| Note: You can create your own snap point blueprints and configure various settings for these. To use your own blueprints, you will have to manually add the snap points with the names you gave them in 3ds max as children of the blueprint, e.g. #ss_SnapOut2 would be named SnapOut2. You assign your custom snap point blueprint as the blueprint and hit export. The blueprint editor will match the names of the snap points in the model to the ones in the blueprint and override their matrices automatically. |
Audio Curve Editor
Rather than manually entering X and Y values to create curves, a new audio curve editing tool has been added to the blueprint editor. Curve containers have been replaced with simple elements that can be edited using the new curve editor. To edit the curve, click on the “...” button in the value column. This will open up the curve editor.
Naming the Curve
The name of the curve is entered in the text box at the top. This should be a unique name to reference in a pitch/volume modifier in the blueprint.
Adding a Point
To add a point, simply click in an empty area on the grid and a point will be placed at that location.
Selecting a Point
When a point is added, it is automatically selected. To select a different point, just click on it.
Moving a Point
To move a point, drag it around the grid or manually enter coordinates at the bottom.
- You cannot move a point on the X-axis past another point, as all points are expected to be in order along the X-axis.
- A point will not move unless you drag it more than 4 pixels in any direction from the point you started dragging. This helps prevent points inadvertently moving after you select them.
Scrolling the Grid
Hold down the right mouse button on the grid to scroll around.
Scaling the Grid
You can scale the grid uniformly by using the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Alternatively, you can manually enter an X or Y scale value on the right.
Viewing the Entire Curve
To make all curve points visible on the grid, click on the buttons on the right of the scale text boxes. This will scale each axis to make all points fit in the grid, and centre the grid between these points.
Deleting a Point
Select a point and press the delete key.
Drag Driver Icon
You can now transfer a driver, along with their instructions, from one consist to another. First, left click the driver icon you wish to transfer, then hold and drag the icon to either the front or rear rail vehicle of the new consist you wish to assign. When you release the mouse the driver icon and instruction icons should update to appear attached to the new consist.
| Note: this may produce new scenario load errors because the instruction set is incompatible with the new consist or because the re-pathing has failed (e.g. moving the driver to another consist that is situated on an isolated piece of track, the dispatcher would not be able to locate the final destination). These errors will need to be resolved manually. |
Snap to Track
The snap terrain to track tool has been adapted to snap to either lofts, roads or track or a combination. This is controlled by the 3 tick boxes now added in the options fly out with the brick wall, road and track icons.
Pinned Flyouts
The state of the pin is now saved to the player profile.
Whistle Sign
There’s a new blueprint, Whistle Sign, which is very similar to a milepost. To use, place the sign and link it to the track, making sure the arrow is pointing toward the hazard you are protecting.
In a career scenario, there is a new text box on the scenario properties scoring panel. Enter the points you want to be deducted if the player fails to use the horn/whistle 50 metres either side of the sign.
The points will show as an operational error on the debrief screen.
The whistle sign will appear on the track profile display, and the map icon is customisable through the map blueprint. The whistle is filtered with the mileposts checkbox.
Object Placement Tool Enhancements
The object placement options now contain three new options:
Auto Rotate
When ticked assets are placed down with an automatically generated random rotation about the y-axis.
Auto Scale
When ticked assets are placed down with a random scale on the y-axis, controlled by the corresponding edit box which takes a value between 0% and 100% for the max variance in scale. (Only applies to scalable assets)
Auto Offset
When ticked assets are placed down with an offset in the y-axis from the terrain, controlled by the value in the corresponding edit box.
These options default to off and are saved to the player profile.
Asset Block Enhancements
The asset block tool has a number of new features:
Distribution
There are now three different options available in a drop-down menu controlling the random distribution of the assets.
- Uniform random: The same distribution used in TS13 and the default, assets are randomly offset from a uniform grid creating a rectangular layout with few intersecting assets.
- Random: Assets are randomly placed throughout the area in an irregular pattern and may intersect and clump together.
- Angular random: Assets are laid out with a random angle and offset from the centre of the block to give a roughly elliptical shape with a bias towards assets closer to the centre of the block
Blueprint 2
A second blueprint can be chosen to distribute 2 assets over the block. The corresponding slider controls the ratio of each asset.
