Train Cars Are Us! Discuss them here..

[Dennis079]

Mhh okay

Well i'm not just here for one simple map !

But 2 years is quite a long time, i'll hope that i'm still here for me to help you..

[slider38]

That's a great looking tank car Snoopy. Great job! And Happy Thanksgiving one and all.

[snoopy55]

Dennis079. No, No, No.....Forum rules, members are required to make at least 6 maps before leaving us!

Slider38. Thanks, and the same to you!

I have everything working but the dome lid.... little bugger works in NifSkope but not in the game. Might just shave my head, don't loose so much hair that way......

Here they are running. No editing has been done to any of the DDSs yet.

[slider38]

For those who might have downloaded the Chemical Car I uploaded the other day - it has been updated. The top of the tank has been lowered a bit to make it look more proportional. Had to update the kf files to work with the newly lowered hatch - accomplished with Snoopy's help. So if you have already downloaded the old version, I would replace it with this one. I think you will like the look better now.

BB_CGW259_Chemical_car.jpg

[snoopy55]

Hmmmmmm. I'd like to snatch it and call it mine, but you didn't post the files........

[Lama_RT]

I downloaded the Santa Fe Mail Car V3 (73') ( http://www.sidmeiersrailroads.net/viewtopic.php?p=6064#p6064 ).

Its use with the line
<szCar>_sf</szCar>
in the engine file causes a CTD.

If I copy the file Mail_Car_dummies_v3.nif, and rename that copy Mail_Car_dummies_sf.nif, and
if I copy the file Mail_Car_sf_v3.kfm, and rename that copy Mail_Car_sf.kfm,
it will work.

This was done by trial and error, and I don't have the faintest idea why this worked. I am just sharing the information here, so that those with expertise may draw their own conclusions.

[snoopy55]

Alright, I'll take credit for this error (where is my trophy?)

You have it correct, I have the instructions wrong. They should have read "For running multiple new cars, leave the games Original TrainCarsXMLs as they are and simply change the engines you want them to run on from<szCar>_v2</szCar> to <szCar>_v3</szCar>, adding or chaning the 'PassengersAndMailOnly' line as stated above."

Now, while this will work, it is not the way it should be done. Let me confuse you a bit more and I'll get into editing the instructions and files for the Santa Fe cars........

I will be adding 2 files to the folder, Mail_Car_sf.kfm and Mail_Car_dummies_sf.nif. By doing this it will allow the instructions to be followed as they are written and add only ~4K to the files.

It worked after your edits because that is how it is supposed to work. By setting the engine as '_sf' you told the game that that engine can ONLY use cars with a version of '_sf' and no others. Since there were no car files available as version '_sf', the game just gave up and crashed.

I'll also check all other passenger and mail cars that may have special versions and edit the files accoringly. Thanks for finding this .

[Lama_RT]

Glad I could help!

[BrianPeace]

The Golden West Service boxcar does not work properly.

DRGW 50898 Box Car.

It asks for a .NIF file the game does not find. It does not CTD the game though, but the boxcar is shown sideways to the track. made me laugh pretty loud.

[bobby]

The Golden West Service boxcar does not work properly.

DRGW 50898 Box Car.

It asks for a .NIF file the game does not find. It does not CTD the game though, but the boxcar is shown sideways to the track. made me laugh pretty loud.

OK there was and error in the XML code for the Dummies. You Need to Edit the code on the line <szDummyModel>6DRGW_50898_Box_Car_dummies.nif</szDummyModel> and remove the number 6 before the DRGW part.

I have Updated the file in the Building blocks.
Thank you for finding this.

[BrianPeace]

Ok done, no longer getting error message however the car is still appearing sideways to the tracks (it is perpendicular, like 90 degrees off rotation)

found another small adjustment. the MRL boxcar is overlapping eachother just slightly.

As you can see. I am having fun adding some cars I'll let you knwo which ones may have error.

[bobby]

Traincar Has been repaired in the Building blocks. The nif had been rotated to face the wrong direction some how but has been Fixed and working.

[BrianPeace]

Thank you! It's an excellent boxcar for my tastes!!! Cheers!!

[snoopy55]

NSrailfan! Beautiful set of train cars you posted You have brought our total up to 250 cars!

BUT, you make me a bit unhappy........ Now I have to get myself working again and get building the longer grain cars. Don't no one get thier hopes up for a quick job on them tho, I still have a mess of things in life to dig myself out from under right now....

[NSrailfan]

I was waiting to see if anyone was going to request an F7 for SMR in North America, but I decided to keep myself busy and decided to paint up some cars. Some of those cars may actually appear in my map.

[slider38]

Hi folks, I'm not really sure if what I am asking is possible since I don't know beans about what these 3D moeling programs can do. What I need to accomplish is to get the trucks pushed back under a traincar that I have shortened.

