Those of us excited by the upcoming release of the editor all have passion projects. Assumption alert! But are there projects we can can agree and collaborate on? And how would we know? Poll?
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/tsw-4-editor-important-dev-questions.72591/ You might find some Q&A here
Well it's a good point. The problem with collaboration is finding people interested in your project and being prepared to commit themselves. I had fairly poor experience of this some years ago when doing my Blackpool Tramway route for TSC, along with Mike Whiteley who made the trams. I put an appeal on UKTS asking for help doing custom structures to make the promenade more interesting, populate the Pleasure Beach etc and didn't get a single person come forward to offer assistance. Mike and I did the best we could but I ended up having to put most of the items I made for my MSTS version through Shape Converter (which still worked then, it doesn't seem to now) to get it back into 3D Canvas and rework for TSC. What we really need to get started is a common library of assets and objects, such as platforms, station buildings/furniture/clutter, bridges, tunnel mouths etc. as it seems likely we will face the same issue as with TSC taking objects from the DLC route. More than likely these have been merged into one complete unit, i.e. totally useless other than in their home location.
This is a really good point. I wonder if DTG has generic assets along the lines you mentioned that they can make available for use.
As far as usable content, it's probably best to wait until the editor is out and we have a better idea of what DTG are going to provide with it. I know that they use a lot of module based objects (all of the PF signal boxes are made from component parts which gives you an idea of how flexible that is) which they will hopefully include for us to use. Beyond that, as Vern says, you need to find people who are interested in your specific area and era. Anyone "working" for free is going to have to be motivated by being interested in the same things. The best way to start I think would be for individuals to build something simple that grabs their interest (a short route, a timetable, a piece of rolling stock) and post up their progress. You'll soon see who else is interested in the same kind of things - then reach out and see if a collaboration would suit. Be aware though, it's no small task to make a team project - people have differing priorities, skill levels, amounts of spare time, etc. The key is often having that one person who is willing and able to organise it and hold it all together.
The other catch - and I’m as guilty of anyone with this - is that many projects start off with good intentions but get bogged down or the author gets distracted by something else. Consequently gets binned or at best mothballed which if you’re working with other people is not going to sit well. So I would actually be reluctant to team up with anyone until the project was pretty much a done deal, the Catch 22 being you need the 3D models to populate the route. Which is why at least initially a common library of basic assets which can be used (with credit) the same way we would download from UKTS or TS dot com for TSC or MSTS routes.
The problem is also the size of the group, if you have a few people (and propably dont really know that well) that rely on eachother, changes are that things go bad very early on. If you have a larger group of people that can continue the work if somebody has whatever excuse to not help is a bit better. But the most important thing is the differences in eachothers vision of the project, because it will not always go as you would like and you need to be able to handle critism (which many people dont like). And then it's also the projects size itself, many people are not dedicated enough to spend months on something (for free). For me personaly, I'd rather not do such big projects with people I dont know IRL.
If you could export the whole station into Blender, you could then cut out specific parts, re-position their origin and import it back. This kind of asset would obviously still be tied to the route it was pulled from (because of textures) but at least it's something. For generic, non-railway related objects, you could use the Megascans library as it's free to use with UE4 projects and therefore the TSW editor as well.
I did wonder how that might work if you brought a station area across then changed the station name to read for your own location, but that probably wouldn't work as the texture will still be referencing back to the built in asset.
Assuming the sign with the station name uses a separate material (which I don't know), you could place the original model into the world and then replace the sign material just for that one instance. Also for any station area that isn't just straight track, you would have to line up your tracks with the platforms. This would be tricky as even DTG themselves does it the other way. They just export the track geometry and then model the platforms to match the shape.
I am getting a sinking feeling this is not going to be as easy as we hoped. Will end up of a load of my textured boxes hooked out of MSTS, re-apply the textures and lovely low res. And I can't even begin to contemplate how you would set up night or seasonal texturing.
As far as I know, TSW doesn't have much of seasonal texturing except for locos, which do have a pretty detailed snow map. Instead it's all done procedurally through shaders. for example the game can tell which surfaces are facing upwards and put some snow onto them. At least in the unofficial editor, you just have to pass outputs of your material through a few material functions and it's good to go.
I was thinking in terms of lighted windows in buildings. I'm going back to Train Sim Modeller days when you had to create a night vriant of your texture, which basically involved darkening the whole thing in Paint Shop Pro, then replacing the illuminated windows with a whitish yellow texture instead of the glass effect. If memory serves me correctly, you changed an entry in the sd file so the game knew to look for a night texture. This is something that probably needs a bit of explaining by those in the know.
I think (don't quote me on this) that you will be able to share uasset files. These should be possible to open in the editor. I think you should be able to work on different tiles of a route for example, although I'm not really a route builder so I could be wrong on that. When it comes to rolling stock one person could work on one component while a collaborator works on another component. Dependencies can be tricky though (if the file you are working on needs some changes on another file that another person is working on then they'd have to share their file with you or make the changes needed and then share it). Github or perforce would probably be useful here but I'm not sure what/if any limitations there are w.r.t. this. For any larger collaboration you kind of need version control tbh.
Based on what was said on the PC Editor stream, collaboration will be possible. Perforce is free for up to 5 users. Github could also be used and there's videos online on how to get Github set up for UE4. *I have not tried this method, try and use at your own risk. Anyone who does get it working with the PC Editor, please document it and share!* You can have multiple contributors working and here is the answer in the PC Editor stream. Check it out as Matt gives some tips on how their teams effectively manage who works on what tiles to prevent clashing. https://www.youtube.com/live/zNWuhovnLtI?t=6493&si=CGLNF9MlnJnafye5 (can't embed links from YouTube Live Streams weirdly) Dependencies is a good point and will require someone in the collaborative group project to have a role of looking at the bigger picture and overview of the files and work that is going on, ensuring element A is completed or in the right state before element B can be worked on, would be key to success.
At first sight it looks good. Thanks for the tip. Especially if you want to work together with other people it is a must have. However, there is a limit on the amount of storage get. If you do route building you probably need to pay US$5 per month for additional storage.
I need to ask this question again because my last response was unclear. Can I extend existing routes or is this creation tool only to be used from scratch (starting a new route/project) ?
Nothing stopping you from recreating the route from scratch. Although that would probably take forever. Boo
Well like the rest of us. We need to first understand the software and tools we are working with. Starting from scratch? With my schedule i’d be finished with the route when TSW8 releases lol.
