It just so happens

I need to make a new set of characters, so I may well get round to finishing these character posts..
:)

How to: Characters - Part 01

This is a subject I have promised to talk about for a very long time.
Sorry for those of you that have been waiting, and by now most of you that wanted to know already figured it out.

However before I get into the skinning and rigging details...

Does anyone want to know how we go about modelling/texturing a basic character?

By modern standards the characters in TS are very basic but that is ok as they are not the stars of the show.

You can however get some fantastic results but you really need to put the time into it, modelling a great character can take as long as modelling a very detailed engine and cab.

While I can model characters, I am very much a generalist artist and not an expert in character modelling or animation. There are many tutorials on how you can create wonderful characters/faces and clothing, but as time is not something I have much of I will only really touch on the basics.

There are two types of blue prints that can be used for animated characters.

• - Anim scenery blue print

Anim scenery blue print can be used for simple looped animations. These objects appear in the browser list and can be placed as normal animated scenery objects.

• - Anim procedural scenery blue print

Anim procedural scenery blue print is somewhat more complicated, they are used for Platform passengers and these characters do not appear in the browser list.

Anim procedural scenery blue prints get referenced by a Platform characters blueprint (This specifies population and character types)

Platform characters blueprint is then referenced by Platform section blueprint.

Platform section blue print is the loft shape that gets laid in game.

But before we get into all of that we need to set up our basic folder structure.

Within your Source folder structure Provider/Product/Scenery folder create a new folder called 'Characters' and within that folder create another folder called 'Textures'

Now we are ready to begin!

Q and A

I have not kept up this Blog for ages and stuff has moved on.

Feel free to ask questions and I will try my very best to answer them. I will check once a week for questions.

If I am unable to answer your questions then I will phone a friend, but they are not always available so no promises.

cheers
d

DDS type

I notice a few people are unsure what DDS type to use in photoshop,
Use the ARGB or XRGB for textures without an alpha channel.

See photoshop settings below:

d

do you have the latest 3DS max shaders?

I have noticed a few don't, but everyone has them.

in:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\railworks\dev\Shaders

copy 2 files,  ShaderDesc.txt and App.fbk into your 3DS max plugcfg folder. (the one in users)

C:\Users\RSderek\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\2011 - 32bit\enu\plugcfg

The last shader in the kuju list should be: TrainShadowOnlyDiffuse.fx

regards

Derek

Quiet?

This blog is my own personal one and not an rs one. I update it when I want,can or requested.
I have my own personal projects on the go as well as a full quota at work. That coupled with football, painting and family leaves me little time.

D

Mapping a simple building in 3DS max

In the previous post I talked about General texturing. I skipped the bit about mapping, sorry.

There are a number of ways to map/edit textures to polygons, and I use different methods depending on what it is I am modelling.

Here I will show you how to model a simple Farm building, It will be done in a few parts as each post takes a little time.

I will be using the same textures as the previous post. the texture is 1024 pixels high and 512 pixels wide. 2-1 ratio.

I create a box in max in the top view.
Length 5M
Width 5M
Height 10M

and I make sure Generate Mapping Coords is ticked.

I create a new kuju material (tex diff will do for now) and apply it to the object.

I convert the model to edit poly and in the front view I select the edit poly option and detach the front polygon, then delete the original shape so that I am left with a flat plane facing forwards, this is going to be the front of my building.

I select the poly option and select Slice in the modifier list.

Right click the orange slice plane and select slice plane.

This allows you to rotate and move the place around the object, if you have followed these steps the slice plane should be cutting your polygon through the middle in the horizontal plane.

I move my slice plane down to the bottom of my wall.

However I want to slice my polygon a number of times so I need to copy the slice plane.
I click on the slice plane in the modifier stack.

I then click on the modifier stack again and select paste.

Repeat the process of moving the slice plane to where you want to cut next.

Once done I collapse the stack and make the object edit poly again.

I now select each polygon and detach them till I have 4 different objects.
These 4 objects are all that is needed to make your basic shape.
Windows and doors will be cut in later.
I select the wall section and hide the other 3 objects.
I move the wall down till it is centered at 0.

