Horsehoe Curve Upgrade

[rrdiesel87]

Scott,

Thanks for the reply. You may be on to something. Actually, immediately after my final edits were made, I had made a copy of the "horseshoe" route folder to start the file cleanup process and renamed the original folder “Horseshoe-WORKING COPY" and the new “Horseshoe-RELEASE". I noticed the problems after doing this so it seems that the folder name change may be the culprit. I'll be able to check tonight and will report back. Thanks again for looking in to this.

[rrdiesel87]

Scott,

The renamed folder was the source of the issue as you pointed out. I renamed the folder back to "Horseshoe" and all is well. Crisis averted!

[scottb613]

Scott,

The renamed folder was the source of the issue as you pointed out. I renamed the folder back to "Horseshoe" and all is well. Crisis averted!

Hi Andrew,

That is so good to hear - my first thought - “OMG - I broke it”…


I need to rework the backup tool I have in the FL - to make incremental and well as full backups they currently do - so they are faster option and could see more use. For those unfamiliar an incremental has a full backup copy and then only backups the files that have changed since the last backup - making the operation vastly quicker. I’m going to include more error checking in TSRE GenX logs as well.

Regards,
Scott

[rrdiesel87]

Scott,

Yes, it was quite a relief to see that it was a simple oversight and not something more critical.

At this point I have compressed all shapes and converted all terrtex to .dds using Pete’s conversion utility. The last major hurdle will be to remove all the unused shapes and textures (a mixture of .dds and .ace) from the route.

It’s my understanding that Route Riter will do this but does not recognize the .dds files so the file extension needs to be changed to .ace before running that process? Is there a better alternative?

Once this is complete to think the route will be about as compact as it’s going to get and be ready for beta testing and subsequent release.

[pwillard]

Honestly, I wish I knew how to reliably flag "unused" shapes and textures.

[CSRX]

Honestly, I wish I knew how to reliably flag "unused" shapes and textures.

Thankfully TSRE composed a file of "unused" shapes. Would be nice to have the program removed the unused files to reduce clutter when it comes to the final packaging. Maybe Scott with all his fantastic wisdom may come up with something.

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

I’m traveling with only my iPad this week - but yep - in the bigger scheme of things - packing a route for distribution and removing unused content - should be relatively straight forward - I’ll add it to my list.

Regards,
Scott

[geepster775]

Are you sure dynatrax wasnt involved here at some point? When it generates replacement shapes for dynamic track, It hard codes paths and folder names in all the W files which locks you in to the original naming conventions. To give the route a new folder name, you have to edit the hard path it established in all the affected W files. One of the reasons I no longer use dynatrax, given the alternatives of using trackprofiles in open rails today.

[eric]

Agree with Geepster - the only reason I can think of for shape substitution entries for dynamic track with a dependency on a bespoke shape in the route shapes directory is because of Dynatrax.

On the few routes I used Dynatrax I've already reverted the entries using that program's reversion feature. If the undo file no longer exists, that could be difficult to do by hand.

What might be useful for GenX is to replicate that capabilitu without the reversion file. Its a matter of replacing the individual TrackObj entries with DynTrack entries in the W file using the references from the route TSection entries.

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[rrdiesel87]

Yes, when I originally started this route upgrade project a few years ago, I had used both the original route and the US Tracks upgrade by Dave Richtmetyer (File ID 77308) as the basis. His conversion used Dynatrax . As of right now it seems that I am locked in keeping the folder name "Horseshoe" because of this. Ideally, it would be good to change this to "Horseshoe v2.0" or something to avoid conflicts with anyone who retains the original route.

[baldwin]

You could use Dynatrax to convert the static shapes back to live dynamic tracks, rename the route. them convert back to Dynatrax. You could also leave the normal dynamic tracks in place after renaming the route.

[scottb613]

Hi Eric,

Yep - I can probably do that as well - I’ve already reworked the improved Dynamic Track FLEX algorithm from the S-curve Dynamic Track to make more reliable connections on grades. I know the end points - so swapping out the track should be manageable. I can’t think of any reason to keep Dynatrax Shapes in a route.

I’ll also add a function to rename a route - without all the hoopla involved with doing it manually.

Regards,
Scott

[eric]

Yes, when I originally started this route upgrade project a few years ago, I had used both the original route and the US Tracks upgrade by Dave Richtmetyer (File ID 77308) as the basis. His conversion used Dynatrax . As of right now it seems that I am locked in keeping the folder name "Horseshoe" because of this. Ideally, it would be good to change this to "Horseshoe v2.0" or something to avoid conflicts with anyone who retains the original route.

There is no need to do a conversion just to rename a folder. Use a tool like GrepWin and you can do a search/replace in a matter of seconds across the entire world folder.

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[wwhall]

I've made multiple copies of the same route where, for example, I wanted to use different winter textures than the original. I would just rename the route folder to the "new" version of the route--for example the XYZ route to XYZ_V2 route. Then I would just change the file names of the .rdb, .ref, .tdb, .rit, .tit, and .trk files to the "new" version of the route. I believe that the only file of those that required a file edit was the .trk file, to change the Route ID and Name within the file to match the "new" version. One would need to change the Route ID, etc. in .act files for them to be recognized by OR for the "new" route.

[wwhall]

I'm also curious--will the upgraded Horseshoe vegetation have winter textures? Horseshoe is a route that I love to run in winter.

On an unrelated question, has anyone ever modeled the Conemaugh & Black Lick Railroad locomotives?