Creation Sharing New Custom Track Creation

Hey everyone,

today - well rather yesterday because it's past midnight - I startet with the editor. I'm familiar with Unreal Engine so it wasn't THAT hard but still tricky to get started.

I had a goal: Create my own track. Not just laying a track by myself but create the assets. A few years ago I modeled a track that looked good but I wanted to make it the right TSW way. I started by creating new ballast textures in Substance Designer from scratch and importing the ballast mesh I already had.

When creating a new material I discovered that a lot of material functions from base unreal engine aren't working in the TSW-Editor. Parallax Occlusion Mapping is missing or rather not functioning so I recreated it as best as I could. But when creating a material function and opening it the editor crashes every time. So it's part of the material now.

For it to work I had to create a "Loft Descriptor Asset" which defines the look of the track. I'm still using the Track-Meshes from Munich-Augsburg. Only the ballast is new.

On the left it's the original track from Munich-Augsburg. On the right it's the new ballast.

Now I'm looking forward to play around more in the editor.

Have a nice day everyone.

 

I'll trying to create my track too, now I've someone to ask my doubt

 

YAY a soulmate
Have you started with your track already?

 

Me too but I don't have time to finish what I was doing.

 

I've my track from TSC, just separate in pieces (ballast, rails and sleepers) but, watching the DTG,s one inside the editor, I've found a lot more part and can't understand why...
For now I'm only built a road as a "loft section" but nothing more

 

Oh no! Will you continue in the future?

Yeah there are a lot of parts. I looked into a loft section file from munich-augsburg and copied over most of it. So I can see and understand what parts I need and build them for my own track. But as of now by far not everything is THAT clear. My turnout does look quite good with one exception and I can't explain why ... yet.

 

It seems you miss so ending rail in that switch....
In this weekend I'll try to do something with your details

 

Yeah but I have to have a look in the Loft section file from DTG again. I thought I had all relevant parts covered.

 

Ahh here we gooo

 

Superb!

 

What is the procedure for creating custom track in the TSW4 editor? How do I import 3-D models of track components from blender? I would like to create more realistic looking North American wood and concrete tie (sleeper) track assets.

 

Importing Meshes from blender into the editor is easy. Export the mesh as fbx from blender and then drag and drop the fbx into the content browser. Best create a folder where you want to store the meshes first.

When you want to create a new track it is best to first check one of the "Loft Descriptor Asset" that already exist in the content folders of the routes. Since the baked Loft Descriptor Assets can't be opened regularely by double click you must right click on it, go to asset actions and click "bulk edit via property matrix". There you can check the assets you need to rebuild. When building the rail or the ballast it is important that the UVs are aligned vertically. Otherwise it won't work apparently.

 

Finally finished with the terrain (long story), I started checking the structure of the switches.
A lot of single pieces to be built, like in a real switch.

The frog is the part that make me wonder.
It isn't automatically built, like in TSC, but requires a fixed 3D.
Not a problem to build it but, the angle and length of the diverging rails are not always based on precise rules.

 

After a few days I could continue working on my track. Ballast, sleeper and rail meshes are now selfmade as well as the textures for it.
I wanted to create a track that does not appear to lay "on top" of the ballast but rather inbetween. I guess it's working well.
With World Position UVs for the ballast the cap aligns perfectly. Yay.

 

Try to create a custom supersleeper, add to the track and do a switch.
In my case the editor takes up the entire free memory (over 25GB) before crashing.

I'll try again tomorrow but, I'm starting to feel a little fatigued about doing the R&D for everything.

 

I already did that and it works fine. But I had crashes when I had empty entries for the junction rail cap meshes. Try deleting all empty entries you can or assign meshes to them. That's what helped in my case.

 

My actual problem is that the rails are disappearing very close. I used the LOD-settings from munich augsburg so no idea what's wrong there.

 

The issue was caused by "gap for single rail clips" and "repeat interval" se to zero.
So the editor was trying to place an infinite number of supersleepers and filled my RAM with an impossible number of repeated objects

I have not done the 3D for the LODs (yet) so I can see them until the sleepers start to disappear too.

 

Adding supersleepers was "easy".
Adding plates and clips is impossible .
Tried every combination in the BP and in Blender and nothing appears in the editor.

Even "borrowing" a couple of 3Ds from another switch did not do a thing...

 

Think we need an help from DTG in this case... This will be one of the most difficult part of a route building

 

My Clips and Plates are displayed correctly. Have you checked if they are IN the sleepers?

Second option: In your Loft Discriptor under LOD -> 0 do you have "Rail Details Included" checked?
There I solved my problem with the disappearing rails by clicking "Rail included" in Lods 1 and 2.

I still even borrow the plates for the blades (hihi, plates for the blades) and it shows correctly. But I have to admit there are two sleepers without any plates and I don't know why. (And the blades don't cast shadows. Dammit!)


Ahh this is how I insert the image directly into the posting.

 

In and around. Even changing the pivot point does nothing.

Nope. With or without nothing changes.

In my case I have taken the actual 3D from the editor to Blender and back, I'm missing something in the process. Like the texture UV for the track near a month ago.
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/which-shape-pivot-for-a-loft-track.74212/#post-728495

 

Hm, how strange. Maybe clipmesh view distance?

Here is my junction part of the loft section. But I have the feeling the problem of yours may lie elsewhere.

 

Thank you. I have checked everything and the solution was rather "logic", more or less .

A basic switch is divided into 3 "zones":
1 - is the region before the blades (one or two sleepers)
2 - is the region of the blades
3 - are the clips for checks, crossing and wings

If the number, the 3Ds, and the "usage" (ie "usage wing rail") are not correctly set, then the 3D will not be displayed.
Now I can see the test 3Ds and their location. I'll start building the actual pieces to complete, at least, one switch.

