Default Track Replacements

[eric]

This has become the classic definition of a rabbit hole....

Seeing Zack's thread about rebuilding MacTier, I dropped the replacements into my regular Global install, and dang, it looks good except for all the dynamic track (which is a simple fix as well with the ORTS TrackProfile directory and the right .stf file).

https://www.trainsim.com/forums/forum/open-rails/open-rails-route-projects-and-questions/2292539-cpkc-mactier-sub-v2-0-revamp-project-thread-for-2024-and-beyond?p=2292861#post2292861

[eric]

So a quick wrap-up for the week's work on the the initial set...

The last two days have mostly been C# and Excel programming... sounds odd, perhaps, but its a lot easier to create structured data from structured data....

Years ago, I built a translator for the TSection SIMSA format to XML... just because. Turns out that was pretty useful for getting a spreadsheet representation of the trackshapes and associated track section geometry:



Excel has a lot of power for building scripts and data transformations...

What I came up with was a single data-grid input for the vanilla straight and curved sections, and also a more free-form data-grid input for compound/complex shapes like turnouts and crossovers.



In the end, this was fairly straight forward, although the formula to build the JSON did get a little out of hand...





The gibberish in the light yellow and orange highlights above is the actual JSON representation of a track piece.... A lot clearer than digging thru a TSection, although that's still a necessary evil for the time being. I'm hopeful we'll get past that eventually, because we're running out of slots in the standardized version Derek maintains....

Since these are overlaying the existing Kuju and Xtracks sections, that's not a concern.

As of midnight, I'm up to 660 pieces "created" in that I have working JSON definitions, and can generate sections using one of the available profiles (there are two in Doug's GitHub package -- US Tracks and ScaleRail).

• 90 A1T straights
• 30+ A1T Turnouts/Ends
• 223 A1T curves
• 168 A2T-A10T multi-track straights
• 150 A2T-A4T multi-track curves

Still to finish in the first basic set are another 130-150 crossings, end pieces, and turnouts.

These are all ballasted wood tie tracks --- no tunnels or bridge tracks just yet. Those will reuse the shapefile JSON, but will need revised textures/profiles, and I'm going to defer to what Erick Cantu is working on before I start cranking those out.

All work and no play... that's simply not an option when there's testing to be done.

For fun, I overwrote the Global directories on both my TrainSimulations.net and default MSTS installations. I've already shared screenshots here of some of that. I might have to break out a few more legacy routes like the LaSalle or Jean Brisson's DIY.

(now that I think about it, this would really jump start Bob Wirth's routes as well....Where did I put the Chillicothe.............)

Running the Starter Route and the MacTier, it's pretty clear this is a massive improvement, and one that most people can do with about three minutes of effort.

1. Download Zip
2. Extract Zip
3. Copy Shapes to Global\Shapes
4. Copy Textures to {Route}\Textures
5. Install TrackProfile for Dynamic Track to Copy Textures to {Route}\Trackprofile

When I have a more complete set of shapes ready (remaining turnouts and crossings), I'll go ahead and upload them for general consumption as an alpha release.

[PerryPlatypus]

Definitely an improvement overall. As a track designer for my "real life job", I have to ask - is there not an automated (or semi-automated) way to do turnouts and crossovers with realistic "long ties" (i.e. ties that are straight all the way across rather than having a bend/kink at the midpoint)? I'm sure it's more complicated, but if you are going to the trouble of making a new set of all of these track shapes, wouldn't it be worth it to do the extra effort to make the turnout and xover shapes look correct? I feel like otherwise we'll be kicking ourselves down the road.

[Jdark34]

if yall see octogon curves while running the route there is way to fix that so yall will smooth curves on the turnouts is smoother.zip i think you add it to global shapes. i try it and it works like a charm

[eric]

Are there specific shapes where you've seen the octagon effect???

I've been trying to smooth curves within the script -- there's already a split in the shape for every degree of curvature, and then another split for every 500 feet of radius.

[eric]

Ties are part of the texture layer for scripted shapes and each path is rendered and built separately.

There might be a way to use the script and then manually adjust the texture layer for the second path to use the texture orientation for the first path....

[Jdark34]

yes if your running on a route on openrails you can see the octogon going through the curve. gotta get another computer after it got hit by lightning

[scfe_fan]

Any hope for an overhead electrification system with it? Sorry Eric, Brandon put me up to it lol.


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[BrandonS261]

Really looking forward to this Eric! Nice work and thank you for doing this! I may have put Josh up to it BUT it was his idea in the first place!

Brandon

[eric]

These are DEFAULT replacements..... the Kuju/XTracks shapes.... and there were no electrified shapes in those sets.


