpha preview window.

[ossie]

Select the Alpha menu again and choose Send Alpha To Editor. A little bit of trial and error is sometimes required in your editor of choice but looking at the alpha template in Photoshop you can see my first guess at what I want to keep and remove:



The highlighted section now needs to be painted black and what you want to keep needs to be painted white:



Save it in your texture editor, update your alpha channel in DXTbmp then save your .dds image.

[ossie]

We can now go back to our prim states and make a final change. As you can see, the last 9 prim states all reference texture 0. This is where trial and error and experience come into the process. From doing previous “re-wheeling” projects I know the first of the prim states for texture 0 relates to the body of the loco so it needs to be changed to 1. The other 8 prim states for texture 1 relate to the bogies and wheels (2 for the bogies, 6 for the wheels) so they can remain at 0. Before:



After:



(When I was initially learning how to make these changes I found it very useful to change 1 value at a time then look to see what change, if anything, I’d been able to achieve and to get a better understanding of how variations to those prim states impacted individual models).

[ossie]

If we now look at our source loco in the sim or shapeviewer, it should look like this:



Prior to closing this .s file I would normally rename the remaining .ace or .dds file. In this case as I am working on SF 5040, I’d rename it to SF_SD40_2_5040_base.dds.

Save your changes in SFM, go back to your CN 5567 folder and rename CP_SD40-2a_5667a.dds to SF_SD40_2_5040_base.dds.

Next rename CP_SD40-2_5567.s to SF_SD40_2_5040.s.

We’re now finished with CP 5567 for the moment so we want to open our SLI.ATSF folder.

Rename SF_SD40_2_5040.s to SF_SD40_2_5040_FA.s.

I like to keep my shape and texture file names related so we’ll also rename 5040a.ace to SF_SD40_2_5040aFA.ace and 5040b.ace to SF_SD40_2_5040bFA.ace.

Open SF_SD40_2_5040_FA.s in SFM and rename your ace files to reflect the new names we’ve just given both of them.

Next, scroll down to your prim states:



and as with our source loco, we can see that the last 9 prim states again reference texture 0. This time we need to reverse the process of the source loco and remove the bogies and wheels by changing the last 8 prim states from 0 to 1. Our amended prim states should now look like:

[ossie]

Next we need to edit SF_SD40_2_5040_aFA.ace and as it is an ace file we need to open it with TGAtool2. It doesn’t have any existing alpha channel so create a new alpha template and send it to your editor of choice. This time we need to black out the wheel section and leave the rest of the body in white. Before:



After:



We now need to make some changes to the .eng file. The 1^st thing we need to do is check if this model is already using a freight animation. Open the SF_SD40_2_5040.eng file, click on edit, then find, and type freight into the search box and hit find next. This search will tell us if a freight animation line is in use or not. In this case the file doesn’t have a freight animation line so we can add one.



I generally like to keep my FAs right under the initial .s file line but again, go with whatever method works for you. NB: If there had been an existing FA already in use in the model, we would have needed to use an ORTS FA instead so it would have looked like this:

[ossie]

Save your .eng file and if we now look at the model in the sim or ShapeViewer the wheels and bogies will be gone:



It’s now time to add our new wheels and bogies to SF 5040. Go back to your source loco folder and from it, copy blank.ace, SF_SD40_2_5040.s and SF_SD40_2_5040_base.dds into your target folder. You can then view the new “round wheel” loco in ShapeViewer or look at it in the sim.

Doing a comparison of our original loco and our newly re-wheeled version we can see the replacement bogies are set a little too close to the tank:



To properly position them, we again need to use SFM to make changes to SF_SD40_2_5040.s. Scroll to (or search for) the matrices section (just above the image section).



The two matrices we want are Bogie1 & Bogie 2. In both cases the 3 important values in each matrix for moving parts of the model are the last 3.

The first red value 0.004 (which I’ve never needed for re-wheeling) would shift the wheels back and forth across the track (ie: conductor’s side to engineer’s side or vice versa).

The second value -0.856 raises or lowers the height of the wheels in relation to the track.

The final value -6.188 is the one we want. In the case of bogie 1 it is telling us that the bogies (and wheels) are located 6.188 meters in front of the centre of the locomotive.

Bogie2 refers to the rear set and is telling us it is -6.185 meters behind the centre of the locomotive.

Again, adjusting the values is trial and error/experience. In this case I’d guess about .2 of a metre would be about right (so 6.388 for Bogie1 and -6.385 for Bogie2) but additional fine tuning is often required.

[ossie]

Other than needing a new coat of paint on the bogies to make them more appropriate for use on the ATSF, you should now have a newly wheeled and fully functioning loco ready to go!

(Apart from the small shift at the end to reposition the bogies, we got lucky having an SD40-2 with good wheels and bogies to directly swap onto our target loco. I have had a couple of instances though where I couldn’t find another source loco with the same bogies as my target model in which case you need to make some changes to this process {or go with whatever bogies are closest if you’re not fussy}. If you do encounter a situation where you can’t find the right bogies on another model and want the correct ones then you will need to keep what is on your target loco model. In that case, on the source loco alpha texture the only thing you want to leave is the wheel. On the target loco the reverse applies. Leave all the bogie parts in place and alpha out the wheel only and as with the example we’ve just done, some repositioning of the wheels is likely to be required. Once again, the solution is in the matrices section but instead of repositioning Bogies1 and Bogies2, the 6 wheels need to be repositioned using the same method. Wheels 11-13 are the front, 21-23 are the back and they can be a bit tricky. For reasons I don’t understand, wheel 13 has a value that appears as though it is behind the centre of the loco ( -1.967 ) and wheel 21 has a value that appears to put it in front of the centre of the loco ( 1.968). Because of this, directional changes can be contradictory and I find it much easier to make the changes 1 wheel at a time).

Good luck! 😊

[Rail Hobo]

Thank you for taking the time to create this tutorial and for sharing.

[yellowdog]

Thanks, Pete! This is the process I used to kitbash some of Tyler Bundy's SD40s to create some of my CSX repaints. Except I probably could have employed the blank.ace method in a few places (though it maybe should be noted that OTRS will throw errors in the log file saying "blank.ace can't be found.") It might go without saying in this guide, but I'll say it anyway: Once you've created your replacement "base bogies" they can just be saved as a FA on your computer to be used with any other car body you want.

[wwhall]

Thank you so much for posting this. I will be trying this out when I have a block of extra hours to do a "project". The are a lot of locos out there whose "Flintstone wheels" are their main detrimental feature. I equate this to sort of shopping for new locomotives in your own store! Thanks again.

[Unoriginal]

Thank you for posting this. I was able to get a couple engines upgraded and more will probably follow soon.

[CSRX]

This is great. While I don't care about the visuals of the trucks and wheels, as I spend more time in the cab than anything else, it will be great to refer to these instructions for anyone wanting to change out the wheels on any of the locomotive repaints I do using older models, such as the many GP units and some SD units I've recently released.