Regenerate
Creates a new random distribution.
Edit elements
Where the above option does not give enough fine control it may be necessary to move some individual assets in the block to get a nicer or less overlapping appearance.
On pressing the edit elements button the assets are given a grey block gizmo which can be dragged on the terrain to adjust their position.
- This should only be done after setting the other options as randomise, a change of distribution or a size change will lose these changes.
- Assets should be kept roughly inside the asset block extent to avoid clipping problems.
Irregular Asset Blocks
Also added is a new asset block variant known as the Irregular Asset Block, this is selected from the browser and has the name Asset Block (Irregular). These work in a very similar fashion to normal asset block but rather than having a plain rectangular area can be any polygonal shape.
Placement
Irregular asset blocks are placed by left mouse clicking on the terrain for firstly a starting point for the outline followed by a further minimum of 2 clicks to define the final outline. Right-clicking completes the process.
Editing
When selected the outline will highlight in red and gizmos will appear at the corners, these may be dragged to adjust the shape.
To delete a point tap delete while dragging it.
To add an extra point select the adjacent point while holding CTRL.
Limitations
Irregular asset blocks can define both convex and reflex polygons but may not have holes or overlapping edges. The blue lines show the separate triangles of the area and if not present indicate an error.
Editable filler blocks
New in TS15 is Textured Block Assets, these have a corresponding blueprint and are placeable block assets for simple filler geometry in the game.
Blueprint
A new blueprint type has been added called Texture Block Asset Blueprint, this represents the archetype of the asset.
Here the initial dimension and textures, as well as the UV mapping scale, can be set.
Editor Properties
While a new variant can be created with a unique blueprint a single default archetype is included in the Kuju\RailSimulatorCore blueprint set called simply Textured Asset Block this can be altered in the editor.
Size can be controlled either by the size properties in the fly out or using the interactive volume editing gizmo handles.
The shading is done using the standard material TrainBasicObjectDiffuse.fx
Passenger Removal
A new feature has been added that allows you to unload passengers on a train either from the start of the scenario or when a ‘pick-up-passengers’ instruction has been executed. There are four new checkboxes available in the editor allowing you to accomplish this:
The first two checkboxes are located in the driver properties dialogs, accessed either by double-clicking the driver icon attached to the train (which will bring out a fly out dialog box) or by opening up the timetable view and selecting the driver icon (first instruction).
Selecting either of these checkboxes will mean that passengers will initially be unloaded from the consist when the scenario begins.
The next two checkboxes are located in the ‘pick-up-passengers’ instruction dialogs.
Selecting either of these checkboxes will mean that passengers will be unloaded at this stop, i.e. they will visually be removed from the train after the instruction is completed. If you do not check this box then the opposite will happen; passengers will be added to the train, that is if they have been previously removed or the scenario did not start with passengers loaded (the first checkbox ticked).
These checkboxes are disabled by default which means that passengers will always be visible throughout the scenario if they are not switched on at any point.
Note: When creating the rail vehicle asset the passenger's node should be labelled ‘Passengers’ in order for this feature to work correctly
Terrain Texture Preview
A new display mode has been added to the terrain paint tools dialog allowing you to preview terrain textures before dropping them onto the terrain. If you open the terrain paint tools dialog you will notice two new buttons have been added. These allow you to toggle the display-mode of the texture collection.
If you hover the mouse over a specific tile it will also display the name of the texture and when selected
will update the selected text at the bottom of the dialog.
Headlight Combinations
You can now have multiple headlight configurations for a given rail vehicle. Each rail vehicle model currently has child nodes attached to it whose names end in one of the following suffixes:
_fwdhead
_fwdtail
_revhead
_revtail
These indicate that this node will be used as a light and that it should be activated or deactivated depending on certain gameplay conditions and user input. Light entities will also be attached to the rail vehicle entity and will be bound to these nodes above based on naming convention; their names will have the following suffixes:
Fwd_Headlight
Fwd_Taillight
Bwd_Headlight
Bwd_Taillight
and will be bound respectively in that order (e.g. the “Light_Fwd_Headlight” light will be activated/deactivated when the “light_fwdhead” node is activated/deactivated).
