[eric from trainsim]

Excellent work, sir.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IHEIt-o76Fg/VVfnm5QqdzI/AAAAAAAAaBg/KQ9WL3aA3Sc/s1024/capture__200444.jpg

I like how you filtered all of the track sections in the selection box by prefix. It would be nicer if I could expand on the filter (e.g. SR_3T) or use wildcards (e.g. *end)*) to get a smaller selection list.

Is there a way to get the properties of a given piece, i.e. UiD, XYZQ, terrain object setting?

[R H Steele]

MAN-O-MAN --- :) :) I just opened a route! Very intuitive, got to the correct folders no problem (using V 5.01). Found the junction linked Global folder and all else. Now to delete some shrubbery. ...this is low level stuff here, (meaning my obsession with shrubbery).

What a wonderful sight, a wide screen, full screen route editor.

Great beginning...like the other folks said, you should link up with the team and others to push ahead with this. Probably one of the two most important tools needed...the other being a viable AE.
Great Work, thanks Goku!

edit: not seeing track like some of the others are showing....trying to figure out why. But I still LOVE it

Attached File(s)

•  bandicam 2015-05-16 19-46-52-693.jpg (235.98K)
  Number of downloads: 31

[CrisGer]

Goku i want to say first and last ..THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!! this is one of the most wonderful developments for the Sim/..Msts/OR since OR started and we really really needed this. You have done wonders and I am so glad you don't mind hearing the suggestions here from those who know far more about the technical side of all of this than I ever will.

I am so glad you shared your wonderful work with us, that was generous beyond words and I really appreciate it so much. Please keep going on this, and thank you again!

[Mike B]

This could get me into some route editing. Wow! It's what MSTS really needed all along, and ORTS even more.

Does it really work at fixing errant shrubbery? That's a problem in many routes with ORTS.

[eric from trainsim]

Just to manage expectations, I managed to get an "ET Phone Home" message after about an hour of using it... ;) Something never change.

Remember to hit the Z key after putting in a piece of track, save, and it shows up in the legacy RE as well as in the track viewer, so all appears to work nicely. The UI will take some getting used to, but I could get used to this in a couple of months and never look back at the RE ever again.

Track doesn't snap if you're close -- you have to actually find the adjoining axis point before placing the track. What I haven't quite figured out is how to elevate track by X degrees like the F4 in Legacy.

Is there a way to reconsider the "number pad required" functions? Most laptops don't have the extra keys...

[eric from trainsim]

Found another possible bug.... **ALL** of my predefined paths in the PATHS folder got overwritten with track vector paths.

Fortunately I'd just done a backup earlier in the day where the PATHS folder could be recreated, but this could be catastrophic for folks who aren't as diligent in doing backups.

I didn't mind the paths being created, but why delete out the non-vector named paths?

[Goku]

R H Steele, on 16 May 2015 - 06:32 PM, said:

edit: not seeing track like some of the others are showing....trying to figure out why. But I still LOVE it

Check .w files format. Only text is acceptable.

eolesen, on 16 May 2015 - 08:33 PM, said:

What I haven't quite figured out is how to elevate track by X degrees like the F4 in Legacy.

Before 'Z', select roration tool by pressing 'R' and use '8' , '2'.

eolesen, on 17 May 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

Found another possible bug.... **ALL** of my predefined paths in the PATHS folder got overwritten with track vector paths.

It's not bug, it's feature. First post:
0 - (zero) delete old and create new paths
If you don't like it, don't use '0' key. It's not needed for route save.

eolesen, on 17 May 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

I didn't mind the paths being created, but why delete out the non-vector named paths?

Old paths often need fixes after TDB editing and without msts editors it's hard for users to do. My intention with sharing this editor was creating complete simple new OR route, not editing complex MSTS routes, and '0' key function is only for that purpose.

[eric from trainsim]

Goku, on 17 May 2015 - 06:39 AM, said:

Old paths often need fixes after TDB editing and without msts editors it's hard for users to do. My intention with sharing this editor was creating complete simple new OR route, not editing complex MSTS routes, and '0' key function is only for that purpose.

The Track Viewer has a routine to fix broken paths and it works great. I've used it pretty extensively in the last three weeks.

I don't recall hitting the zero key , but I'd re-think having something that destructive without backing up the previous path files first OR displaying a confirmation dialog. A single keystroke could destroy months of work.

[Goku]

For me it's obvious that with writeEnabled = true don't even run route with no backup.

[vince]

Goku & All,

I tried the new Editor last night but there is a problem when I added 100m tracksection to my route build.
The Track Database was corrupted left unuseable.

The details . . .
Here is a clip from the original Track Database +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SIMISA@@@@@@@@@@JINX0T0t______
TrackDB (
Serial ( 3346 )
TrackNodes ( 5572
TrackNode ( 1
TrEndNode ( 0 )
UiD ( -10962 14358 4158 1 -10962 14358 -980.576 13.5872 812.006 0 -0.711418 0 )

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++end clip original tdb ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here is a clip from Track Database modified by using the new editor to add one 100m tracksection and 'Z' Insert into TDB followed by a Save:

SIMISA@@@@@@@@@@JINX0T0t______
TrackDB (
TrackNodes ( 5572
TrackNode ( 1
TrEndNode ( 0 )
UiD ( -10962 14358 4158 1 -10962 14358 -980.57599 13.5872 812.00598 0 -0.71141791 0 )

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ end of tdb clips ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Note that the line 'Serial ( 3346 )' is missing from the new Track Database.