I select line in the modifier window (1) and I tick the preserve UVs (2)

Now then as i want my building to be longer than 5 M's so I am going to drag the right hand edge. Because we have the preserved UV button ticked and our polygon is mapped perfectly you will see no distortion in the mapping as you make the wall as long as you want.

Once you have made the wall as long as you want un tick the  preserve UV button.


End of Part 1

Thursday

Two Rules Of Success In Life:
1. Don't Tell People Everything You Know...

General Texturing

There is no right or wrong way to lay out a texture.
You can unwrap every polygon and give it it's own space on your UV unwrap but that is a huge waste of space and just not needed for most assets.
However, as I started texturing back in 1995 a 32/32 sized bit map was a big deal and I am always looking to get the most out of my textures.

Do more with less better.

You can of course make the best/largest texture you can for each asset no matter what the size or where it would be used on your route, however your memory footprint will become a huge problem, as is seen on many freeware projects where the user has ticked the set object filter tab and added loads of different packs from many different creators.

My advice for route builders, only add what you need, or even better, set up your own provider product and make (or ask someone to make) what you need. This way you are in control of what gets loaded.
As a route builder you have to think about the trade off between detail and performance.

Asset builders, give some thought to what you are building and make sensible packs (if you intend to share) that contain a selection of useful and relevant assets that can share textures.
Of course not all assets can share textures but often you don't need to use a high res texture to get good detail.
Buildings and assets that are track side tend to get more detail and texture allocation than those further away from the track.

Generally it is best to have 1 asset 1 texture and 1 material. as that is 1 draw call. However it is rare where you can get away with this for most assets.
For the majority of my assets I use a texture layout that I often refer to as a ‘layered cake’ method because of the stacked horizontal strips of texture.

This approach allows me to tile the texture in the ‘U’ direction allowing a higher texel size.
For scenery assets I often make the texture before i make the 3D model. I think about the building I want to make. I often make these textures 1024/512 pixel size.

Example of farm building:

I have a photograph of a building I want to make, it is made of stone and has a tiled roof and a side building with a corrugated steel roof. It also has a selection of doors and windows all painted green.

I make the wall material and the 2 roof materials along with a thing structural support type material for beams and put this into 1 texture.
Note, it is also wise to not mix wall and roof textures on upright and horizontal surfaces if you plan on making winter variations.

So, once I have made my base texture I then make my simple building.

This building is all tiled in the U so can be as long or as deep as you wish.
However, you can see at the end there is a visible join where I have added the apex section. To get rid of this I sliced the end section and shifted the mapping in the vertical. This method can be used to make your building taller, shifting the mapping in the U slightly on each layer can also help reduce and visible tiling.

I then mirrored the front and side to have a textured building shaped box.
Now that I have my basic shape I make a second texture, this I call my detail texture

The detail textures I often make 512/512, however it does really depend on the size of building and how many different types of buildings you want to apply these textures too.

Once I have my selection of doors and windows I cut my doors and windows into my simple shape.

I add elements for window and door supports.
These 2 textures can then be used to make a whole selection of farm buildings.

I then unwrap and shadow bake the whole object and use the trainlightmapwithdiffuse material (explained earlier in this blog)

Changing one of the textures can then give you a whole new building:

Changing 2 textures can make it feel even more different and of course you can mix and match and make many different shapes of buildings with the same textures:

Each building I would make it's own shadow map of about 256/256 pixel size.

So for a small cost of textures/polygons you get a wide and varied range of detailed buildings.

d

What next?

Ok, open to suggestions. What on the art front has you stumped? Lofts? Track? fancy train shaders? animations or just some hints tips on modelling?
Feel free to request.

regards

Derek

How to make a Platform light with emmisive glow

In the route of your ‘Provider’ make a new folder called Lights. This is where you will keep the max, igs and xml files.

In the Lights folder make a Texture folder. This is where you will keep your textures

Step 1: Gizmo creation

We need to make a Point light gizmo.

This is what we will use to determine where the light effect gets generated from. This gizmo you will be able to move around in the Asset editor.

I have made a 30cm Diameter sphere with a Tex material, the texture is a bright pale yellow, 64/64 pixels, planar mapped from the top.

This I centred at 0/0/0 in max.

Export this into a igs file.

point_light.IGS

Step 2 Make the point light xml.