Back to the grind... Placeholder work continues. I'm at the 1200 shape mark now, so it's time to refine things a bit more.

I found the concrete texture for USTracks, and have a profile for the timber bridge decks as well:


I also figured out how to do the tunnel profile.....

In Doug's script, poly lines are drawn from left to right. By reversing the line, and starting right to left, the bottom or inside face got textured nicely.


Dimensions came from the XTracks documentation:


That's probably necessary in order to line up with any portal pieces that might have been used.

Next struggle was the fact that pieces are drawn by the path, not the shape. So... Tunnels would have a center wall in them. That was addressed by scripting the tunnel to be in two halves, so that the center could be easily deleted.

Selecting the unwanted halves:


Deleting the unwanted halves, followed by a join on the remaining halves:


Selecting edges on the remaining halves, and using the "F" function to create new faces in the gap



As this needs to be done within the .blend file, the script saves the .blend file along with the .s file during the export.

Having the Blender source for every shape available will also make it easier for doing the add-ons for the pedestrian crossing, level crossing, end of track buffers, water tracks, etc.

And for Josh & Brandon, as I know you both use Blender, you can do the electric mods to your heart's content...

More screenshots tomorrow...

[eric]

Until there's a more official repository open for this, I've uploaded the testing shapes available in the download here -- they are restricted to First Class / FastPass only those who pay for membership are more likely to understand the ramifications of replacing out items in GLOBAL.... and I also don't want these being mass downloaded until they're fully tested and ready to be out in the world.

There are 1400+ shapes -- comprising almost all of the A1T thru A10T shapefiles. What's not included are a few "exotic" shapes such as the single and double slip switches, and the turntables.

I've loaded up the MacTier and BNSF Scenic, and they look pretty good. Next up I'm going to give some of Bob Wirth's routes a spin.

If others want to give it a try, please do share screenshots. If you've got other USTracks textures that are a better match colorwise, they should be mapped mostly correctly. The bridge texture is the only item which would be new to an existing texture set.

[scfe_fan]

Until there's a more official repository open for this, I've uploaded the testing shapes available in the download here -- they are restricted to First Class / FastPass only those who pay for membership are more likely to understand the ramifications of replacing out items in GLOBAL.... and I also don't want these being mass downloaded until they're fully tested and ready to be out in the world.

There are 1400+ shapes -- comprising almost all of the A1T thru A10T shapefiles. What's not included are a few "exotic" shapes such as the single and double slip switches, and the turntables.

I've loaded up the MacTier and BNSF Scenic, and they look pretty good. Next up I'm going to give some of Bob Wirth's routes a spin.

If others want to give it a try, please do share screenshots. If you've got other USTracks textures that are a better match colorwise, they should be mapped mostly correctly. The bridge texture is the only item which would be new to an existing texture set.

Next time I'm home (hopefully soon since I'm back OTR instead of regional, I'm going to try and load these in to see how they look in my Metra Rock Island route. I used the default/Xtracks shapes for a lot of the CTA tracks I included so far.


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[eric]

I just updated the package -- the multi-tracks had the bridge texture in error... I also added the TrackProfile folder and file for ORTS to render the USTracks profile with Dynamic Track

[eric]

The script automation continues- I've got four path frog tracks generating, but the slip switches are still looking to be a lost cause.
The count is now over 1600 auto generated shapes, plus 70 tunnel sections which need the overlapping pieces removed before exporting to a .s file.

I may try some added scripting to see if the overlapping centers (vertical can be detected and zapped. (And I've already found something which might work, but it's way too late to dive into another rabbit hole...)

target_coordinate = (0, 0, 8)  
  for obj in bpy.data.objects:
      if obj.type == 'MESH':
          mesh = obj.data
          for vert in mesh.vertices:
              if vert.co == target_coordinate:
                  bpy.data.objects.remove(obj)
                  break # Exit the vertex loop since the object will be deleted

Since the only tunnel walls at 0,0 on a track (either 1T or 2T) would be unwanted, this should do the trick. Or not. Tomorrow will tell.

I also took a slightly different approach on the procedural tunnel wall roof tonight, as trying to Join edges got tedious.

Now, each wall has an overlapping ceiling section extending 3m past the centerline. Doing that reduces the manual work for fixing the tunnel overlaps to 20 seconds per shape. I'll post screenshots tomorrow.

If you downloaded the shapes prior to 2300 central, there's some fixes added to the set, and another fix will be uploaded tomorrow when I get the round tunnels done.

[Jdark34]

keep up the good work eric. your doing great