Lofted Utilities

[SMMDigital]

I'm making lofted modern utility poles ( two hot, two return, cable, and phone lines ) but i've run into a wall. I've got my poles hooked to the loft blueprint, but how do I get the lines in there? As I understand it, the lines are an alpha texture that is referred to in an Xsec ( cross section ) file, which is then reffered to by the Loft section file. What blueprint do you use for the Xsec? How do you place the wires on the pole so that they are in the correct position in the game?

[SCLALINE]

Been Asking that question myself for a while, Michael helped me out on it, there are 2 ways to go on the wires either lofted which do not bend but will curve around the track, or you can make a simple wire out of a 3 sided cylinder and bend them realistically



i have an idea of the lofts for wires but still playing around,
ill be home tomorrow and will work on them some more


Jason

[RAILSOHIO]

I'm making lofted modern utility poles ( two hot, two return, cable, and phone lines ) but i've run into a wall. I've got my poles hooked to the loft blueprint, but how do I get the lines in there? As I understand it, the lines are an alpha texture that is referred to in an Xsec ( cross section ) file, which is then reffered to by the Loft section file. What blueprint do you use for the Xsec? How do you place the wires on the pole so that they are in the correct position in the game?

Something I would really like to see is a Norfolk and Western code line pole. I am sure you will end up mastering the utility pole creation. I know the N&W is a little further north than you are concentrating on,but that would make another great asset for RW.

[Kali]

I'm making lofted modern utility poles ( two hot, two return, cable, and phone lines ) but i've run into a wall. I've got my poles hooked to the loft blueprint, but how do I get the lines in there? As I understand it, the lines are an alpha texture that is referred to in an Xsec ( cross section ) file, which is then reffered to by the Loft section file. What blueprint do you use for the Xsec? How do you place the wires on the pole so that they are in the correct position in the game?

Just the Y coordinate I think ( Y is up in RW terms, isnt it? ). The wires would be the actual loft and the main model as far as the blueprints go, the poles would be the extra repeat-every bits. Alternatively you could have pole+wire segment and the loft itself would be invisible, you'd just have to go and tweak the rotation on corners after ( which sounds awful, actually! better than placing every pole yourself, I guess ).

[GreatNortherner]

...Alternatively you could have pole+wire segment and the loft itself would be invisible, you'd just have to go and tweak the rotation on corners after ( which sounds awful, actually! better than placing every pole yourself, I guess ).

This second method -- invisible loft section with fully modeled wire/pole objects as "start, middle, end geometry" objects -- gives visually much more pleasing results in my opinion. Also, I used this along the full length of the Big Horn mainline and placing these is only a bit tedious in curves. On straights it works like a charm. Also on grades, as the objects set as "middle geometry" will get (physically) twisted up and down when placing them to follow the gradient.

Using the wires as the loft is bound to look weird one way or another -- if you do them as 3d-cross section models then the wires are strung all perectly horizontal (without bending/hanging down between the poles) -- if you do them as double sides panes with alpha cutout to "paint on" the bending/hanging wires effect you won't be able to see them when looking alongside them.

Oh btw... To generate the XSec files all you need is to place a standard IGS file in the source folders, with 1_1000_loft (or 1_1000_track / 1_1000_ballast) as main group name, and add this to the loft section BP in the asset editor.

Cheers,
Michael

[SMMDigital]

I'm dead in the water on this. Try as I might, I just can't get the wires onto the poles. Here is what i've got so far:

- A pole asset. This is referred to in the beginning, middle, and end sections of the Loft geometry.
- A wire obejct that is a seperate asset. It's a simple cube, .05"x.05"x150', painted black, using a 64x64 texture file, no alpha. It is given the Loftxxx.fx (the new one) shader designation. This is refered to in the CrossSection.

When I preview this in the Asset editor, I see two of the poles, but the wire will not show up at all. I can export it, with the same results. I can string poles all over the place, but it looks kind of dull without the wire.

Also, when I take a look at the Xsec in RW_Tools, I see the first few lines that refer to the texture it is using, but no geometry entries below that. It's got to be a simple data entry i'm missing somewhere.

[Kali]

Well, you don't want a cube; a box section without ends would work somewhat - the loft itself just uses the cross-section, the rest of the model is just to set the mapping up. I'm not sure if you're meant to have any sort of closed shape at all? without reading the docs I can't remember, not looked at lofts much.

Try one of the older loft shaders like LoftTexDiff?

[SCLALINE]

im home now and will play with it, im using 3dsmax 10 now but shouldn't be too hard to convert to 3dc as i do have 3dc as well

[GreatNortherner]

- A pole asset. This is referred to in the beginning, middle, and end sections of the Loft geometry.
- A wire obejct that is a seperate asset. It's a simple cube, .05"x.05"x150', painted black, using a 64x64 texture file, no alpha. It is given the Loftxxx.fx (the new one) shader designation. This is refered to in the CrossSection.

Hi, just something that caught my eyes here, your loft cross section might also be too long. The (RW Z) length of the loft cross section only determines at what interval the texture gets tiled. So use a 10m long cross section and you'd get the tiling set to 10m, use 2m length and you'd get 2m tiling. (Edit:) Oh yes, and I think that the texture on the cross section must not be tiled on the model, its top/bottom UV coords should be 0 and 1.

The in-game 'bending' of the loft section will be handled by the sim's engine and works totally independent of what length your actual shape file has. It bends at a pre-defined interval no matter what.

Also, make sure that the textures used on the cross section must tile vertically (even when they are applied along the length of the model, which one would normally do with a horizontally tiled texture).

Cheers,
Michael

PS, this here is a 3DC screenshot of a different loft cross section.

[SMMDigital]

Well, after throwing a laptop through the window, pulling what's left of my hair out, and terrifying the poor cat, I finally got a set of these into the game.

smm_utilitypolesrwa.jpg

These are just prototypes, with the final texturing and shaping to come. I think i'm going to make the transformers a separate asset, as having them on every pole unrealistic.

As it turns out, the problem was that the fixed end of the stand-in primitive (object) in 3DC for the power line has to be located EXACTLY on coordinate 0.0.0 and pointed down the Z axis in order to work. As I was moving things around, I either did not have the coordinate exactly right, or in two instances, the primitive shifted slightly upon export. Once I fixed this problem, I had no more issues getting the shape to show up in the game.

Thanks to everyone for your posts and know-how on this. These things are so ubiquitous in every day life that we hardly notice them, but in the game, and roadway scene looks funny without them.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi, these look excellent! And you are so right about these objects really bringing a scene to life. You don't need too much tiny clutter in my opinion (though that never hurts either), but it's really stuff like power lines, street lights, fences etc. that put realism into a scene.

Cheers,
Michael

[Csxgp38-2]

Would it be possible as a separate asset to make those streetlights that sometimes are on electric poles?

[SMMDigital]

The street lights that you refer to are already available in versions that are already on a pole and ones that you could hang on these poles. They come with the SMM Level Crossing Signals pack.

I've got a two-line residential version of this to make and then i'll release them to the public.

[SCLALINE]

i have the streetlights in Mercury Round Style and Sodium Type

[SCLALINE]

Hey Jerry,

the point light feature is awesome, have you upgraded You lights





i wonder if the lights on your signals would work with that shader, so the lights flash off of the locomotives and surrounding scenery