Right click the point_light.IGS in the asset editor and click new shape blueprint and select point light blueprint.

Treat this just like any other scenery object, name it in the relevant fields, and give it a provider product in Primary named texture set.

In the light component section give the light a radius, I have given mine 10 (M)

Give your light a colour, I picked a warm yellow/orange.

Click Save.

Preview your shape and you will have your object in front of you. Click the Day/Night cycle button in the top left flyout menu. Your object should glow (because of the tex material)

Select your object and lift it up in the scene. You will see that it now emanates light. Experiment with the light and radius values to get the desired effect you want.

Step 3: Light Asset Creation.

There will be at least 3 objects in your scene but 5 materials:

Objects in scene:

1_0500_LampPost

1_0500_bulb_day

1_0500_bulb_night (with Forward facing glow element)

I have a 4^th object which is the glass.

1_0050_glass

Materials used:

Material 1 used on  1_0500_LampPost. It can have any material you want, I have a TrainBasicObjectDiffuse. It uses 1 256/256 texture which I boxed mapped.

Material 2 used on 1_0500_bulb_day. It can have a tex or a TrainBasicObjectDiffuse. It uses 1 32/128 texture which I planar mapped.

Material 3 used on 1_0050_glass. It has the Trainglass.fx shader explained in a previous blog post.

Material 4 used on 1_0500_bulb_night This uses the TrainEmissiveGlow.fx shader

In the sub material slot 1 I have a diffuse texture very much like bulb day texture. However I colour the bulb section yellow (this is used for the colour of the glow) Name this texture Bulb.ace

In the sub material slot 2 (making sure the same UV channel is used (1)) I have a texture that is the same size as my bulb texture but it is black and white. The white area defines the glow area, the black is the non glow area. name this texture with Bulb_EM.ace

There is a second element (but part of the same object) to 1_0500_bulb_night which is a simple plane centered through the bulb.

This plane uses material slot 5 which is AddATex. The texture is all black except for a faint glow in the centre. make sure you name this with _nm so that it does not get compressed.

This material has the View facing flag ticked under the Viewer Facing options.

Save the max file and export as an IGS, I called mine Platform_light.IGS

NB The bulbs are named so that the day bulb will show during the day and the night bulb will show at night.

Step 4: Bringing it all together.

In the asset Editor right click the platform_light.igs and select New shape blueprint, then select scenery blueprint.

Preview shape, you lamp should be as you expect it. Click on the day/night button and see your bulb glow.

Name the relevant fields, and give it a provider product in Primary named texture set. Expand Children and click insert first.

Give the Child name/provider product and select your previously made point light and click preview.

Your point light orb will be at 0/0/0 select it and move to the correct place. 

Click Save and Export.

Your light should now be viewable in game.

regards

Derek

TrainEmissiveGlow.fx

Anyone want to know about TrainEmissiveGlow.fx?

TrainLightBumpSpecMask

I have seen a few people confused on new shaders, also seen one person post up how it does not work when it is clear he has his material set up wrong.

So, here I am to teach those who want to get their learn on.

TrainLightBumpSpecMask

Use this shader on scenery objects that require normal maps, specular maps and ambient occlusion maps.

Ambient occlusion

In basic terms, when creating these assets, think of an ambient occlusion map as a shadow-map. Light areas of the map are unaffected and dark areas of the map represent the shadowy areas (under gutters or in crevices).

The Shader

Use this shader on foreground buildings. Group assets that are built specifically for use as a background object should not use this material.

Slot 1 is the diffuse texture. (1st mapping channel)

Slot 2 is the normal map (24bit) with specular map (8bit) in the alpha channel. (1st mapping channel)

Slot 3 is the Ambient Occlusion map. (second map channel (shadow/lightbake))

Generally, make slot 1 and slot 2 share the same UV channel 1, and the Ambient Occlusion map have a second UV mapping channel 2. This allows for the same flexibility as when using the old shadow-map technique on the old legacy assets.

Example

Trackside Buildings

One thing to understand about this material and Trainlightmap with Diffuse, surfaces that point upwards the shadow bake gets washed out by the sun because it is a light.

