[connan]

Hi there,
i'm just wondering how to generate the lo_tiles for the stock routes, especially EUROPE2 (Innsbruck - St.Anton). The folder is empty so i don't assume its working. Searching the web yields more or less complicated procedures which require some MSTS tools (which aren't working for me on win8 nor win7) and a tool called demex which seems not available anymore.
Since it seems DM are new Version in 0.9 i'm very interested to get this working. So the question is: how?

Regards
connan.

[Lindsayts]

Thats a good question actually...........

Distant mountains currently are done using the purchased version of DEMEX which appears to have dissappeared so there is little one can do about it.

If a route is not to scenery dense one can set OR's viewing distance out to 6000 metres, this makes a substantial difference, it does require a lowish object count on the tiles as well as the terrain formed out to the 6000 metre limit not all routes have this though.

I have had a glance through the distant mounts code in OR to try and dig up the file format in order to see how these could be reproduced, but it was not ultra clear and there appeared to be different versions or scales of them (or something like that). Perhaps the format could be documented so a utility could be reproduced.

Perhaps one of the OR devs could give a bit of a hint here. It is sometime since I looked this up in the source and a that stage there appeared to be no separate LO tile file format so I assume these are based on the standard tile file format and even that is not bleadingly obvious. Note, Reverse enginneering is NOT my strong point I may say, the OR devs have done an ammazing job to pull apart MSTS as they have done. Perhaps it may be worth while to try and Document some of these weaker points so some utiltys could be built.

Converting the coordinate system from the geocentric of the DEM files to what ever system the LO tiles use these days is not a major issue as long as the target format can be identified as such software is readily availible for both Windows and Linux on a freeish licence.

I have thought of producing such a utility if I can identify the file format, unfortunately there would be a good chance in my case it would be a unix utility writen in either C or a script of some interpreted language. (I have been using Linux as my main OS for over 15 years and I know almost nothing about Windows).

Lindsay

[jared2982]

Here is a link to a post concerning where to get Demex.
http://www.trainsim....e-DEMEX-Beta-02
And this post links to the site where Demex can be registered if you would like.
http://www.elvastowe...__fromsearch__1
It should be noted that there is no longer any support provided for these programs. However a search of the forums here and overthere should provide the necessary information to use the programs. Hopefully once a route editor is available for OR it will have the features that these programs provided built right in as they should have been in the first place with MSTS.

[charlie]

connan, on 04 July 2013 - 10:58 AM, said:

i'm just wondering how to generate the lo_tiles for the stock routes, especially EUROPE2 (Innsbruck - St.Anton).

DEMEX is here. Files can be accessed at http://www.mediafire.../?wsjacjkh2ac9m
Install "demex_setup151.exe" first.

You cannot generate distant mountains until DEMEX is registered.
You can license it thru SWReg -- https://usd.swreg.org/soft_shop/30411/

Once v1.51 is installed and then registered, then the contents of "demexbeta02.zip", which is greatly superior, is a simple drop-in.

Your best bet for the route you mention is to clone DM's from the existing terrain.

I'll just quote something I put in another forum.

regards,
charlie


"The Demex "help" file has slowly evolved over the years. You're going to need a TEMPORARY route so that Demex can generate the DM terrain buffers, and the present "help" is not too clear on how you get one of those. This route has just enough stuff in it to get it open in the RE to get a good look at the Great White Void. :-) There's not even a quad-tree, and more importantly nothing in the tiles folder since that's where the DM terrain buffers are generated.

Once that's done, all the stages are set.

Getting the whole thing started in Demex:
In Demex, select "Route/Select route..." NOTE: The DM button is still grayed out now.
Click on "Distant Mountains Terrain" button on the Menu Bar.

Step 1 - I mentioned generating the DM quad-tree, and that's actually started here, so click on "Prepare Route". (Don't do this from the "Standard Terrain" menu, since it will over-write your previous std tile tree). Now the RGE is ready to accept your edits, since the Mountains toggle was changed in your TRK file, and another file was written into your TD folder. So now's the time to do the deed for DM's in the RGE which is now enabled for it.

Step 2 - Depending on your operating system, there may not be a Step 2. If there is, generate at least one DM tile in the RGE. Generate the remainder of the DM quadtree in Demex by right-clicking where you want a tile.

Step 3 - If you've already played much with the Demex beta you may already know this, but Demex will go get the DEM's for you, exactly tailored to your quad-tree (under the "DEM Management" button). It totally bypasses the USGS site "front-end" and goes directly to your downloads. This is one of the neatest parts of the beta.

Under the "General Properties" pane you can see the general path that Demex wants at "DEM path". Depending on which kind of DEM's you select, just pay attention to the \DEM sub-folder where Demex wants you to un-zip them.

As far as me normally working in the mountains, I always select NED 1/3 (10 m) for std terrain. I use a separate NED 1 sec (30 m) download for DM's to keep it smaller, and since DM's have a greatly reduced terrain mesh complexity (1/24 of std), it doesn't make sense to use 10 m data. Just have the correct Std or DM quad-tree in view when you go for the downloads.