I have taken Snoopy's container car and shortened it. I would like to use the shorter car as a version 2, and the original size as a version 3. I would just do the shorter version as a single stack.

Short_SSC1.jpg

This is where it stands at the moment. All of the vertices have been moved 45.00 along the y axis towards the center. If I can get the trucks pushed back underneath, then I assume with a new dummies file, I don't see why the car wouldn't work fine. I am hoping that it is possible to take an existing model (the trucks) and using some of the 3D software, to move them back into position without too much trouble. If it's a major deal, just let me know. I don't want to create a major undertaking for someone. I really just don't know if it's a big deal or not. I can certainly go in and move the vertices. But if I can avoid moving 1022 vertices, that would be nice. I am attaching the current files as they stand if anyone can help me with this.

[NSrailfan]

I messed with the trucks in Blender, and moved the vertices to were they need to be. I also went and had to edit the NiNodes for the wheels (under skininstance) so they matched were the wheels are. I went edited the dummies file and it should work now. Go ahead and take it for a spin, let me know if it works for you or you still need something changed. It wasn't that hard to do, no trouble at all. Hope you like.

[snoopy55]

I'm hoping it did work cause this has been a problem with my gang and I since we first started trying to make 80' cars. If it does work (you didn't test it out yourself?) then we need you to do up a tutorial on it, pref with pics. and written for people that know how to use the program it is done with, but not in any way how you did it. As to doing things like this in Blender, figure4 that the user may not know which operations you are using or how to use them. Myself, I know enough to do what I've done, but not the rest. I tend to learn something new as I need to instead of learning 50 things I will never ever use. You have to figure that everyone else does the same even if I'm the only one like that.

Good work both of you!

(Slider, watch were you give credit to. That car was not one I created, just one I did the BB for. There is no reason to post credit for me or STEP Inc on such stuff. I make this stuff for the forum and anyone who wants to use it. We also went thru to many accusations in the past of our claiming stuff we got from maps as our own and don't want to get that started again. We never claimed the stuff as our own, but who listens to idiots like us? State it was posted by us, not made by us.)

[slider38]

Hey NSRailfan, The shortened container car looks great. Nice spacing between the cars. That's the good news. The bad news - the kfs no longer work. The train won't load or unload. It just rolls along with a container on its back all the time. I looked at the original nif and what you posted. Looks like a lot of things got moved around. Something has got the kfm file confused. Could you take another look. If it is possible to get those trucks under the car with little disturbance to the nif file, perhaps the kfm will then work properly. If that cannot be done I may have no choice but to start moving vertices. Thanks.

[snoopy55]

Multiple questions here.

Do the wheels turn OK?

Is the hitching OK?

What Car was the KFM originally for?

What does the NIF use for the name of the load, the container?

This bugged me on a car I did for my ACRW map. Got the load and the car but the load did not unload. After getting myself a wig I got to looking at the other cars. The ones where the load dissapeared each had a name for the load. Yes, they all appear to disappear, but not all of them do. The coal load shrinks and is hidden in the bottom of the car. The Grain load does the same. The logs disappear from the car. If you look at the Goods Car, which is what this car was made from, the crates are seperate from the car, meaning they have thier own NiTriShape. Me and my pickiness had chosen to change the name of the load to match the load. I found that the KFs do not look for a line number, they look for a name. In the case of the Goods Car they will be looking for 'Boxes'. Now, the name 'Boxes' appears twice in the original NIF, line 62 as a NiTriShape and line 70 as a NiMaterialProperty. I would guess it is line 62. I don't exactly remember, I just chose long ago not to change the names of loads or wheels.

Another thing with this particular car is do NOT remove lines 38 to 41 on the original NIF. You may not be using crates, but the workings of the KFM/NIF/KF does in some way. I don't remember if any other cars also are built in this way, but it might be good for one of you intreped engineers to go thru the original cars and see what they have. Do up a list of the cars and the lines with special names they have that other cars do not. By this I do not mean lines like 42, NiNode - GoodsCar or line 56, NiMaterialProperty - ManufacturedGoods_Cars, these are standard lines for cars, but special NiNodes and extra NifBlocks like the one beginning on line 62, Boxes. (BTW, line numbers are refering to the original Goods Car)

The data gained would be helpful to others and could be placed in the Wiki. I have long ago forgotten this stuff, but set myself to avoiding changing names other than the car, engine and industry names long ago also. Tho I think a few of those may have caused me problems also.

Just out of couriosity, wouldn't it have been easier to edit the shape of the Goods Car and replaced the crates with a container than resizing the container car to the size of the Goods Car? Just a last minute thought..........

Keep up the good work you guys and lets see what else you can come up with. and if we can get so data down on problems and thing discovered we can expand the Wiki, and thus expand our knowledge and the learning of future SMR Engineers. We may even give you the same wages for what you do as we get for our work!!