USA DLC officially released

[olahaldor]

I have one as well. Since the new drivers act virtually like a joystick, I guess it’ll be possible to bind some joystick stuff to the camera controls, thus make it possible to use the 3DConnexion hardware.

[olahaldor]

That looks great!

[olahaldor]

It’s not even necessary to mod this. Make a loop at the end. Set a waypoint within this loop, and have the line go through this waypoint.

 

If this isn’t what you’d want, what would the solution be? After all, it’s a game. Transport Tycoon did this very same thing, Railroad Tycoon too. And in everyone of these, the solution would be to make a loop.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by olahaldor.

[olahaldor]

How relevant it is to this subject is up to you to decide. But this model can be made lowpoly and be used with TF with some work.

I also encourage you to use a more fleshed out text editor such as the one mentioned above, or Notepad++

 

[olahaldor]

You can read about the process I used here.

That’s pretty much a very different way of modeling than you’d normally do for something that is less aerodynamic, such as a steam locomotive or a more boxed type of vehicle.

Another idea can be to look at car modeling tutorials, where to grab some edges and extrude to make the silhouette and shape of your vehicle.

Another way can be to start with a basic box and add edge loops where needed to break the box into the shape that’s needed.

I’m rendering a short animation of the steam locomotive I’ve modeled during the past few weeks – I’ll show it in this thread when I’m done. I think it can be brought over to TF with some work to reduce the polycount. It mainly consists of a few geometric shapes

• A cylinder for the boiler.
• A box for the drivers compartment.
• More cylinders and boxes, bent into shape for wheels, rods, pistons etc.
• A custom curve for the chassis – that’s about the most advanced shape on the entire model.

[olahaldor]

By the looks of it I guess it’s my video you watched. And you’re right, that tutorial would’ve dragged out way too long for modeling alone.

The modeling part is the easy part, believe it or not. All though it can take a good amount of time to make the model, it’s still the easiest part because getting the model into the game can be what’s gonna leave you hairless when things don’t work out and you don’t know what to do about it.

I doubt there’s any 3D Max + Train Fever specific “this is how you model, this is how you convert the model, and this is how you get it to work in the game” kind of tutorials – much like my tutorial wasn’t LightWave specific, except that the tools I used may be named something else in other 3D apps.

I understand you want a 3D Max to Train Fever specific tutorial, but in all honesty, you’re better off starting to learn 3D Max in general. There’s not really anything special about the way models are made for Train Fever alone, more like a general guideline for games and game engines.

So where do you start?

Get going with low poly modeling. That’s what you should aim at. Make trains or other vehicles with as few polygons as possible (I think about 10.000 polygons per model is mentioned in a blog post on the main site).

The next part is making a UV map and texture the model. And that’s about all the work that is done within the 3D app itself, except for measurements for the game engine to know the bounding box and possibly position of doors or other elements.

 

To sum it up in a process tree:

1. Research your model (photos, technical data, blueprints).
2. Plan ahead – will the model have animated doors? Make those objects separate from the main body.
3. Make the model to real world measurements (low polygon object). Adjust things like the track width and wire height as needed – such as making the wheel position slightly wider and stretching the pantograph.
4. Optimize if needed, like skipping some details that won’t show that good, or aren’t necessary for the in-game view because of the viewing angle or zoom level.
5. UV Map the model.
6. Texture it (Color map, normal map, reflection and specular maps).
7. Save to the appropriate format the model converter of your choice accepts.
8. Start looking into other assets or mods for the game, learn how things are set up and start working with your model. Take note of measurements (height, width, lenght etc) for bounding boxes, animate the doors and so on.
9. Make a test-game, set the model to be free and be available right from the start so you can keep testing it until you’re happy with it – then adjust cost of purchase and running costs.
10. Test in-game. Adjust texture maps or model files as needed. Adjust the different asset files needed (such as timing for door animations, position of bogies and so on).
11. Test the final version a few hours or days, share with friends or others you count on to give you feedback to make the release of your mod as solid as possible.
12. Release the mod.
13. Enjoy the feedback, and listen to the users if they have suggestions. Take the final call whether you’ll adjust or change based on the feedback you get.

 

I’m actually planning to make a tutorial series where I create a mod – but all in LightWave – as that’s what I use. The model itself won’t be LightWave specific, but the modeling process, the tools I use and the steps to get to the end result will obviously be different from Max. But take it from me: watching someone create something in a different app won’t necessary be a bad thing. It may enlighten you about ways of dealing with tasks or problems in a new way. I actually watched a 3D Max tutorial on making a steam locomotive recently.. Gave mee plenty of ideas!

