Tsw 4 Editor - Important Dev Questions

That's great!thanks for the info!

 

Houdini is an external software tool but can probably exchange data with the editor. It's not part of the UE4 editor. However, a free version is available for non-commercial projects that saves to disk and exports with a word mark.

 

That’s a good point thinking of stations on the route too. If we use PIS assets from another route, will these read the timetable we set up automatically or will some scripting be necessary?

 

Can I rebuild the train? I have a desire to build a Siemens Charger into TSW4.

 

Well I've managed to knock up a few decent enough looking UK speed signs with an improved font using UE's modelling tools (how long have I been waiting for decent UK speed signs?!). Hopefully we can import them into DTGs editor. They won't be track linked as yet as I have no idea how it works until we get the editor, but at least we can bury DTG's current signs under the terrain (if needed for HUD speed indications) and put these in place until we get a working solution, for all newly community created routes anyway.
A little bit of thread drift, apologies, maybe we need a new forum for all UE related stuff....

 

Nice work.
In about over 3 weeks, you should be able to blueprint those signs, and then they will work. No need to bury anything of DTG's.

I remember that we had a nightmare with old MSTS. We had buried a signal under the terrain, and we forgot about it. Then we remembered that we had buried it, and went into wireframe mode, but it was a nightmare to get it even clicked on with the mouse, so it could be deleted! I dont think that will be the case here.

 

MSTS RE was a nightmare full stop! Those dreaded blue poles accompanied by the “End on end vector” message.

 

And that too.
With the "blue Poles" I remember trying to lay out a route in MSTS years ago, There was one of the dreaded blue poles, but my mate, he kept on laying and laying track, Even after I had noticed it.

he would not listen to me, I told him to stop laying track, remove the track and go back to the blue pole and fix it.
Then The crummy editor crashed.
The route did not survive. I remember this very well.

 

As for specific details, "Sim World 4" will be available to everyone at the end of September. I always have a question, why is the track so straight? Aren't there convex and concave parts? Is the development tool a two-dimensional space-time? Haven't upgraded to 3D time and space yet? From a distance, the runway should have parts of high and low terrain, so it's a bit strange to see a straight runway.

 

You dont have to bury anything underground to get HUD speed limits to show up. Just modify the track properties and you are good to go. If you hide a signal underground, you can simply fly underground to select it. It's very easy.

 

question can i make tunnel assets with lights built in to it or do i have to place the light element on tunnel wall cause the spine system doesn't support it?

 

Quick question for Matt or anyone else in the know...

How easy is to to work under the terrain? I'm thinking particularly of long, deep tunnels (like the one on the Joetsu Border Line in Japan), which are a right PITA in TSC due to there being no wire frame mode, or in Trainz which does have WF, but won't let you go under the terrain.

 

I have some questions important for Czech signaling. Not that I would want to script it myself but it will surely be relevant.

Is it possible to make a speed limit increase that takes affect as soon as the front of the loco passes the sign? Stuff like this is used on local lines to reduce speed over unprotected level crossings.

Is it possible to make a signal apply immediate speed restriction (with some extra lights) every time it goes yellow? This is important for "insufficient braking distance" signaling, mainly used for approaching platforms that are split in half.

Can we make derailers that will flip up and down automatically based on rotation of a nearby switch? Not that we could ever run through a red light in TSW but having prototypical protection of the main tracks would add that extra touch.

 

The Bakerloo line has this, so I assume it should be possible.

 

where would third party routes and trains be hosted? there is no steam workshop support and patreon would probably be not allowed since paid mods is a legal gray area. nexus mods perhaps?

 

will there be video on how to make workable signal assets or is that complex.

 

I have a question about OLE, is it classed as a spline or a scenery object?

 

It's complex but I can go through the basics

 

ah ok, i made some signal assets using blender but had very hard time figuring out red yellow and green lens to work in tsc. but alot of people use 3d studio max to make signals i think. i would like to try for pc editor of tsw4 once released.

 

I have a funny feeling hosting could be where this might fall down. Obviously sites like Trainsim dot com are still up and running, but we could be looking at files of several Gb for a reasonable length route. Far in excess of what sites like that are geared up to handle and probably impossible to download on non premium membership speeds.

Disc distribution not an option as you would be looking at Blu-ray for files that size, not many people have a BD burner. Then you are in to the fact that would incur a cost which is against the EULA, not to mention possibly running foul of VAT and income tax regulations as happened to me with my MSTS route distribution (sure Matt remembers that well as UKTS kindly stepped in to take over).

 

Is it really such a big problem? Many games have very big mods now: I just specifically checked Nexusmods and biggest file for Skyrim SE there is 17+ Gb. Free accounts there have speed capped at 3MB/s, which means that this gigantic mod can be downloaded in just 1.5 hours.
And then there are torrents, which don't require any external hosting, or cloud storage (most providers give at least several GB for free), or stuff like MEGA and so on.
Official TSW routes are 2-11Gb, which is small enough to be distributed through these channels. I really doubt user-made routes will be any bigger.

 

Established game modding sites like Nexus are more than capable of handling such large files.

 

Fair enough, maybe not such an issue if you think outside the box of traditional train sim hosting.

 

And people absolutely should be thinking outside the box, because UKTS has demonstrated the problems with the box.

