[SP 0-6-0]

Afternoon, I am interested in knowing just what the objective is regarding finding a replacement shapefile format? Will the new format be specific to ORTS or will a established format be chosen? Will ORTS continue using the ace file textures or will we be using new texture formats as well?

What are some of the available open source 3d shape file formats and associated texture file formats?

Robert

[disc]

As i wrote, DDS is supported now for textures. In experimental setting, the usage of DDS if available can be enabled. No more is needed, that's the "native" gpu format. I've been using DDS signal glows since a year, also the OR only rolling stocks come with dds textures. Only the new 3D format is missing.

[Genma Saotome]

SP 0-6-0, on 12 October 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:

Afternoon, I am interested in knowing just what the objective is regarding finding a replacement shapefile format?

AFAIK there isn't one. A major issue is centered on the question of what does a change mean for users of the commonly used CAD programs? For example, if there was a decision to pick the foo format and foo can only be produced by 3dMax, how many current content designers are going to shell out $3,500 for a license... so they can begin to learn and use a completely new tool?

Substitute Blender, or Rhino and you have the same problem only less expensive.

IMO the ideal solution would have been to acquire the rights to modify TSM and extend the functionality of the .s file; Maybe it would have needed a new extension but that's not a big deal. Followup by adding the same new features to the Sketchup exporter and work w/ Amabilis to do the same for 3dcrafter. The OR team actually started to talk to the owner of TSM about it but then dropped the ball when that person left the team.

In the meanwhile someone else got control of TSM and given who it is my opinion is there is much less than a zero percentage chance that change will be useful to the OR team.

[disc]

There are plenty of useable free opensource 3d formats, are supported by every cad programs. No need for TSM, and no need of .s.

There is Collada, but somebody said it's too heavy for an ingame format and it would be overkill to use it directly in game, however a lot of games directly use it so maybe it's not so heavy.
GPZ implemented gltf support, but he is inactive since months.

But collada also can be used as an intermediate format, and a new format can be created for OR, with a collada -> or format converter.

Here is a c# collada library so the importer/reader don't need to be written

Or here is the Open Game Engine Exchange format. It's a "light" textual format, plugins for 3D max, maya, and blender.

[SP 0-6-0]

I was looking at some formats earlier and noted X3D, B3D, .CSV formats.

I still tinker both in TSM and Gmax and would like to be able to at least still use Gmax for ORTS. Yes, Gmax is old and way out of date. But, Gmax is free and everybit as powerful as the $3500 dollar programs that have too many features we really don't need in a modeling program for train simulation.

ORTS will probably need conversion programs like MSTS came with that can take say .3ds and convert it to the native ORTS format what ever it ends up being. The same being said for the osd texture format. This way there should be less issues with modeling software people want to use for ORTS.

I will take a look at other 3d train simulators from the open source communities and take note of the 3d shape file formats being used.

More to come later.

Robert

[Genma Saotome]

Quote

I will take a look at other 3d train simulators from the open source communities and take note of the 3d shape file formats being used.

More to come later.

Don't rush. Unless there is someone to do the actual work of implementing something in the OR code the question remains quite hypothetical... and given the nature of contributed labor whoever does choose to work on this matter is very likely to prefer to follow their own opinion of what format is best.

[SP 0-6-0]

Wavefront .obj file https://en.wikipedia...front_.obj_file

ORTS has the unique opertunity to not only break away from the .S file format. But also to work with the open source community to take a little known format and help grow it into a mature format that could potentially be the work horse file format for ORTS to use for many years to come.

My list thus far,

X3d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X3D

.Obj https://en.wikipedia...front_.obj_file

B3D http://www.blitzbasi...3ddocs/docs.php

Robert

[captain_bazza]

Doubled edged sword; I guess, the necessity to learn a whole new method of producing models, with, or without, a graphic front-end, will drive away some most of the older gen of asset contributors. A new format might attract new modelers to the genre, who will start off with the new format, but a lot of historical modeling knowledge will be lost.

However, I don't see any changes in that direct (new model format) coming in the immediate, or mid-term, future of OR.

It would be somewhat ironic that some modelers might revert back to producing only for OR.

Just my opinion.

Cheers Bazza.

[captain_bazza]

PS My research has shown that there is really no universal modeling format that will suit TS, because it appears most of the formats out there come - and go. For one reason or another they reach a dead-end in their development and the project dies. At least the old 3ds mesh format has stayed the course.

CB.

[disc]

captain_bazza, on 13 October 2015 - 01:40 AM, said:

Doubled edged sword; I guess, the necessity to learn a whole new method of producing models, with, or without, a graphic front-end, will drive away some most of the older gen of asset contributors. A new format might attract new modelers to the genre, who will start off with the new format, but a lot of historical modeling knowledge will be lost.

Modeling not depends on format. All formats are polygonal/triangular. Nothing will change, just there would be possibilities to use new material, and maybe new naming conventions for the parts, and avoid the pain of using .s format.
I can add my TS20xx models to OR after renaming the parts and replace the TS20xx materials to MSTS ones, but i don't want to wrestle with the .s format, also the MSTS materials are not enough.

.s format is currently repelling the new content developers/coming from TS20xx or trainz, as it's an ancient format with bugged, old, limited, and payware tools. That is one reason why the most of the MSTS models doesn't look so good.

captain_bazza, on 13 October 2015 - 01:44 AM, said:

PS My research has shown that there is really no universal modeling format that will suit TS, because it appears most of the formats out there come - and go.

Which formats are these?

[captain_bazza]

Hi Sanyit,

Regarding my comment refering to 'lost formats', I should have commented, which formats are likely to be a long term format, for example, like 3ds mesh?

