Articulated Cars

[rowie]

I have searched and can't find anything about this small issue.



The cars shown are Mark Tolland's articulated TwinStack cars. The first and sixth cars are the A unit and have 2 trucks. The rest of the cars (B, C, D, E) have one truck. The A units track correctly, but the bodies of the other cars stay perpendicular to the track and the trucks don't pivot. My TTAX spine cars also display the same behaviour, except for the second and fourth cars, which have 2 trucks. The cars also shake quite violently fore and aft. I don't have any articulated steam locos installed and I guess the same thing will happen to them.

Also noticed the cars sinking into the track when starting from the wye at Fields on MLT's Cascade Crossing route.







The train is on a section of dynamic track and the cars gradually sink down on the curved section and then pop back up when they run onto the straight section. However, this could be self inflicted as I have been smoothing the rough track joints of the standard track sections and the .tdb could be messed up.

Cheers,
David.

[wacampbell]

Added to our todo list.

Thanks

[muskokaandtahoe]

Whoa, call the track crew!

We've learned something interesting about how Kuju implemented Dynamic track: the grade you specify when laying curved DT IS NOT the grade along the path of the track itself but instead is the value you get when measuring a straight line between the start and end points of the curve.

The more degrees, the odd-er it becomes.

[GaryG]

That would explain the flying trains I've seen when going downgrade on the GN-HI Line it was on curves and I did suspect the possibility of Dynamic Track although I didn't look with the RE. It did appear to start/end at track joints.

I guess it is fixable but yet another custom calculation for ORTS to develop as a work around for the original MSTS "designers".

GaryG

[BNSFfan]

One thing that I'm sure you have on the list to program in is to have ORTS recognize not just a single line down the center of the track that a train follows, but two; each controlled by a new TDB formula that would read the "spacing" of the two lines, and the "y" variable (height) can be changed in one or the other rails to include super elevation. If this were to be done properly, you could have probably the most realistic simulator out there, not only for the fact of graphics and visual implements, but for physics eventually aswell.

[muskokaandtahoe]

There has been some idle chat about tipping models but it was in regard to how cars rock side to side at certain speeds, not super-elevation. The difficulty with dynamically figuring out super-elevation and then introducing as-if the route designer had done it is that the rise, run, and fall of the elevation is not always going to matchup to a single track shape -- you've got lots of curves with multiple shapes in them afterall -- and the shapes found in \global\shapes are not "twisted" in a way that would match the spiral rise and fall of super-elevation. I suspect we'd have to introduce procedural track (i.e., replace all the track shapes with polys generated by the program) and within that set of polys do the "shape" changes that are needed for this.

It's an interesting idea... one I expect will get some serious looking-into, but I don't think there will be any promises made any time soon that it will be done.

[BNSFfan]

Right, I find that the rocking models would be a great feature, and I don't expect it to be done right away. But you guys had better get to work on it right now! Nah. I only kid, I understand that the highest priority is atleast being able to read MSTS files wholly before you start doing too many more modifications.

[OTTODAD]

Right, I find that the rocking models would be a great feature, and I don't expect it to be done right away. But you guys had better get to work on it right now! Nah. I only kid, I understand that the highest priority is at least being able to read MSTS files wholly before you start doing too many more modifications.

The Rail Simulator had this side-to-side rocking motion to start with but UK users got fed up with it and RSDL removed it.

High speed trains running on modern welded tracks just do not do that !

O t t o

[BNSFfan]

Exactly, which is why the ttype.dat should have Jointed and Welded Rail options.

[OTTODAD]

Exactly, which is why the ttype.dat should have Jointed and Welded Rail options.

The Ttype.dat only provides track sounds and the excellent track joint sounds from Railwaves can have track joints sounds frequency varied to suit any type of tracks, but applies to all tracks used in a route.

O t t o

[BNSFfan]

Exactly. That's why I said it should have the added option of a line such as this:
"Jointed ( 1 )" and "Jointed ( 0 )" just so ORTS could read that line, and play joint sounds from within the game itself, as well as create a rocking motion at lower to midrange speeds.
Either that, or the .tdb file itself would read the shape names. Albiet that shapes would have to have an extension added to the file name such as "xxxxx40mxxx_jt" or "xxxxx40mxxx_wld" or something along those lines. It's all something to mull over, but I think eventually it would be a greatly appreciated feature.

[rowie]

Added to our todo list.

Thanks

Thanks Wayne. I noticed another small issue with locos that use a freightanim for the window glass. It appears to have something to do with alpha sorting.

Whoa, call the track crew!

We've learned something interesting about how Kuju implemented Dynamic track: the grade you specify when laying curved DT IS NOT the grade along the path of the track itself but instead is the value you get when measuring a straight line between the start and end points of the curve.

The more degrees, the odd-er it becomes.

Another of Kuju's kludges Crawford Hill will be a good route to use for testing. I loaded it up the other day and the really long sections of DT create some interesting effects.











It was actually quite funny watching articulated cars jump about 50ft in the air as they ran over the track joints

Cheers,
David.

[baldwin]

The Ttype.dat only provides track sounds and the excellent track joint sounds from Railwaves can have track joints sounds frequency varied to suit any type of tracks, but applies to all tracks used in a route.

O t t o

The standard MSTS track sounds can be adjusted in the same way.

[OTTODAD]

The standard MSTS track sounds can be adjusted in the same way.

Of course they can.

But having variations like these created already, most SMS files omitted in this example to shorten the list, swapping track joints sounds intervals is made easy, in this case for the RAILWAVES track joint sounds.



Here are these variations for the RAILWAVES sounds: https://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/msts-d...variations.zip

O t t o

[Conrail Tweety]

I'm not sure which direction this train is going.

Left-to-right I'd call it a signal drop.

Right-to-left I'd call it Signal Light Limbo.

Dennis