BDWorkshop's TS2017 Route

[BlackDiamond1964]

The trolley bodies look excellent!

John DeLamater

Thanks, I'm going to work on the Laurel Line rolling stock a little bit at a time. These are probably the last things that will be finished on this project. Until then I have a lot of buildings and bridges to make.

The first models to be completed will be all the Laurel Line buildings in the Scranton Yard. That includes the Scranton passenger station and depot, the L&WV powerhouse, carshops and also the dispatchers office.

[BlackDiamond1964]

Before I getting into texturing models I've decided to change a few things with my model building process. First I've changed my preferred texture format from .tga to .pgn. Next, I've switched from PaintShop ProX6 over to the Gimp program. I've done this because of the process of making normal (bump) maps and and secular maps from defuse textures. Naturally I will have the learn the Gimp program so I'm knee deep into Gimp video tutorials at this time.

[dphorton]

Everything you have posted looks super. This is going to be a great Route.

[BlackDiamond1964]

While I was playing with Gimp I decided to try may hand at making a texture, however I've seem to have a problem getting the right information.

Here is what I'd like to do. In the area that I'm modeling for my Laurel Line route, there are what is know as "culm banks". This is a waste product from anthracite coal extraction. These culm rock piles where made up of slate and other rock material not suitable for burning. These culm piles where usually placed in the area around the big coal breaker building of the past. Most of these culm banks are gone today but a few still remain. Back in the Laurel Line era however, these culm banks can be seen in every direction. I'd like to replicate this on the route by making a culm texture. So far I haven't figured out if I can make a terrain texture or how to do it. Any information on making terrain textures seems to be limited.

My Question-is it possible to make a culm texture with a winter version?

[BlackDiamond1964]

Well my first attempts to make a terrain texture didn't work out so well. From the info I could gather, the texture needs to be 256 by 256 with an alpha channel. I tried both .png and .tga file types converted to and .ace. It exported with no errors however it doesn't show in the game. Any ideas???

[BlackDiamond1964]

I've posted on the TS2017 Steam forums to try to get an answer on this texture issue.

This brings up a point about building in TS2017. The model building information that is out there is aged and fragmented. I believe the lack of good resources turns a lot of potential model builders out there to be turned off by this program. If there was easier access to this info there would probably be more model builders out there.

Where are the places that you go to get TS2017 model building information?

[BlackDiamond1964]

I was successful in getting a custom texture onto the Laurel Line Map. Here is what I had to do.

I had to create the routes own texture bin file. For this I copied the Horseshoe Curve texture bin. Then I added the texture info to the bin file and it worked! The only problem is that the texture needs to be tweaked. There is too much of pattern to the texture. I have to work on getting the texture a little more seamless.

The bad part is that I had to really hunt down the info. The Railworks docs say nothing about a texture bin file.

[BlackDiamond1964]

I couldn't get the texture any more seamless then I have it so I created 4 textures all rotated at a different angle. Does this look like a culm pile?

Culm.jpg

Next I need to create some snow coal!

[tomkat41]

I was successful in getting a custom texture onto the Laurel Line Map. Here is what I had to do.

I had to create the routes own texture bin file. For this I copied the Horseshoe Curve texture bin. Then I added the texture info to the bin file and it worked! The only problem is that the texture needs to be tweaked. There is too much of pattern to the texture. I have to work on getting the texture a little more seamless.

The bad part is that I had to really hunt down the info. The Railworks docs say nothing about a texture bin file.

Hi Scott,

I was going to reply to your message about the texturing problem tonight but I see you got it worked out. I messed with the texturing bin file when Rail Simulator came out and did some of my own texturing and it is hard to get rid of the texture patterns. What you have looks fine to me. In the future when you start adding textures to your route and you want to create more textures, be careful where you put them in the texturing bin file because they are indexed and you will know when they are out of index.

[BlackDiamond1964]

Hi Scott,

I was going to reply to your message about the texturing problem tonight but I see you got it worked out. I messed with the texturing bin file when Rail Simulator came out and did some of my own texturing and it is hard to get rid of the texture patterns. What you have looks fine to me. In the future when you start adding textures to your route and you want to create more textures, be careful where you put them in the texturing bin file because they are indexed and you will know when they are out of index.

I did get it. There is a pattern but it's not that visible unless you are looking down on the textures from above. For the snow textures I ended up using 4 of the HSC grass snow textures so everything matches in winter. I may revisit texturing in the future. At least now I know how to do it! Time for me to move onto my first model.


One thing I've discovered from this learning episode is that you really need to be careful when modifying in files!