Not sure if this has already been asked, but how do you add the AP Veg EP to other routes that don't have it already fitted? Cheers
I don't have the pack, so maybe take what I say with a grain of salt, but wouldn't you just enable the assets in the route editor?
Page 3 of the manual tells you which routes the enhancements automatically apply to. Page 4 of the manual tells you how to add the vegetation manually to other routes. https://www.armstrongpowerhouse.com/free_download/manuals/APVEP_Manual.pdf John
I think you missed the point of the OP's question, they're not asking what routes are already supported (thus negating your "Page 3" part of your comment) nor were they asking how to place individual assets in the editor (thus negating your "Page 4" part of your comment). I believe the OP was asking how do you make an existing route that does not support the APVEP to now use it, the answer is not straightforward it requires lots of .bin file editing, basically finding what assets were used and bulk changing the paths to those of an already supported route, there is a few examples where a straightforward asset file swap works but this is only if the assets are of the exact name in the patient and the doner so to speak. This becomes even more convoluted if it is a third party freeware route that may have used vegetation assets from 2 or 3 or more DLC sources. I get the principle but have failed to understand exactly what needs editing to achieve it myself, the route in question I wanted to upgrade to APVEP is Speedypetes XC route (it would look amazing with the AP veg).
Reference to Page 3 was background, and as I said Page 4 is the answer to the question "how do you add the AP Veg EP to other routes that don't have it already fitted". I think you are talking of replacing rather than adding, that's not what was asked. John
I guess that’s what I meant - how do I replace the the DTG trees with the AP ones on a route that doesn’t use the vegetation pack
That's what I thought mate, sooner have you clarify than argue needlessly with someone. I hope someone can share the process as I too want to have a go at this.
Could you use TS Tools to globally replace each vegetation item, one after another? I've not tried it, but then I'm not a big fan of the AP vegetation pack.
Not at all Peter, I said I thought they might've got the wrong end of the stick and replied based on my interpretation of the query, not every reply is a challenge mate, don't try and make it so.
The ap veg doesn't show up in all the routes listed for me. You can use search and replace in ts tools. Bit of messing about tho. Make sure you back up the route before hand.
You can use this rwp to change the kuju and RSDL 3d trees to use the AP ones. You need to have installed the AP pack first... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KTnNmyc-nyeeMA1HdPzYHchPOjGhwMzS/view?usp=sharing It just changes where the 3d tree bins point to. Crude but should work. BUT - if your route doesn't use those but some other set of trees then you can look at what I've done with these and replicate with your desired stuff.
You can do this by just file swapping, it’s not that difficult or complicated, neither does it take a large amount of time and I have done it for many routes without AP Veg now without issue. I’m not home right now but I’ll see if I can make up a quick tutorial on what I mean when I get home in a few hours.
