Custom Tracks for TSRE5

[Trainfan1292]

I was wondering if its possible to create custom track pieces for routes in TSRE5? Any help is appreciated

[eric]

Yes, it is. That's the short answer.

The much longer answer is that creating track shapes requires a little bit of planning and coordination if you are planning to release a route or modification for others to be able to enjoy. It requires either reusing an existing definition from the TSection file or getting your own allocation.

What type of tracks are you looking to add?

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

[landnrailroader]

Since we are on the subject of tracks in TSRE, I have installed TSRE on my upgraded PC and it appears that I won't be using
MSTS/RE anymore on this higher performance machine, though I have it still on a backup PC running Win/XP that is not attached to anything outside of my office. I use M-tracks but I notice that in TSRE, apparently only the "A" tracks are recognized. I do not see anything else and this was the case before I upgraded the PC, mainly to move to Win-10 while I still could. So my question is what do I have to adjust in order to see the "M" series in the track selection pull down.

One improvement this new system has done is that now the "jerky" nature of the mouse seems to have disappeared.

J. H. Sullivan
(landnrailroader)

[kapitaen]

Click on the down arrow next to a1t (red). Then you can select all mTracks variants (blue). But these must also be installed in ...\GLOBAL\SHAPES.

[landnrailroader]

I thought I got the latest version of TSRE5, I got V0.7.001 and I see yours is .003. I was able to select the down arrow and it brought up a series of partial names. When I selected M1, I then got all of the M1-- pieces displayed.

I have come to brickwall/bite bullet time in that my PC is upgraded to Win-10 but nothing I try gets MSTS to work so I think the issue may be out dated Div-X material. So rather than make a new upgrade, otherwise obsolete, I guess I best put MSTS to bed (still have it on a backup PC running Win-XP) and get serious with TSRE5 which I use already to precision align items such as bridge pieces to the track. Time to start messing with the "test" route that I have. Thanks for the help.

J. H. Sullivan, Florida, USA
retired, now a docent on the C&TS RR.

[eric]

The last version is 7.012 -- a few tweaks that I'd requested made it into that version.

[landnrailroader]

Eric,

Is that version in a different place than the rest. I went to the usual place and downloaded the highest number
version. What I got is probably okay except that when I launch it, two windows appear. A big one sorta ini the
background that is just black, and then the regular window in front, slightly smaller. If I delete the black window
it kills TSRE totally, but I can collapse it.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

My bad, I took the version at the top of the list without thinking. Must be my 84 year old processor had a stuck bit.

Jerry

[eric]

Yup, that black console screen was a bug that Goku intended to correct and didn't get around to.

I've been using 0.7.012 since it came out, and have been fairly happy with it. Only a few things still missing that I've learned to live with.

[landnrailroader]

Mine is not completely blank. It has one line of text at the top that indicates it has something to do with the
startup data file. Question Eric, what is the ----arch file, and if we use it, how is it to be massaged.

[eric]

Yes... the console screen should say "settings.txt" and nothing else.

Haven't seen the ----arch file... where is that?

[Pecho Lata]

arch file is for linux machines

[landnrailroader]

Well, I don't mess with Linux, never did, but I was once proficient in Unix which was the operating system on graphics terminals that I was responsible for at Chessie System/CSX from 11/80 to sometime around 1995, when our CADD software was ported to Windows and after that we just needed large monitors, or dual monitors. Then it was a client/server system.

J. H. Sullivan
(aka landnrailroader)

[muskokaandtahoe]

Do you mean "new tracks" to be something never before crafted (e.g., 476m long) or do you mean tracks that are the same dimensions as existing track but look different?

The answer is important because the solution is very, very different for each answer.

IF you are talking about shapes that have never been defined you will need to get a range of numbers in the tsection file. You put in the definitions and make and test all of the new shapes. When you are sure they all work you send their data off to the tsection admin.

OTOH, if all you want is track that looks different (e.g., your own skins, or multiple different skins) then what you do is copy/paste the shapes you want to be different into a temp folder, uncompress them, and then edit out the current texture name and replace it with one of your own. This is easily done with an editor that can to search and replace on a set of files. Then you have to rename them to your own naming convention. There are utilities that will do a lot of files at once, so you can change "SR_" to "My_". Once this is done, compress them and move them into your routes /shapes folder.

In TSRE you lay the original track shapes and then you use the edit name function and put in your replacement shape. You MUST put in the path to the \shapes folder. Done. OR you could open up the world file and rename the shapes there. The end result should look like this:

FileName ( ../../routes/Goose_Island/shapes/MR_CA_Ss_1Lb_21x010m.s )

This later method does not require crafting new shapes, just editing existing shapes. I have used this technique to re-ballast tracks used by different railroads. I have also used it for substituting road shapes with my own skins. The reason it works is because the original shapes, as defined in the tsection file, are laid first. That puts their dimensional data into the .tdb and .rdb. What your work does is reuse those dimensions and change only the shape that is displayed. There is no change to the .tdb.

[landnrailroader]

I do it a more brute force way. I use transfers to make what I can sub-ballast under the track shapes. Since these can be fairly easily made different colors, etc. I use a grey gravel texture for NS track because SR, then NS, use Granite ballast which when clean appears almost white. CSX, uses a differnt type of rock which has a more mottled appearance and so I used something close that someone else had
created. Lastly for poor quality track, such as the later years of the Milwaukee Rd. I use a sort of pink color that Lukas Lussar created
for the RMD series of routes. Yes, I know this method is tedious and you could, in TSRE, paint the sub-ballast but the downside of that is you create a lot of large texture files doing it which bloats the size of the route. I had been putting the transfers in place, roughly, for 5 miles or so, using MSTS/RE and then aligning the tangent pieces to the track with TSRE but since I am unable to get MSTS to run on my upgraded (to Win-10) machine, I may use my antique Win-XP, non connect to Internet, machine or just do it all on TSRE because my
XP machine occasionally damages a flash-drive beyond repair, though I can use DVDs to transfer the data.

J. H. Sullivan