Railworks America

Now that I've got my route (The Snake Path) well underway, I thought it would be a good time to start learning about making content for Railworks. I do have some models already done. These where models were made in Blender and were going to be used in Trainz. Since I am no longer creating in Trainz I thought I'd start to figure out how to adapt them into Railworks. I want to start with something simple for my first project. I'd like to covert this LV 1930's style flood light.

So from here I need to ask some general questions...
#1 What is the best information to look at that show the basic steps in getting an item into Railworks?
#2 What is the best method to make these light towers light up a rail yard?

Lots of tuts out there. You can take a stab at translating mine from 3D Crafter to the software you are using. Just click the link TGC in my sig.

Also note that TS has extra documentation included in the Steam\steamapps\common\railworks\dev\Docs folder.

Thanks guys. That should be enough to get me started.

Success! It took me a while but I manage to get the model into Railworks. Now I have to figure out how to light it up.

Ok, I'm having a little problem understanding...
I understand how to use the shaders. I also understand that for a light to work it needs to have a day mesh and a night mesh.
What I'm not understanding is what tells the Railworks program the difference between the day light from a night light?


I got the lights to come on but they are always on at this point.

The light objects need to be named correctly in order for them to turn and off at dusk and dawn. An example:

1_0512_light_day
1_0512_light_night

...or...

1_0512_main_day
1_0512_main_night

...or...

1_0512_main_day
1_0512_light_night

Note that the first name need not be unique, but does need the "_day" or "_night" extension. However, if you create LODs for the light object, then they should have the same first name just to keep things nice and tidy:

1_0512_light_day
1_0512_light_night
2_1024_light_day
2_1024_light_night
3_2048_light_day
3_2048_light_night

Thanks Hack! I took me most of the night but I got it working. I kept making stupid mistakes.

Now that I got the day and night cycles working, I need to move on to the light on the ground. What would be the best way to make lighting for these flood lights? It needs to light up a big area.
Should I use the spot light or point light process I've been reading about?

BDWorkshop wrote:Should I use the spot light or point light process I've been reading about?

I would think spot lights would give the best results. I recall creating something similar to your model several years back and that's what I used.

Hack wrote:

BDWorkshop wrote:Should I use the spot light or point light process I've been reading about?

I would think spot lights would give the best results. I recall creating something similar to your model several years back and that's what I used.

I created the spot light but I can't seem to get the Blueprint Editor to give me a spotlight blueprint. It only lets me choose a scenery blueprint? What am I doing wrong?

You should be able to select the spot light blueprint from a list of BPs available, but I don't use BE2, as it doesn't work in XP.

Update: I have figured out how to access the other blueprints but I am having a hard time figuring out what to add to the blueprint and where. I wish there was some information that tells you what info is needed to add to the blueprint.

I did a couple of tutorial series for absolute beginners, on Engine Driver. You might find some answers somewhere in there.

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/1052/making-a-2d-tree-for-train-simulator-part-1

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/1190/making-a-2d-tree-for-train-simulator-making-painting-and-exporting-the-mesh

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/1293/making-a-2d-tree-for-train-simulator-getting-the-tree-into-the-virtual-world

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/1282/making-a-station-clock-for-train-simulator-part-1

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/2320/making-a-station-clock-for-train-simulator-part-2

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/2421/making-a-station-clock-for-train-simulator-part-3

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/2445/making-a-station-clock-for-train-simulator-part-4

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/3464/making-a-station-clock-for-train-simulator-part-5

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/show/3492/making-a-station-clock-for-train-simulator-part-6

Thanks, I got it now. I just need to figure out the settings for the spotlight to get the correct shine. I just notices that the Horseshoe Curve has it's own set of spot lights but they don't seem to be strong (bright) enough.

BDWorkshop wrote:Thanks, I got it now. I just need to figure out the settings for the spotlight to get the correct shine. I just notices that the Horseshoe Curve has it's own set of spot lights but they don't seem to be strong (bright) enough.

One thing to be careful of with the yard lights / street lights is the drop in fps when you turn the camera to look at a row of them. There's one spot in the yards at Johnstown, near the river, where the fps drops below 15 if you look over at the lights, but jump back up to the 60s as soon as you look the other way.