Forest Objects & Transfers

[landnrailroader]

By trial and error, I figured out how to set up the size of Forest objects and transfers and I have to admit that it is easier to do with TSRE than with MSTS/RE. In MSTS/RE you have to select that little green item on a transfer which can be hard, especially if there are other objects nearby. But in doing the sub-ballast on a route I discovered that you can select a transfer just by selecting a point anywhere on it. Then when I got to Forest objects it turned out be be neat how you just key in the sizes of the dimensions rather than dragging one of those handles around. I did find that someone has to be reasonable with the values of number of objects though because there does not seem to be a limit, especially in the number of trees in the area of the object and too many, or too large an area can have bad results. Lukas Lussar pointed out to me some years ago that you had to be careful if a forest object extended over a tile boundary for example, else MSTS crash at that point. So, gradually learning things.
J. H. Sullivan
(aka landnrailroader)

[eric]

When I was still using the MSTS-RE, I'd replaced the forest.s object with a taller cube so that I could more easily select the corners.

Much happier with the ability to quickly enter in the dimensions in addition to the density.

I can't say I've ever noticed a problem with forests extending beyond a tile boundary in either ORTS or TSRE, but Lukas would definitely be one to know.

[landnrailroader]

Eric,

Is there a .ace file viewer around. I notice that I have no problem selecting .ace files for altering the contents of a small tile but I have to work from a list of what they are as I see no way to display them in TSRE. I noticed in the "instruction manual" that there is such a thing listed but the website where it is supposed to be apparently does not exist, or else the item does not.. I am doing as best as I can to put MSTS behind, although I still have it on my emergency backup PC which runs XP and does not connect to the internet (deliberately).

J. H. Sullivan

[eric]

I still use TGATools2A for general ACE viewing. I do recall if you are using the terrain painting tool, ACE files you select should appear around the edges as a pallet.

[pwillard]

If the asset uses a newer DDS file instead of ACE, you can view it with TSRE by adding -shapeview to the command line. The downside though is that I believe it assumes the texture is in the same folder and with scenery that's usually not the case. So you will see an untextured shape if you peruse the scenery folders. Works fine for train folders.