If the same shadow/light map was applied to a vertical surface in stead of a horizontal one the shadow is more pronounced. (see image 3)

Shining a torch in a shadowed baked area now gets lit up, you would not expect to see a soft shadow that was generated from a global light would you?

Example of the occlusion map.

Once you have your materials set up correctly you can see how it looks.

This is a great shader to use on stations or any other track side buildings. Buildings away from the track really do not need this material.

regards

Derek

RW Ace tool

New Version now for download on our website under art plugins:

http://www.railsimulator.com/support.php

Fixed mipping problems on terrain textures. (thank you Ben!)

cheers

Derek

WANG: PART 7

The cool thing about the terrain system is you can specify a different texture per season.
Also you don't have to make seasonal variations of each texture, you can just reference what you hvae in your list.

So, in my little test route using the same methods in earlier posts I made a Snow, Mud and meadow texture sets. I then referenced them on the season slots for mix map 1.
So, where every the grass is sprayed, in spring there will be a meadow, Autumn there will be mud and in winter there will be snow.

A good example of this in RWs is where we have a ploughed field in Spring, Cornfield in Summer, mud in Autumn with snow in winter. This really does help give your routes a different feel when driving in the different seasons. (Of course if you have a procedural grass texture you must take into account the changes and make season variations of the grass. (look out for further posts))



Spring



Summer



Autumn



Winter

Regards

Derek

WANG: PART 6

Ok, we are nearly there so hang on in there.

Load up RailWorks and Start the game.
Click on Routes, then New Routes.
Choose a template, for now just pick Default, (but the choice is yours) Click Create and give your Route a name, I called mine Bishop. Click ok and an empty route will load up with the default textures.

Close RailWorks.

Navigate to your Route folder. (something like: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\railworks\Content\Routes )

Organise the folder by date, your new route will be at the top, I rename my route folders so I know which one is which. I added BISH in the second set of digits.

Inside that folder is a RouteProperties.xml

We are going to edit this file using Notepadd++ and reference our new terrain xml.

PLease note the correct way to do this is to set up your own Route template that is discussed on the WIKI

Ok, now that I am breaking all my own rules, please Note... Take care editing any xml in Notepadd++

1. Open the RouteProperties.xml in a text editor such as Notepad++
2. Browse to the following. I have highlighted the important bits in RED:

(Click on image below for higher res image)

3. Change the parts highlighted in red to match the location (including product and provider) of the exported texturing file you have created.
4. Save the RouteProperties.xml then run RailWorks and load the route. Your new terrain textures should now be available.
5. If your new texturing file is in a provider/product which is not preloaded, you should tick it in the object set filters for that route so that it is preloaded next time.

So this is where the fun started.

With Ben's RW Ace tool it worked great but I had an issue with the last mip. I have emailed Ben to see if he can improve the situation. Will keep users posted.

So I reverted back to the trusty ToAce by Paul Guasden, only to find out the problems of using the 64 bit system. I'm sure there is a work-a-round for this but at midnight and no tech help I just left it alone.

Time to boot up the trusty xp machine to convert the tga files.

And here is the result. Not the smooth ending I wanted but got there thanks to Ben and Paul's tools.

Note that no spraying/painting was used on the below image, all of that was because of the values we put in the xml.

By going through this process I certainly have felt users pain if they do not have photoshop.

All noted for sure.

So thats the end of Wang, next up procedural grass.

regards

Derek

WANG: PART 5

Before we start the next chapter it is wise to make a further 3 sets of textures.

1 - Grass. This will be your mid ground cover and the texture you see when you first load up the route. (assuming you are just above sea level, these values can be changed and will be explained)
2 - Sand. This I am using for the ground below sea level.
3 - Dry grass. This I am using for my upper ground.
4 - Small stones. (made in part 2) This we are using as our Rock gradient.

Adam explained it when we made Phorum a few months back, for reference Here is his post.

So, lets make our new terrain xml.

In your source folder, located somewhere like this (depending on where you have the game saved)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\railworks\Source
Make a Provider/Product folder set up so it looks like this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\railworks\Source\RSderek\Bishop\Environment\Terrain

RSderek the provider and Bishop is the poduct.
Within that Bishop Folder make an Environment folder then a Terrain Folder.