Alright here we go, this is how I swap out vegetation from routes that don't have AP Veg applied. I've tried to explain it as best as I can but apologies if I over-complicate it with the way I describe it. If this is your first time doing this and you aren't confident back up the assets folders elsewhere that I will soon talk about, so if something goes wrong you can swap your un-changed route assets folder back in. The Asset Folders First of all find the route assets folder (you can find this with SteamDB if you don't know the route directory as sometimes they can be cryptic. Here we have the SteamDB link for the Riviera Line in the Fifties route: https://steamdb.info/app/325960/ You want to change the "app" part of this URL to "depot" instead and change nothing else and then hit Enter. It will take you to a slightly different page which lists all install locations of the DLC and therefore the route assets folder and should look something like this below: For example here it is Assets>DTG>ExeterKingswear. And from there we want to to locate the Vegetation folder for the route. Almost all TSC routes from Steam will be in .ap files and you will need to extract them using programs like 7zip. Most want to keep their assets folders tidy and not fully extracted so all we actually need extracted here is the Scenery>Vegetation part of the .ap folder. There are various self explanatory ways to end up just having what we need from the .ap file instead of extracting the entire thing so I don't believe I need to dive into the various methods of doing that. You also want to go within the AP Veg folder to Assets>AP>VegEP>Scenery and have this up. You should just see a "Bush" and "Trees" folder on that directory. Vegetation Swapping Now for the bit you actually want to do to do your route! It may feel a bit tedious at first but once you get into the rhythm it doesn't take too much time. In the Scenery>Vegetation directory of what you extracted there should be a long list of various .bin and .GeoPcDx files for the vegetation used in the route. What you want to do is to now cross reference this with what is in the AP folder since everything in there is what AP offers substitutes for. For example one of the first vegetation files of Riviera in the Fifties is "Black Ash_tree.bin" and you can type that into the search bar of the AP Vegetation folder we have up to find if there is a substitute available. That piece of vegetation is commonly used on UK routes so indeed there is but DON'T copy this file from the AP folder as it will be a .GeoPcDx file and not a .bin file. We are only wanting to swap .bin files and leaving .GeoPcDx files untouched is mandatory. This may be different depending on operating system, I am on Windows 10 and what you need to do is to hover your mouse over the directory listed beneath.GeoPcDx file you have used the file explorer search bar to find. This tells us where in the AP Veg folder it is located and this directory gives us a hint to the .bin file we need to find and copy over to our desired route for replacement. Towards the end of this directory it will say something like Assets>AP>VegEP>Scenery>Trees>RSC-GEML where the very end of this directory tells us where in the RailWorks assets folder we need to look, for example here "RSC-GEML" means RSC>GEML in the assets folder. We now want to go to that directory in the assets folder and once in the GEML route folder we want to go to Scenery>Vegetation and Black Ash_tree.bin will be in there. We copy this file and simply paste and replace it into our desired route and that will swap that asset of tree with the AP version over the entire route. I've done this loads of times with no issues and as a tip I have found the most common route folders that have .bin files you may need to copy are RSC>ECMLS, RSC>GEML and RSC>RivieraLine. So you can have these up if you end up needing to do a lot of .bin copy and replacing to save time. Also it may be daunting seeing how many files there are in some of these vegetation folders but lots of them share very similar filenames so you can cross out lots at once. This sort of goes without saying but just in case to use an example in the Riviera in the Fifties vegetation folder there are 8 different "Bush_Hawthorn_mid" variations listed like "Bush_Hawthorn_mid_01" for example. So if you want to check if there is substitutes from AP just search up "Bush_Hawthorn_mid" and you can find in one search that there are no results for any of those 8 different assets. Sidenotes I only replace vegetation that AP directly has substitutes for and I have never attempted replacing a tree with no AP substitute. What I mean by this is that I haven't tried copying a .bin file over and then renaming it to something else entirely to replace a different type of tree that AP hasn't officially made a replacement for. I don't see why this wouldn't work but I thought it important to bring that up. There appears to be some AP substitutes missing from the APVeg folder. For example in the RSC>ECMLS vegetation folder installed here from the AP pack is "Tree_Hawthorn_01.bin" up to "Tree_Hawthorn_07.bin" (aside from Tree_Hawthorn_03.bin) however upon searching Tree_Hawthorn in the AP Veg pack you only get results for the Tree_Hawthorn_04 and Tree_Hawthorn_05 variants suggesting that they are the only variant substitutes even though that is not the case and there are more available AP variants from the ECMLS folder. It's pretty easy to notice and I haven't had issues copying other variants of the Tree_Hawthorn_0x assets from AP in the ECMLS folder for example that weren't listed in the AP Veg folder. It's up to you though if you want to copy the unlisted variants from AP. Post-Replacement Examples Here are some examples of routes where I have completed these .bin swaps as they didn't have AP vegetation originally, it seems daunting at first but like I said you get into a rhythm once you start doing it regularly and it's worth it in the end if you prefer the AP vegetation in my opinion! Riviera Line in the Fifties: Corris Railway: West Somerset Railway: Weardale & Teesdale Network: Hope this tutorial helped.