Quote

I can add my TS20xx models to OR after renaming the parts and replace the TS20xx materials to MSTS ones, but i don't want to wrestle with the .s format, also the MSTS materials are not enough.

That is interesting! I had not heard of that being possible. I agree that the MSTS materials are not enough - if used for Open Rails. The shape.s format is very old by any standard and is probably not user-friendly, however, some people can edit the shape file and find it useful to do that for various reasons.


I have tried Blender and 3d Crafter, but they are not user-friendly, IMO. I have never tried TSM.


Cheers Bazza.

[Goku]

disc, on 13 October 2015 - 01:51 AM, said:

.s format is currently repelling the new content developers/coming from TS20xx or trainz, as it's an ancient format with bugged, old, limited, and payware tools. That is one reason why the most of the MSTS models doesn't look so good.

What is ancient in .s format? It has everything needed for a modern game. Does TS20xx uses open source format with free tools? I think not. S format is simple and it should be easy to write new importers.

disc, on 12 October 2015 - 02:35 PM, said:

There is Collada, but somebody said it's too heavy for an ingame format and it would be overkill to use it directly in game.

Collada IS an overkill. Worst choice ever.

SP 0-6-0, on 12 October 2015 - 09:58 PM, said:

.Obj https://en.wikipedia...front_.obj_file

You can use .obj only for static meshes. It would be good to implement it, but as second/third format.
Object format for games needs matrices transformations.

[disc]

captain_bazza, on 13 October 2015 - 03:08 AM, said:

which formats are likely to be a long term format, for example, like 3ds mesh?

All formats are long term that are supported in major CAD softwares. So collada is one of these, which is supported by everything. 3DS is too old, and there are various problems with it(parts fall apart at import, and the shape is rotated 90 degrees, and every CAD software reads 3ds differently).

captain_bazza, on 13 October 2015 - 03:08 AM, said:

That is interesting! I had not heard of that being possible.

Why wouldn't be? Every game is using the same triangular uv mapped shapes, just the materials and the naming conventions differ. Every game's 3d models can be added to every other game. One guy that i know converted building 3d shapes from Stalker games to TS20xx.

Zaza's 424 steam loco with 3d cab was imported first to Railworks, then to Openrails. I would be able to convert 6 locomotives that are made for TS20xx to OR, but i don't want to learn the tricks of the .s format, because it's obsolete, and also there are missing materials, like texture with specularity and fake environment maps+mask, or the same with lightmap, or glass materials (blendatexdiff is not how the glass looks like). Of course i can use texdiff and blendatexdiff instead, but these would make the models look dull, and so 2001-ish :)

Goku, on 13 October 2015 - 04:19 AM, said:

Does TS20xx uses open source format with free tools? I think not.

I didn't wrote that we should use TS20xx format. Those format is a real *censored* (bad), and most of all, it's proprietary, closed source, and not an abadonware.

Goku, on 13 October 2015 - 04:19 AM, said:

S format is simple and it should be easy to write new importers.

And yet there are no new importers, people are still struggling with the kuju .3ds to .s converter, and some very old CAD softwares that are able to export to this format. Or are there .s exporter plugins for 3Ds max, or blender?

Yes. .obj can be used for static objects, but wouldn't be better if we have a signle format for all?
However in TS20xx they made a shape format(.GeoPcDx), and each animations are saved to seperate files (.ban), which makes easy to select which animation should be played in game, and if only animations should be changed, then no need for shape re-export. What these animation files are contain is: names of the animated nodes and the animations for each nodes.
Like this:

Perhaps .obj expanded with separate animation animation files would be a way.

[Goku]

disc, on 13 October 2015 - 04:29 AM, said:

also there are missing materials, like texture with specularity and fake environment maps+mask, or the same with lightmap, or glass materials (blendatexdiff is not how the glass looks like). Of course i can use texdiff and blendatexdiff instead, but these would make the models look dull, and so 2001-ish :)

Materials are not connected to .s file. Inside .s file you have only shader name and it can be anything.
It depends only on game engine if it has better materials support or not.

disc, on 13 October 2015 - 04:29 AM, said:

And yet there are no new importers, people are still struggling with the kuju .3ds to .s converter, and some very old CAD softwares that are able to export to this format. Or are there .s exporter plugins for 3Ds max, or blender?

There is sketchup importer. There is no new because almost no one is interested in making new one.
Russians also have their own sim made based on msts formats http://www.trainsim....isplay.php?f=50 - maybe they have something intresting?

disc, on 13 October 2015 - 04:29 AM, said:

Perhaps .obj expanded with separate animation animation files would be a way.

Route structure has already too much files. Animated obj requires one for shape, one for animations, one for materials. It is not good for game engine.

[disc]

Goku, on 13 October 2015 - 05:40 AM, said:

Materials are not connected to .s file. Inside .s file you have only shader name and it can be anything.
It depends only on game engine if it has better materials support or not.

Do multiple uv channels are supported by .s? Because a lot of advanced materials use different uv channels. For example one for normal texture, and one for lightmap.

Goku, on 13 October 2015 - 05:40 AM, said:

There is sketchup importer. There is no new because almost no one is interested in making new one.

Sketchup is missing various thing that are needed for OR, i think it can be only used for static objects.
Because of no one interested making new exporters, a lot of possible modelers are not interested of using OR, because it's hard to export a model to it.

Goku, on 13 October 2015 - 05:40 AM, said:

Route structure has already too much files. Animated obj requires one for shape, one for animations, one for materials. It is not good for game engine.

I don't think it bothers the game engine. Anyway, some lightweight compression and packing of multiple files can be used (zip, deflate, etc). Route structure is bad, but not because of many files, but because all shape and texture files are in single directory. Route builders usually don't even know where the shapes and textures came from. That's why in other games there are developer/addon directory grouping.