Within that Terrain folder you can make other folders to seperate out your various textures so that they are easy to find, Grass, Rock, sand, urban, etc etc.

To begin with I made a folder called Core. Here I copied the 4 main textures needed to set up the route. (You don't need to set up 4, you can ref the same texture for all sections but a bit pointless as you would not see anything... :) )

Now the fun begins. Load up RWs and start the Blueprint editor.

Navigate to your Terrain folder and right click the folder, then select new Blueprint.

Scroll down the list to Terrain Texture blueprint, select it then click ok.
Rename the xml, I named mine Terrainset.


Below is an example of my basic parameters, set your something like it, looking back to Adams post for more refference.



For now leave the Procedural flora texture ID blank. (We (you) have not made that yet, this will be covered in a 'Wang epilog' post)

Click Save

Ok, Now to add your Textures to the xml.
Click on the little plus symbol at the top next to the work Mix tex.
This expands the texture area. Right click the texture in the core folder and select copy file name.


In the base texture name slot press Cntrl V to paste the string.
IMPORTANT: remember to remove the _A (it is not needed here)
Fill in the rest of the details like the image below.





Click Save.

Click on the little > icon, this will open up another texture slot, it will need to be filled in as the first. (Make sure you match the correct texture to the ID number given in the low/mid/high texture index.)

Note also that this is the order that the textures will appear in your texture list in game.

When all done click save, then export.

Next in Part 6 Referencing your terrain xml to in your new route.

WANG: PART 4

Just a mini update this morning,

To make an Ace file without photoshop or ACDsee you will need Ben Laws excellent RWAce Tool located on our Website: http://www.railsimulator.com/en/support. under the Railworks art plugins heading.

Once downloaded, follow the install instructions and run the RWAceTool.exe

Click on the single image conversion first, browse for your textures and pick the first _A and click open. Then click view.
Here you can look at RGB texture or the alpha. Close the image down and click back.

Click on the Multiple image conversion.
Click the Add button on the right, then select your 8 textures, then open.
Click the Next button, then the Start button. The process will take a second. Once done click the finish button.
And there you have it your set of Ace files.

Next in Part 5, How to set up your new terrain xml.
Then, in the final Part (6) we will cover how to refference your new terrain xml in your route.

d

WANG: PART 3

Open up Stone_Source01.tga that you saved from PART 2.
We now need to select 8 different areas of this image and make 8 different textures. You can pick any areas you think are suitable, Below is how I picked.



In the toolbox on the left click on the retangle selection tool and draw a box on your image.
We need that image to be 256/256 exactly so type in 256 in the selection box in the lower part of the toolbox. This will need to be done 8 times from the source image.
For each one click Edit/Copy from the top tool bar, then click on File/new on top tool bar.
Type in 256 in the Width and height boxes and click ok.
This opens up a new image. (with it's own top tool bar) Click on the new top tool bar and click Edit/Paste.

Click on File/Save as and type in Sm_Stones01_A Click on the flatten layers and click save.
Do this for all 8 textures, name each one as described in Part 1.

Sm_Stones01_A
Sm_Stones01_B
Sm_Stones01_C
Sm_Stones01_D
Sm_Stones01_E
Sm_Stones01_F
Sm_Stones01_G
Sm_Stones01_H

Once all of that is done close all the images down and open up the REd, Green, Blue and Yellow textures.
Also open up Sm_Stones01_A.

As seen in this image, we need red at the top, green at the bottom, blue on the left and yellow on the right.

Select the free select tool (1) and on the red.tga file left click and draw a triangle around the top section (2)



Click Edit/Copy from the top tool bar, then on the Sm_Stone01_A texture click Edit Paste as/New Layer. Align your new layer to the top edge. (3)

Make sure Snap is on so that your layer is snapped to the edge correctly. (View/Snap to Canvas Edges.)

Now click on the Red Eraser tool, select a circle fuzzy brush about size 15 and dab around edges of new selection so that you blend it in with the image below. You can toggle the layer on and off by clicking on the eye icon in the layers window (see image below)



Follow the above steps for the yellow/Green and blue layers, each time make sure you are happy with the result, you can always delete a layer and redo if not happy.

