Railworks America

I’m taking a break from my TOFC and was very curious how DTM presented its Gunderson well cars and the containers, which being repainted by Buzz and I. The Gunderson containers are somewhat similar to building a collection of TOFC – variety with a relative ease of use. I think I found a way to reduce texture duplication, thus storage space (not sure about computing speed). I have tested the following folder Structure Assets.

Here is what I came up and successfully tested :
1) The Gunderson Well Car


Only 3 copies of the GundersonTwinStackA, GundersonTwinStackB and GundersonTwinStackCDE need to duplicated, in folders : GundersonTS-double, GundersonTS-single and GundersonTS-varia.

All data concerning the various containers are located in the Cargo folder, as such:
2)Cargo

So far I have 4 specific folders to house 1) the container .bin file and 2) the container model .geopcdx file; all texture file re. containers are in the Textures sub-folder

Note, in the «Container_Buzz» are the newly repainted containers created by Buzz...
in the «Container_Gtrax» are all the 20 double-containers from the Articulated-well car created by Ricksan (permission granted for this redistribution)
in the «Containers_QcRail» will be other containers not included in the other two collections.

I have created a new way to maximize the container permutation for added variety; thus going back to the «GundersonTS-single», each well car has 2 options : 1) a container automatically visible when placed in the scenario as a «child object» and the 2) option places a second container via the «cargo option» (when a thick mark is invoked for loading). Thus, same well car with 2 containers option. Furthermore, I use the «GundersonTS-double» folder for twin-stack of the same livery.

Hope my 2 screengrabs will convey my idea:
1. The Child object at the make-up stage of the consist

2. The Cargo optional version as the load parameter is ticked


Note : I repainted the default container onto MSC

... Now we are opened for your input

P.S. Have a nice Thankgiving
QcRail

I think you just made my head hurt. Off for a adult beverage.

Instead of all that you can alias to the pieces from the default folder and not have to rearrange everything.

artimrj wrote:Instead of all that you can alias to the pieces from the default folder and not have to rearrange everything.

Theoretically you are right, but in practice it is not always the best approach. In the case of the Gunderson well car the default containers is named as «ContainerDouble» and «ContainerSingle» - thus aliasing is quite limited, and for each new repaint one has no choice to create a «cont_XYZ.bin» file that calls the «cont_XYZ.GeoPcDx» file, which in turn is linked to the «Texture.TgPcDx». for this to work, one has to alter every link to the said container texture. i.e.:

[ <TextureByName>
<e d:type="cDeltaString">textures\[08]container01</e>
<e d:type="cDeltaString">textures\[00]bogienormal</e>
<e d:type="cDeltaString">textures\[08]container01</e>
</TextureByName>

If you are not at ease editing a GeoPcDx, you have only one alternative - create a sub-folder for each repaint scheme whereby the container texture has to be named «container01»

so much for alias ...

As for my choice of repackaging G-Trax »» ArticulatedStacks, I could have used the alias mechanism, but I did not want to deal with GX_40ftContainers01.bin to 20 without knowing which shipping co. it belonged to (i.e.: APL, Hyundai or K-Line); and aliasing to the G-Trax folder would i.d. the container as «Articulated Stack BNSF01 A». OK, it a Type-A rail car but NO clue for the container's name. Since G-Trax container has 14 different containers with excellent graphics and resolution, with crisp details, I decided to repackage the collection with easilly identifiable companies' names. Why spend so much time? simple, now I have over 25 different containers grouped in one location and I don't have to search in which route they may hide

... and I can add any new container repaint with ease of access and use within a scenario. Sometimes one has to think outside the box

I have spent quite a few hours and I'll gladly share it with my fellow simmers.

QcRail

Have it your way.