Hi everybody! This is probably something fairly simple, but I'm looking at buying a foliage asset pack that has wind effects, as well as seasonal variations. I would like to be able to test them in the editor to see if these are hooked up and working properly. Which is all great, but I have no idea how to set the amount of wind and amount (and type) of precipitation for play-in-editor. Also, does anyone know if there's a console command to change the date for play-in-editor, and not just the time? Any insight into TSW4's weather effects in general would also be greatly appreciated.
The rest I don't know but Setlocaldatetime also takes a date, e.g. 2022 09 01 10 0 0 for 10 a.m. on the first of September 2022
I don't know if you want to buy an external foliage asset pack for UE, but the Niddertalbahn DLC offers both, trees and Vegetation which move with the wind (slow and calm - I think there's no parameter to change that - but you notice it from meters away), plus trees with seasonal Variation. I use the assets from this DLC because they have these (in the videos of mine, you can see birches which are completely orange although they should be green in summer). So for me no urgent need to buy another third party pack with assets which can do that for me.
I have been looking for that command, too. For some reason, all leave trees in my project are having orange leaves. I guess this is because I created this project in November and the Editor took the season from that month, instead of you all with September and October.
That would certainly be an option, but I've been trying to build my route with original and store-bought assets, so that anyone interested will be able to give it a try, without having to buy any DLC. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
I think that the answer is in the "EnvironmentSettings" Material Parameter Collection. we can't use it or even open it just yet but from what I remember when using the unofficial editor, it should contain informations about weather condition, which you can then use to drive changes in your own material. Just set up your material with controls that will make it easy to hook things up later. As for using marketplace assets, are you sure you know what you are getting into? There isn't exactly a standard for setting color values so you will have to match them yourself and that can be tricky if you are not an artist. Last but not least, is there any reason why you can't just use Megascans? I mean they do have a wide selection of foliage and it's all free to use with UE4.
I really like the idea behind that concern and have complete respect if a user wants to create a route only with custom and maybe some otherwise acquired high-quality assets, but at the same time I'm asking myself: Isn't that really challenging - if even possible? For example which assets do you use for your tracks? Or even the signals or level crossings. Doesn't one have to use at least those for creating a route? Or do you only use the assets from the training center? I don't know if the European Content Pack is a content folder which is natively in the base game, so that nobody needs to acquire some DLCs to use these assets. Maybe this would be an option for you though. But speaking for the concern of not wanting to use DTG assets. I can understand this, because the quality of DTG's assets really is sometimes just too low and I'm angry about that I only can use those. But on the other side I mean, in the end it's a route for TSW we creating, no other game or software. Therefore it makes sense to not think too big and make our routes for a different game (if you understand what I mean), even if the quality of assets would be a lot higher. In Germany we have one common phrase "Die Kirche im Dorf lassen" which translates to "Keeping the church in town" and basically means that people shouldn't exaggerate and overestimate their plans. I personally stopped thinking that my route has to be "something new" or "something different". All I want is my wished route with DTG standards and maybe improve the one or other thing more than DTG would do. That's it. Also to just note, I planned to create my route almost completely with DTG and DTG-cooperate assets (TSG, Just Trains, Rivet) and just do some custom assets where they are needed or I want them to be. And even creating a route in this way is very hard and stressful and requires a lot of time and work. I have absolutely no plan, how I would work with my projects, if I had to use other different assets than the ones meant for the game. I also don't know how far we actually are able to use third party assets in our routes, legally (copyright/royalties is a hot topic) but also from the technical side. Might be some specifications for the assets DTG uses which others don't have and vice versa. For the assets we have in the DLCs there almost is a guarentee that they also should work in your route (I say almost because I had an error a few weeks ago, where this surprisingly wasn't the case). However, I would rely on DTG assets rather than investing in an idea which might not even work as you expected with the game we create these routes for.
Thanks for the great suggestions so far! I wish I was sure whether or not the European asset pack was part of the base game, I honestly haven't poked into it (work keeps me busy.) Megascans is another option I haven't explored yet, to be sure. As for custom assets, I'm kind of glad to have this as an excuse to keep my 3d modeling skills sharp, since I never wound up finding work in that field after college. I'm most of the way to having my custom track done, mostly based on examples from the training center. Many static meshes can be exported from the editor, (at least from the training center.) I'll try to screen-capture the relevant menu options when I get home for you guys, if that would be helpful.
European asset pack comes with Vorarlberg afaik At least that's what I remember Lukas saying in a stream in passing a while back
So yes, as I promised, here's how to export a skeletal mesh asset from the editor, for closer examination (note: might not work for absolutely everything): Step 1: Find the Skeletal Mesh you would like to export in the content browser. Step 2: Right click on the Skeletal Mesh in the content browser, bringing up the "Static Mesh Actions" menu. Step 3: In the Static Mesh Actions menu, hover over "Asset Actions," bringing up the sub-menu. Step 4: in the Asset Actions sub-menu, you should see an enrty labeled "Export..." That's what you want to click on to select where to save your exported model, to study at your leisure! pretty basic stuff, but I hope this is helpful to somebody. (please ignore the monstrosity with the bad UV mapping in the main viewport, it's a work in progress.
You might take a look at what Maik Goltz (developer of Niddertalbahn) said here about Megascans: I mean the discussion is about textures instead of vegetation/foliage, but useful to know nonetheless.
I think there's a difference between textures and material setups. The textures themselves are just pixels so one isn't going to be more expensive in terms of performance than the other (if they have the same resolution, for example higher-res opacity masks just tank your performance). Megascan ones are just pretty good quality and readily available. Material can have stuff in them that is pretty costly (Texture bombing, WPO, etc.) so you should probably have an idea about what you are using.
Unfortunately does not work with rollingstock. Tried to export one of the base freight wagon and obtained bones with an illogical distribution and no 3D to compare too. One day I'll have to find a way to import my rollingstock.... even if I have to deconstruct each BP with an exadecimal editor