Once complete you now need to merge layers (you can save as a layered image but I tend not to bother on images that only take a few minutes ot make)

To merge the layers, click on Layer/Merge down on the top tool bar, do this for all layers.

Ok, almost there.

Now we need to make a alpha channel for the texture, (I am still unhappy about this process in Gimp and sure there is a better way)

On Sm_Stone_A top tool bar click on Edit/Copy, then Edit paste as/New layer, then click on Layer/Mask/Add Layer Mask on top tool bar. In the new pop up window click on Grayscale copy of layer, then click Add.

Over in the Layers window click off the background image
and leave just your new layer with a grayscale version which will get saved as your alpha channel.




Click on File/Save as keep the same name, confirm you will be replacing it and that you are saving a layered iamge as a TGA, Click on Merge layers and then click ok (lots to confirm! :) )

Repeat that process for each of your 8 textures, making sure you match the edges to the image seen here you will have a set of textures ready to be converted into Ace files, Well done!

First time round the process takes awhile, however after a few atempts it should take about 15 minutes per texture set.

Next in Part 4: Coverting to Ace using Ben Laws Ace tool and setting up Terrain XML.

regards
derek

WANG: PART 2

Now that we have the basics we need a suitable image to make the textures from.
When I go out and gather my reference pictures I usually take a number of photos of the same area so that I can get variation, however one high res image will usually do.

I have gathered a number of suitable textures already and they are freely available from my flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46897232@N04/

I will be using the small stone floor texture. (see link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46897232@N04/4571961761/sizes/o/

Save this image in a folder on your local drive.
I often make a workspace folder for each terrain texture so that the source files and finished ACE files are kept together till I am finished and they are ready to go in game.

For this I will not be using photoshop but will be using Gimp which is free to download, a quick internet search will find it.

Load up Gimp and open the photo you just saved. Our textures need to be 256/256 pixels in size and at the current resolution the image is not right.

Scale photo

In the tool bar click on Image and then scale image, in the new window reduce image size to 1000 pixels in width and 667 pixels in height, then click the scale button.

Your iamge will shrink on screen too, however you can use the magnifying glass to zoom in which is in the tools window on the left. As you can seen the image is not as crisp as it once was.

Sharpen Image

In the top tool bar click on Filter/Enhance/Sharpen

Move the slider till it is between 30 or 40 and click ok.

Safe image as a TGA file

On the top tool bar click File/Save as and type in Stone_Source01.tga

Another small window pops up about BLE compression, just click the save button without changing any settings.

creating your red,blue,green and yellow source textures

In the toolbox on the left click on the retangle selection tool and draw a box on your image.

We need that image to be 256/256 exactly so type in 256 in the selection box in the lower part of the toolbox.



Now move your selection box around the texture till you have an area that is suitable.

Please note that the aim is to have a texture that is detailed but lacks any large features that would show up once tiled.

Once you have found a suitable area click on Edit/Copy from the top tool bar, then click on File/new on top tool bar.
Type in 256 in the Width and height boxes and click ok.
This opens up a new image. (with it's own top tool bar) Click on the new top tool bar and click Edit/Paste.

Click on File/Save as and type in Red.tga Click on the flatten layers and click save.

Making the texture Tile

We now have an image that needs to tile to work.
Click on Layer/Transform/Offset from the top tool bar, type in 128 in the x and y boxes then click offset.

Now you have a texture that has the edges crossing in the middle of the texure. The good news is your texure will now tile along it's edges. We just need to remove the straight edges from the middle.

Clone brush

The clone brush is a wonderful tool that allows you to select an area of an image and paint it other another area.

Click on the clone tool (see image), select a fuzzy brush and make sure your brush is not to big or small, (15 pixels is about right)



Hold Ctrl down and select an area on your texture. This layers a marker where you will start your clone. Then paint over an area where you can see the square edge.

After you have painted a few details out, hold Ctrl down again and select another area of your texure and paint another straigh edge out. This keeps the area looking natural and random.
Do this till you can not see any straight lines, Click Save.



You now have one of your 4 textures, do the same for Green/yellow and blue textures.
For each one pick a new 256/256 area from your source texture.

While it may feel a little long winded, once you have got upto speed each image should only take a minute or so to make.

Next in PART 3: creating the final 8 textures.