 

But for the record: LightWave is only $995 these days. That’s a complete modeler, animation and rendering package at one heck of a price. On top of that, there’s a plugin I use for modeling which is of tremendous help, LWCAD.. If you should chose to go with it, I’d be happy to answer any LightWave related questions.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 5 months ago by olahaldor. Reason: Added links to the tools I use

[olahaldor]

I tried using the gettext tool in Poedit to convert the .mo to .po files, but the .po files turned out to be 0 (zero) bytes.
I have tried different online services to convert the .mo files as well, but they all result in files that cannot be opened, because they are zero bytes.

Any chance you could upload the .po file we need in order to translate the game?

[olahaldor]

I have downloaded the latest version, as I haven’t tried the one with GUI yet. I keep getting error messages and can’t open anything (model, mesh or groups).

 

I have of course installed Visual C++ redist and dotNetFX prior to opening the model viewer v 0.3.1

 

See the end of this message for details on invoking

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

 

************** Exception Text **************

System.BadImageFormatException: An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007000B)

at KeraLua.NativeMethods.LuaLNewState()

at NLua.Lua..ctor()

at TFMV.ContentManager.LoadModel(String FileName)

at TFMV.MainForm.OpenModel(String FileName)

at TFMV.MainForm.<.ctor>b__0(Object sender, CancelEventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.FileDialog.HandleVistaFileOk(IFileDialog dialog)

 

 

************** Loaded Assemblies **************

mscorlib

Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34014 built by: FX45W81RTMGDR

CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll

—————————————-

TFMV

Assembly Version: 0.3.1.0

Win32 Version: 0.3.1

CodeBase: file:///D:/Users/Ola%20Haldor/0.3.1/TFMV.exe

—————————————-

System.Windows.Forms

Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.33440 built by: FX45W81RTMREL

CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll

—————————————-

System.Drawing

Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.33440 built by: FX45W81RTMREL

CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll

—————————————-

System

Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34239 built by: FX452RTMGDR

CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll

—————————————-

OpenTK.GLControl

Assembly Version: 1.1.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.1589.5942

CodeBase: file:///D:/Users/Ola%20Haldor/0.3.1/OpenTK.GLControl.DLL

—————————————-

OpenTK

Assembly Version: 1.1.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.1589.5942

CodeBase: file:///D:/Users/Ola%20Haldor/0.3.1/OpenTK.DLL

—————————————-

System.Core

Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.33440 built by: FX45W81RTMREL

CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Core/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Core.dll

—————————————-

NLua

Assembly Version: 1.3.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.3.0

CodeBase: file:///D:/Users/Ola%20Haldor/0.3.1/NLua.DLL

—————————————-

KeraLua

Assembly Version: 1.3.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.3.0.0

CodeBase: file:///D:/Users/Ola%20Haldor/0.3.1/KeraLua.DLL

—————————————-

 

************** JIT Debugging **************

To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this

application or computer (machine.config) must have the

jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.

The application must also be compiled with debugging

enabled.

 

For example:

 

<configuration>

<system.windows.forms jitDebugging=”true” />

</configuration>

 

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception

will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer

rather than be handled by this dialog box.

 

 

• This reply was modified 9 years, 6 months ago by olahaldor.

[olahaldor]

It’s where you find the power line upgrade.

[olahaldor]

RoyalHants, could you flesh out the problem?

Load the game? Load a saved game? Start a new game? Open the “purchase” menu? Clicking the train in the list to purchase? Crash when you hit purchase? Crash when you set the train to run on a line?

Without specifics, I can only say: it could be anything.

[olahaldor]

The TGA file must be uncompressed.

[olahaldor]

Fun project! Will be interesting to follow

🙂

[olahaldor]

That looked awesome. Wanna share the secret?

[olahaldor]

The model looks clean, and you’ve got the normal map working. 🙂

But you need to rotate the object in your 3D app before you convert to .msh.

Check my video on YouTube about it, I talk about the rotation there.

 

As for the textures, make sure the diffuse texture is placed correctly and that the .mtl file points to the correct location.

[olahaldor]

Cool! Another LW guy. 🙂

I don’t recall exactly what error messages I had, but in the Surface settings for my model, I disabled “Exclude from VStack”, and set Vertex Normal Map to NONE (if there are any).

[Author]

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