The new system allows for multiple lights to be attached to each model node by suffixing the index of the model node to the name like so:
Fwd_Headlight[node_index][light_index] (ignoring the [])
where node_index is the index of the model node (see below) and light_index is the index of this particular light (which is not really necessary but good practice) e.g.: ‘Light_Fwd_Headlight02’ indicates that this is the second light (2) associated with the 1st (0) node in the rail vehicle model; when this node is activated/deactivated so too will this light.
The index (0) is now specified at the end of the name of the node in the model e.g. light_fwdhead00
This value can be between 0 and 99, therefore, you can have 100 different light configurations.
| Note: This is not really an index but rather an ID as they follow no particular order e.g. the (0) index above could have been 1, 2, 3 …. etc. so long as it matched up with the value that followed _fwdhead00. |
When using this new naming convention (or more specifically: if the max value of the ‘Headlights’ control value in the rail vehicles’ control container is greater than 2.0) the headlight button on the HUD will now cycle through all available headlight configurations in the order of: Off, Taillights, Headlight01, Headlight02, Headlight03 etc…
| Note: The naming conventions will only apply to the Headlights (i.e. the _fwdhead, _revhead and Fwd_Headlight, Bwd_Headlight nodes) as the taillights only have one place in the above list. Really, these could be replaced by a headlight configuration but this was what was requested in the specification. Also, if the ‘Headlights’ control value is set to 2.0 in the rail vehicle then everything will remain the same as usual. |
Copy Blueprint Set Tool
A tool has been added to the Blueprint Editor to allow copying files or folders from one blueprint set to another with automatic fix up of provider/product entries and copying of all dependencies.
Copying a File or Folder
- Select a blueprint or folder you would like to copy to a different blueprint set
- Right-click, and select Copy to Blueprint Set…
- A dialog box will be shown, displaying the path of the blueprint or folder being copied. Enter a new provider and product in the boxes and click Next
- The dialog will scan for files to copy. This not only includes the selected files, but also any files that are referenced, including textures, geometry, child entities and seasonal variations.
- Once finished, the dialog will display “Complete!” and can then be closed.
- All copied files will be visible immediately under the new provider/product
Conflicting File Names
If files already exist with the same name under the new provider/product, you will have the option to overwrite or skip these files.
Improved Control State Dialog
The control list dialog (activated using the -ShowControlStateDialog command line switch) has been improved to display control values for all vehicles in a consist. This is especially useful for ensuring control values are set correctly through consist messages.
New buttons:
- Back - view the previous vehicle in the consist.
- Current - view the current vehicle with key in the consist
- Next - view the next vehicle in the consist
Highlight Collision Volumes
You can now toggle a highlight for platform collision volumes on and off by pressing the minus (-) key on the keyboard in edit mode.
Removed Pause Menu
Pressing the ‘Pause’ Key in-game will now pause/unpause the game without displaying the pause menu.
Restart Scenario
A new menu item has been added to the pause menu allowing the user to restart the scenario at any time.
Rolling Start
A new option has been added to the scenario properties panel to do rolling starts, this tick box enables the scenario creator to create a new save file for the starting state of the player consist allowing the game to start with a moving consist.
Workflow:
- Author scenario as usual.
- Tick the tick box in the scenario properties fly out to enable rolling start.
- Play scenario until the player train is at the required speed.
- Ctrl - F2 opens a new save dialogue and saves a rolling start save file.
- To replace this manually delete the file StartingSave.bin from the scenario folder.
- For career scenarios rolling starts require the editor version of the build.
- To distribute include the files StartingSave.bin and StartingSave.bin.4md5
Limitations and Considerations:
- Only the player consist state and camera are saved
- Junctions should be preset appropriately and saved in the initial save
- No consist operations should be performed as the save assumes the consist matches the initial loaded state of the scenario.
Hidden Instructions
A new tick box has been added to the instruction properties dialogue which is used to hide an instruction from the task list. This might be used for example to hide instructions that should only be revealed after an event has occurred later in the scenario. Unhiding is done by the new script function:
ScenarioManager:UnhideDriverInstruction ( index )