An interesting bit is that wings, crossing and check can be generated by the editor or custom made with ad hoc 3Ds.
One can build a "TSC" switch with just a couple of basic 3Ds or a custom made switch with, at least, 8-10 (or more) pieces.

 

Great that it works now.
It's always good to look at the original Loft Sections to sort issues out. But teamwork is even better.

 

I think I found a couples of "simplifications" in the way a switch is built DTG Matt

Rails and wing rails have a custom cap entry but check rail have not.
Check rail can have a custom shape but the cap is shared with wing rails.
If I set a custom wing cap, it will be used for the check rails too.

The same with "wing rail inset distance" and "wing rail gap".
They operate on both wing and check rails at the same time.

In my case (the real railroad I'm building in the editor), wing and check rails have two distinct shapes and terminate with different properties .

 

It is not 100% complete. There are missing clips, in the inner side, that I have not figured it out yet. (the textures are still a test too).

 

Looks great! Good work.

 

Great work!
Now I'm studying the gantry but that's my next step

 

Guess what I just found?


I was wondering where they hid it. okay that's enough work on my plugin for now, time for some trick-or-treating! Happy Hallowe'en, everybody!

p.s. spoilers for what route I'm making if you look at the tab names

 

Yeah you must know where to find your stuff. A lot of necessary thingies you will find in the "Data Asset" just a few entries above the loft discriptor.
I'm looking forward to see more of your route.

 

My textures were all washed out because of a missing "tick" when importing BMP files.

I still have an issue to define where the "bladea" clips should end and where they actually end.
I tried to add a fourth layer, to add the missing clips, but it did not work.

A tutorial by the creator of the original BP can solve everything...

 

Hey this looks great!

Do you have maybe a too high value in your "Min Point Blade Length"? This could cause the rail to be a blade over the whole length.

 

Thanks for the kind words! I'm trying to get my track together first, to avoid having to re-lay it all. I may have something to show for it by the end of the weekend, but I'm not going to make any promises.

 

Can you share the ballast material? I still haven't figured out how to create parallax

 

Here you go. You can use it as tamplate if you want or just take what you need. Since TSW-Editor runs quite unstable I gave my best to strip all references from the material. I hope it works.

 

Wow, dude, thats amazing. Thanks!!!

 

My track is behaving nicely.... Except for the sleepers under my switches. I'm currently using the same geometry for "Super Sleeper: Sleeper Repeat Geometry" and again under "population geometry". (My Loft Descriptor is derived from TC_TrackMain_01 in the training center, if I remember correctly. (I incorrectly said TC_TrackMain_03 earlier.)) I'm not sure which one does what, but I clearly need to switch one of them out. And maybe change some value that determines overall sleeper width for junctions, but I haven't a clue which parameter it might be. Any ideas?

 

The supersleeper should consist of 3 sleeper parts - the start, the middle that lies inbetween the track and the end part. The clamps are also seperate assets.

When you open the loft descriptor from training centre with right click -> Asset Actions -> Bulk Edit via Property Matrix... (I can't open them regularely) and then scroll down to the super sleeper and click the magnifying glass icon it brings you directly to the related asset in the content browser.



This way you can look for what you need for your own track.

 

Thanks so much! Guess I cut too many corners in my approach, so-to-speak. I'll be checking that out when I get back to it this evening. Have a good weekend!

 

Thank you. Have a nice weekend too.

 

I'm having issues where my track doesn't appear only the end caps.




I copied a loft descriptor from Blackpool to fill in the settings and altered some for my specific needs and the models.

You can see there what I mean

 

I had that problem early on with my rails. I think the solution had something to do with having the vertex normals in the same direction at the ends? I honestly can't remember; which makes me hope someone more knowledgeable can chime in.

Also, make sure the mesh is selected for LOD 0, but I'm sure you thought of that already.

 

So managed to sort it by making sure UV was in vertical orientation.

 

Sorry for re-open an old post, but I think that it's necessary a good tutorial about the creation of the track in the editor, and this is probably the most complete information about it.

Someone has screenshots or something about the content in the descriptor file to see approximately how to complete a new one? The TSW Editor don't allow me to open any stock descriptor file.

 

Hey Nacho Olmedo,

if you right click on your descriptor, you can go to "Asset Actions" and then choose "Bulk Edit via Property Matrix". This Feature is meant to edit multiple assets of the same type at once but it is possible to look into baked track descriptors. Probably into other file types too.



But as I recently came back to TSW Editor and continued to work on my track I can make a tut for the descriptors.

 

If you do it, I would really appreciate it. Specially because I have so much problems with the PBR texture of the ballast, and my rails don't appears (Even I already modeled the other parts that are neccesary).

 

If your rails don't appear it can have different reasons. First in mind comes that the UVs have to be aligned vertically, so begin of the rail in the bottem, end of rail at the top. Same goes for ballast or basically every mesh that is used as a "cross section". Then you could check in your LOD section in the descriptor if "show rails" or something like that is ticket.

 

I encountered an issue when trying to place my self-made track: The editor freezes. There are no issues with my meshes, I even recreated a Ribbon Loft Descriptor from KWG and tried using that one, but it still freezes. However, when I use Ribbon Loft Descriptors from existing DLC, it works flawlessly. Have any of you encountered this too? How to solve this?

 

Hey WabbeLKonG,

I encountered that too, when I first try to create my first track. This can have multiple reasons.
Make sure that your UVs in the ballast mesh and the rail mesh (actually every "cross section" mesh you are using) are aligned vertically and the mesh is built in X-direction. This is neccesary for the calculation.



What I am doing right now for a tutorial is creating a Descriptor step by step with an empty one from the beginning. I could lay a track with only ballast and then update it step by step. Maybe you could find out the cause this way.