Railworks America

Ok, gents and ladies, I am stumped. I have been trying to modify a few HSC road files to accomodate some new textures and naming.

As you can see by the images, the road on the left is the one in question. It is different in texture from its mate with traffic in that its texture is drawn from some other source. And, if you look at the source xmls that produces these two road lofts, they are identical except the traffic version has the reference link to the traffic file. This means they are using the same .xsec file to produce the shape and thus should be using the same texture.

Ok, before we go through all the ins and outs of producing a working bin file, I have these processes covered before I start the simulator:

1. I ran the xml files through the Serz.exe, which produced a .bin file of the same name for each.
2. I made certain I had the proper .xsec and texture files were within their proper folders
3. I cleared all .pak files.
4. I cleared the cache files, just in case.
5. I made certain I placed the proper roads within the Editor and, of course, saved the edit.

6. I restarted the simulator.
7. Went to the proper place to view the roads.
8. NO JOY!!

So, I am totally lost as to why this is happening being that both xml files were made from the same original. I did try something, I temporarily disabled the texture for this road .xsec file within the HSC folders of the same names, and what happens is the No Traffic road shows the yellow/black missing texture warning and the trafficed version show no texture at all. Totally weird in my book.

The question is, What did I do wrong? Hopefully, someone can help. Hey, you said one should only ask if they need answers....lol.

Obviously a stumper, 44 hits and no reply.

Ok, I thought I would try this the old fashioned way......Make my own roads. I'm not sure where I am going wrong here. Is my pivot correct for within 3Ds Max (see image below)? I export the IGS to the source folder, add the .dds image to the texture folder of the Scenery/Procedural folder within the Source, create the Road BP, then make the settings changes as in the image below. It processes properly with no problem, but the road loft doesn't show within the editor or the simulator, just the yellow outline marker shows to indicate I have placed the road loft. I'm trying to learn this and so far I have done what most of the threads have mentioned, but something is definitely wrong. Again, I am using 3Ds Max with the RW plugins, Photoshop with the proper Nvidia plugins, and all my work files are within the source folders for the particular route I am working on. Its not that I am incapable of doing this, I am just missing a step or a particular point that is crucial which I am overlooking, and would really like to get this workflow down so I can produce my own roads without relying or other assets, which was my problem in the first place. HELP!!!

I got this figured out, Thanks for all the help everyone.

did you get it to work?

Your work is looking great. One thing we really need is country/highway roads with built in berms to blend into uneven terrain.

oh, I got it to work alright, as mentioned above in the sarcasm, but the curbs leave a terrible shadow on the road surface that makes the roads look a bit surreal. I think the key to making a good blended road is using an alpha based texture that softly fades away towards the outside edges, and then dips down into the terrain. Just my take on this.

I eventually went with road lofts made as flat surfaces, and sidewalk lofts with curbs, also the intersections were much easier to add traffic lofts when they are made as simple scenery objects and invis traffic ribbons laid between the road lofts. I also made simple corner objects for the sidewalks. They are cuts at a weird angle to allow for building placement.

question can you curve the road on your road loft?

raptorengineer wrote:question can you curve the road on your road loft?

Yes.

so for that blueprint file that all you fill out in there in that pic?

raptorengineer wrote:so for that blueprint file that all you fill out in there in that pic?

Do you read what you type before you click the Submit button, cause that statement made no sense?

OMG I did it I finally did it i got the loft to work. reason i was asking is i was having really really hard time trying to build a loft but just now i got it to work. i know the texture are mess but i got it to work.

Excellent, congrats sir, now let see some great results.

did some improments and made 2 lofts

Very good, keep at it.