Once you have them in the right place, at “File”, “Open DEM” on the Menu Bar. Then to merge all of the other pieces use “Merge DEM”. Then back at "Distant Mountains Terrain" just "Create Distant Mountain Terrain"...

OPTION: Rather than the above procedure, you can choose “Clone DM Terrain from Std Terrain”.

Step 4 - When that completes, you'll get a pop-up telling you to open the Temporary route in the RE. You can leave Demex open while you do this. If your eyes are fast, at the lower left you can note that terrain buffers are generated as the route is loaded. When you see the GWV, just close the RE.

Step 5 - At "Distant Mountains Terrain", just select "Copy DM Tiles back to Route" and you're done and DM's are "ready for viewing".

And that's about it. Once the preliminaries are fixed up the first time, subsequent projects go amazingly quickly.

When you have that in place, your DM's are all textured in terrain ace. A DM terrtex covers an area that's exactly equivalent to four std tiles. You can see what's what by bouncing between Std and DM views in Mosaic while selecting DM patches with a mouse click. When moving about in Mosaic in Std view, it's much quicker to toggle off Water while moving. Mosaic "help" is pretty good."

[captain_bazza]

Quote

Note, Reverse enginneering is NOT my strong point I may say, the OR devs have done an ammazing job to pull apart MSTS as they have done.

Just to clarify, the devs have not done any reverse engineering to default MSTS files - anyway, there are no available source files for it, so the work they are doing (marvelously) is based on what they believe might be in the code, even though it's often difficult to fathom how Kuju put it all together. There's also a long held suspicion that some features may be there, but were never activated. There's even a 'phantom loco' that never made it to the final version, probably an AI version, the UK steam loco, of the Duchess Class, City of Nottingham. This loco featured very very briefly in one of only two* pre-release video clips of the sim. Also lurking in the GP38's folder, is a set of unused window wiper shapes, they may have been intended to have been animated in the cab view? The turntable featuring in the MP route is static.

Cheers Bazza

*The clips featured the Acela loco (on the NEC) and Flying Scotsman (on the S&C), respectively.

This post has been edited by captain_bazza: 04 July 2013 - 02:33 PM

[Genma Saotome]

captain_bazza, on 04 July 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

Just to clarify, the devs have not done any reverse engineering to default MSTS files - anyway, there are no available source files for it, so the work they are doing (marvelously) is based on what they believe might be in the code, even though it's often difficult to fathom how Kuju put it all together.

Actually Barry, what you wrote the OR team did is exactly what reverse engineering is: You have to guess. What you cannot do is pry open in the innards of a program and, with the help of various tools, reveal what is encoded there -- that's stealing.


And yeah, the programmers have done a great job so far.

[rdamurphy]

Interesting question, hasn't anyone created DM for all of the default routes that didn't have them?

Also, since Kuju used an entirely different method of creating their scenery (as evidenced by the incredible elevation inaccuracies of Marias Pass), would DEMEX, create DM that are compatible enough to look decent?

Robert

[charlie]

Walter Conklin, on 05 July 2013 - 04:15 AM, said:

There is a version of the default Innsbruck - St. Anton route with Distant Mountains in the Train-Sim file library.

Dang Walter, I had totally forgotten that. An early marketing point of DEMEX was the ability to generate DM's, and that was put up as an inducement to register.

MSTS Distant Mountains

Name: dm_oe.zip
Size: 1,090,575 Date: 01-21-2002 Downloads: 2,990

MSTS Distant Mountains for Insbruck-St. Anton Orient Express Route, v0.9. Includes all terrain files needed to display Distant Mountains on the Insbruck-St. Anton route. By John Stanford.

EDIT: The e-mail providing my registration key is dated 20 Feb 2002. :)

regards,
charlie

[connan]

You guys are awesome, thank you so much for your replies :)

Though it took me almost a day and 25 bucks to figure out how to work with demex, i'm very impressed (although the automatic DEM download seems broken).

The bad news is that DM seem not to work with OpenRails at this particular route (Innsbruck - St.Anton). It took me a while to find out that DM work in MSTS itself but not in OR. Since the DM work with Marias pass in OR it should be a problem with the route itself.

So any ideas on that? Is there another special prerequisite needed?

Thanks again, you're great :oldstry:

[charlie]

connan, on 06 July 2013 - 05:36 AM, said:

Though it took me almost a day and 25 bucks to figure out how to work with demex, i'm very impressed (although the automatic DEM download seems broken).

Several years ago that worked for locations like the UK, but no longer. The US Geological Survey site was renamed to "The National Map Seamless Server" and no International data is now hosted there.

Just over three years ago, I conducted an DEM availability review on UKTrainSim. As a part of that, I checked various types of available DEM's as to acceptability to DEMEX. You may have to verify the links again. I'm probably not going to do it again. :)
http://forums.uktrai...t=+dem#p1271862

I have John Stanford's DM's installed for this route, and they show all right in OR. You should be aware though that DM's in OR do not have terrain texturing anywhere nearly as far out as in MSTS. There can be just pale grey stuff in the distance.

regards,
charlie