Route_Riter [ICHK] test terminates with the following:

Trackdatabase 'E:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\ROUTES\LIRR\LIRR.tdb' is checked!
---> Entry 'Serial' not found ('tracknodes')
Error while loading Trackdatabase 'E:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\ROUTES\LIRR\LIRR.tdb' (Pos=18) -- Function terminated!

ORTS dies with:

Error: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Orts.Formats.Msts.TrackDB.AddTrItems(TrItem[] newTrItems) in e:\Documents\Coding\Jenkins\jobs\Open Rails Unstable\workspace\Source\Orts.Formats.Msts\TDBFile.cs:line 180
........................................ snipped following pages of ORTS error info ................................................

So on saving after placing a new tracksection apparently causes a corruption of the routes Track Database file by not putting the 'Serial ( nnnn ) in.

The route loads into the new editor quickly, even using the huge PRR-East loads very fast.Juust for grins I placed a few Static Objects sucessfully.
I am also able to place Static Objects into my LIRR route build sucessfully.

It also seems able to generate a new tile if needed to add in a tile to the route but I have not fully tested this function yet. It DID appear to generate a new tile that I needed to generate where one was missing (or more likely I probably mistakenly deleted it last week when I was trimming unneeded tile ).
I was unable to test this because of the problem that showed up when I attempted to place a tracksection. I report more on this (adding a tile) today.

All in all a very good first effort at developing a new Route Editor. Nice work Goku. The usuall development pains are sure to follow but I salute you for at least getting started on this.

I have restored the LIRR from the backup to a working route again and plan to test adding a Tile later today.

Best Regards,
vince

[Goku]

Serial is not the problem. You can safely delete it (I think).
Maybe your route build has interactive objects? Editing TDB with interactive track objects causes a corruption of routes because they are not supported.

[copperpen]

Goku, on 17 May 2015 - 09:07 AM, said:

Serial is not the problem. You can safely delete it (I think).
Maybe you route build has interactive objects? Editing TDB with interactive track objects causes a corruption of routes because they are not supported.

Currently the serial is used by the apk routine. It determines if the activity and the route are using the same database.

[EricF]

I've toyed around a bit with this new editor -- very nice start! I'm no route building expert, but it seems like it's on its way to being very useful. It's great to see any effort at all toward a modern route editor, Thank You!

I understand the concerns that this is an outside-contributed effort, but think of it this way -- it's getting folks to thinking about how the old MSTS route editor can genuinely be improved, and gives us a chance to approach route editing from a new perspective.

And even if the ORTS developers decide to pursue a different route editor code base entirely, that's still fine. In fact, if an alternative RE is available, even better. It's rare that one singe software application is best for all use cases. So if, down the road, we wind up with more than one RE to choose from, it means that we'd have different tools for different route editing situations. Not a bad proposition at all.

Particularly if a set of reference standards can be developed for editing MSTS/ORTS route editing software (let's face it, Kuju/MS left a few things dangling there...), then there's no reason why we can't have an Official RE and alternatives as well -- which ought to give route builders more possibilities than they've dared to dream of for a long time...

[Genma Saotome]

Goku, on 17 May 2015 - 07:01 AM, said:

For me it's obvious that with writeEnabled = true don't even run route with no backup.

You should never assume your end users are smart enough to know this, especially when it's pretty trivial for you to put in something to avoid the problem. Instead, you should always assume they're going to do something stupid and that as a consequence you need to trap it so it doesn't cause your program to abort and/or ruin their route. End users who lose their route are seldom going to say I screwed up and much more likely to say your editor ruined my route. Just look at the past 10 years of comments about the MSTS RE for hundreds/year examples of this.



May I suggest you take a look at the Sketchup user interface? I've long believed our hobby's route editors are all highly customized 3d CAD tools. The Sketchup examples I recommend you examine are the toolbar functions for select, rotate object, rotate camera, and move -- both the use of toolbar icons as well as how the functions operate and, just as important, how SU makes use of hte keyboard, either using shortcuts to invoke functions or, perhaps even more important, being able to enter necessary numeric data, especially for rotations.

IMO SU has an excellent UI and anything that you or the OR Team eventually produce will be hard pressed to be better.

Sketchup is a free product from Trimble.com. Your download will give you the payware version to use for 30 days. It is a clean download (no suprises) and they don't bother folks w/ marketing junk. At the end of that 30 days it locks your install to the freeware version. There's no real difference between the two as far as train simming goes.

[Goku]

Genma Saotome, on 17 May 2015 - 11:42 AM, said:

You should never assume your end users are smart enough to know this, especially when it's pretty trivial for you to put in something to avoid the problem. Instead, you should always assume they're going to do something stupid and that as a consequence you need to trap it so it doesn't cause your program to abort and/or ruin their route.

I agree, but in version far from alpha stage I think tere are more important things. Any feature I'm adding now is not tested and can damage route in many ways.

Genma Saotome, on 17 May 2015 - 11:42 AM, said:

May I suggest you take a look at the Sketchup user interface? I've long believed our hobby's route editors are all highly customized 3d CAD tools.

At the moment I'm making simplest usable UI, I can do. New functionality is more important thing because everyone can make new UI in the future but only few people knows msts structure and can add new functionality.