No Winter Textures for Cajon?

[zbobg]

I can't believe this! I'm about to stop wasting my time with RailSim.

There are no winter textures (terrain paint) in the US content. There are also no winter textures for the US track nor for any of the scenery objects.

It does snow in Cajon Pass every winter. Maybe it doesn't stay on the ground for long but it does snow.

Anyway, what this means is that you cannot use only the US content if you want winter textures. I still don't know what happens if I elect to use US AND EU content together. How do the two terrain paint systems work together? If I dare to use a US terrain paint is it going to look just awful in winter when mixed with EU terrain paint? I guess I'm asking if there is a way to separate the two terrain systems even if both sets of content are enabled for a route.

What if I want sand (only in US set) and snow? How do I change the base terrain texture (currently scrub) to use one of the base EU textures which will allow snow in winter? Or do I have to start my route over from the beginning?

Now I'm also going to have to rip up all the US track I've laid and replace it with one of the EU tracksets so as to get snow textures. It's either that or create snow textures for the US track, like that's going to happen.

I'm (so far) thoroughly disappointed with the US content, although the Cajon route itself is OK if you think California never has a winter.

All of these problems with the US content makes it of little value to further development of new routes using that content.

[sniper297]

Not so loud, Just Trains is trying to convince everyone the Cajon addon is worth 40 bucks, you're gonna ruin their scam! :D

Well, it gets worse, out of the box you can use whichever set of terrain textures is "native" to the template you made the route from, not the "foreign" ones. So even if you set the object filter for both, you only get one set of terrain textures. Another thread somewhere they were discussing ways of merging terrain textures so you could use them all, trouble with that is the end user would need the same hack or your route would crash on his system. The Really Silly Dancing Lads have been telling me the EU and US versions are "compatible", :rolleyes: but the US version isn't even INTERNALLY compatible with itself by my standards, so there's obviously a lot of stuff yet to be fixed.

Not exclusive to US stuff tho, the snow track textures don't blend into the terrain very well, extremely unrealistic effect. Turntables don't have snow textures either, and some of the European terrain paint also don't do snow.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1823&stc=1&d=1203997566

Aside from that, if you set the filter on to use US and EU content in the same route it's really not a problem, try the PO&N US or Metro Suburban US routes from the file library here, both have the object set filter on for US and EU content, and both are compatible out of the box with the US version of railsim. :cool:

[zbobg]

I've decided that introducing MORE problems by using the US content in addition to the EU content is a bad thing. So, except for a very special use route and except for the rolling stock, the US content is pretty much unusable.

My current in-work route started out based on the US content. It looks like it is simple enough to edit the blueprint to refer instead to the EU content without blowing up the route.

I have till now only used US track. Again it's easy enough (though slightly tedious) to hack the tracks.bin file to refer to another track model along with hacking the track rule reference as well.

As to any already painted terrain - I don't know what will happen, I'm sure it will look strange. It may be simple to fix - I'm thinking I'll just delete the MixMap (for a tile). Or that could be hacked as well to replace one terrain patch with another.

I don't know how long we'll have to wait for an improved object-set filter. Maybe in the Mk2 patch - but when? So I'm just going to abandon the US content with a few exceptions (mostly a few nice scenery items). I'm also going to play with the terrain.bin files, I have the two 'compatibility' terrain.bin files but I don't know if they solve anything in particular. It should be possible to produce one combined terrain.bin, installed as an add-on, that referred to all the supplied content both EU and US.

I've only installed a couple of scenery items and I think they can stay because they're fully pathed in the tile scenery files.

I do have the two routes you've mentioned, I was going to experiment with them later this evening. I promise to make a backup first.

EA or Kuju or RSDL should provide a full disclosure regarding the capabilities of a particular content set. I don't think I would pay even $20 USD for content that couldn't/wouldn't do winter textures. For free? Yes. For Pay? No!

[sniper297]

No need to make backups, just trash them, delete them, and reinstall, the installation takes about 30 seconds. :D Been fooling with an addon scenario Tom Pallent made, with siding and platform markers that weren't in the original, so I was testing the packaging last night installing the scenario along with the updated tracks.bin file, then deleting and reinstalling PO&N and reinstalling scenario plus tracks.bin a couple dozen times to make sure everything worked correctly. In case you weren't aware, the patch enables you to delete routes just by selecting the route in the game list and hitting the delete key now. :cool:

MixMap, yeah, I found that to clone a route for a "foreign" template now you need to create the new route, set the object filter on for the foreign content, and delete the MixMap folder (or don't copy it) when copying the contents of the original route's folder into the new route's folder, otherwise it will crash. Odd part, testing RS KickStart I found that a route which does not have the filter set on, I can use RS KickStart to replace a European loco with a US loco and it automatically sets the filter on the first time you load a scenario with the "foreign" engine in it. Not sure if that don't work for the scenery objects or it's just too much for it to process, but for a single engine it don't choke on it, and you can add more if you want since once the object filter is on that's all that's needed.

Lack of snow textures don't really bother me, altho I know some guys like it. I spent several hours up on the roof today with a coal shovel and sledge hammer breaking up ice dams so the melting snow will run off instead of pooling and leaking into my kitchen. :mad: In my fantasy world I nearly always drive trains in the summer sunshine, after all SNOW is a four letter word! :eek:

Hopefully they'll get it together, would be nice to have all the terrain paint to use.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1826&stc=1&d=1204002445

I faked this by blending the pebbles and mud together, would look better with actual sand textures.