 

I wonder what kind of speed an SD40 would have to be doing to get round a corkscrew

Coastertrain Sim World confirmed

 

Well I just hope we don't end up like Trainz with oval train set routes on bare terrain or other silliness. That's not to say there isn't merit in upscaling a decent model railway plan - I already have some in mind. Well hopefully the complexity of the tools will keep things reasonably professional.

 

Like those silly whoever, that just uploads one baseboard to the DLS as a route, and just writes "HI" in either tracks, or just paints it onto the terrain. (what talent!)
I hope there does not end up being those again.

 

Probably the same for tunnels too. Tunnels that have signals in them as well.

 

DTG's main office has a (WIP) model railway on site, the 3d design of which was validated in TSW back in 2019. (we had a 2d track plan, we wanted to check clearances and signalling, so I used TSW to prototype it...)

So I can at least confirm that model railway plans upscaled by 76.2 times work correctly in TSW. Beyond that I can't offer any promises!



edit: Lukas has told me that this is an exclusive leak of previously unmentioned TSW2020 content. Don't worry, this won't be released as a DLC.

 

Thanks Will. That's actually quite helpful as proof of concept.

 

I’m intrigued… is there a secret loco hidden in that image by chance, or what?

 

I would like to know has the dispatcher been improved at all ?

 

Yeah, to squeeze between the existing services and running up and down the route with a funny train selection really does show what the dispatcher is really capable of. That is the new fun in TSW for sure. Could do that all the day if i would not need to work, sleep, eat and such stupid things. It's not getting boring in any sense. But it could happen that you get into a interlock of all things. Nice thing to know: to solve that, just delete your train, respawn it on a free track again and the fun begins again. (A thing ZUSI cant do. If there happens an interlocking of the trains you need to start the timetable again). A plus for TSW here

 

Many thanks for the reply,very much looking forward to it.

 

By any chance, does this include overtaking existing services with your additional train?

 

A proper fix for services taking the wrong path on timetable resume - that's a dance between the timetable, pathfinder and dispatcher in action. Believe that fix may go to TSW3 as well though, nothing about it is TSW4 focused.

 

It will live up to its expectations and for the PC community the Xbox Version gains access to it via the Microsoft store PC version since Purchase of the Xbox version grants you the ability to use PC Microsoft store version.

 

Hi.

The default routes, 3D etc are "cooked" so they cannot be edited.
The same "cooking" process will be required for routes and 3Ds made by us users?

 

Yeah when you make a route and cook it for publishing, you can only edit it further by having it's source files.

 

Perfect, thank you.

 

I have installed the UE4 editor and tried to import one of my Blender objects.
The FBX format works for the 3D but it loses all references to the textures. Looking on the web is considered a “normal behaviour”.
I went with another intermediate format and I lost all the properties applied on the textures such as a metal effect.

The scene is a default one so the lighting makes everything darker and somewhat blurry.



It should look like this (Basic render in Blender)

 

How can timetables over 24h be made? Would the timetable loop if I start before 24 and finish after?

 

On a similar note, I finally got the UE4.26 editor installed, tried to import some terrain in what I thought was the correct format and got nowhere! Yes I know DTG’s version has been modified and presumably will work similar to TSC where you just follow your markers and import the DEM (and LIDAR) along the path of your route.

But it wasn’t a very encouraging start, seems to be lots of buttons and widgets in the editor and what’s with all this “Actor” business?!

The good news is, having the editor open did not seem to stress the hardware any more than TSC or Trainz route editors.

However I fear there is going to be a massive learning curve ahead for my old brain with this, despite my eagerness to create something.

Edit: Well one thing I've discovered is that my old 3D Canvas will export to .obj and .dae format which I believe are supported types of 3D file by UE. So that might make life a bit easier as regards getting simple objects like station signs etc. in to a route.

Just need to do a test with the UE4 editor see if I can get something in there.

 

Can I suggest that there should be a more easy way for 3rd parties to approach DTG?
Because I think the editor will lead to more 3rd parties in the next 6-12 months. And I'm sure some of them put that much effort into it that they a) want to make it available for console and b) earn some money for it.
But how can those teams contact the right person at DTG? There should be an option on the TSW4 website saying "Click here to apply to become an offical 3rd party". Maybe the team will come up with a proper solution for this

 

Okay, after a bit of trial and error I managed to import a plan of our local miniature railway into the editor.

No idea if it scaled correctly.

Had to place the mesh and texture separately (surely not correct).

All sorts of error messages regarding lighting and UV wraps.

But at least I got it in there!



Would be nice if there was a way to enlarge the actual work window, otherwise it's going to be like using the old MSTS RE...

And of course none of the models I created for MSTS or TSC have the original source files available, all lost...

 

So you can click and drag the different panels to resize them if you need to. put your mouse on an edge and it will show which direction it can be sized.

 

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If I understand correctly you will prob need to do something like below. Any texture stuff done in Blender is simply a texture and only way to alter it is either in photoshop or rebake the texture in Blender. Other option is to in UE in your Material if it's one texture your taking from blender something like below.



if you have multiple texture from blender you can plug those into the relative inputs and a multiply with a param you can alter how rough the texture is for example etc. Theres a lot you can do with Materials. I'm not expert on them though sadly. That part of UE is not my area.