[StevenMasters]

I agree, if I knew then what I know now. . .

Norbert takes this approach with the BAB* shapes.

[Lindsayts]

I found the above to be a little difficult to read, in effect what you are saying is make the path the vehicle takes in a section of track or road to be separate from that track or roads appearance. Then one only needs to specify say a single say 20 metre long one track straight as the rail weight, sleeper type, gauge, ballast shape and depth are all specfied in another file.

This is in fact what I have done in my own sim, execpt simple shapes ie non switching (straights and horizontal and vertical curves) only need to be specfied in the TDB files. The only shapes predeclared in a sections file being intersections (turnouts and crossovers etc). This was done this way as I could not think of a simple way to build the required range of switching on the fly (Note 1). The appearance of all normal track being governed by a track specfication file, this specfies gauge , sleeper type, rail weight, ballast type and depth etc.
Whole setup makes the sim easier both in programming and building routes.

Note 1, I am doing the switching appearance, ie there shape files, as a kit same as the Victorian railways turnouts were done in real life, the frogs and points blades being specfied separately and the rest just made out of normal rail bent to shape. This means all switching can be constructed from around 8 different frogs and around the same number of point blade lengths. All this can be specfied in include files so one only has to build a particular turnout set once.

Hopefully something like this can be included in some kind of future version of OR and its route editor.

Lindsay

[Genma Saotome]

Lindsayts, on 14 December 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

... in effect what you are saying is make the path the vehicle takes in a section of track or road to be separate from that track or roads appearance....

It already is but KUJU didn't write any functions for us to make use of it.

The game software doesn't care what the roads or track look like, all it cares about is the path as defined in the .tdb and tsection.dat files. And the world file doesn't care a bit about the path, it's only managing the shape file location.

IOW, you could have track shapes made up of snakes and alligators and the game wouldn't miss a step.

And so all I was writing about was to carry that fact to its logical conclusion and help the player fiddle around with his shapes at any time after the path is set down.

[eric from trainsim]

MSTS already provides the ability to do what you're recommending, Dave... It's not simple, but it's not too difficult, either.

All you need to do is change out the Shapefile name. I've done that in a few spots where Scalerail didn't provide a crossover or turnout that fit my needs.

There aren't any bridge turnouts in Scalerail, so I modified the textures as a custom shape:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-L1kf0CZzj24/Uqy_hxZqZUI/AAAAAAAAWWA/ITRWQL9RaeU/s1152/capture__200071.jpg

The crossover here didn't have frogs or cut rails, so I replaced the shape with one built in Sketchup that had the cuts and frogs:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-QYKEtEYZu8Y/Uqy_hwYkl-I/AAAAAAAAWWE/AAcgDmkYTk8/s631/capture__200070.jpg

Fairly simple to do directly in the W file, and the TDB doesn't know any better as long as the sectionIdx lines up with a real shape.

[R H Steele]

Concerning the HUD display (F5); would it be possible to create the ability to have it displayed as an "instrument panel" with all the information visible? Something that could be displayed on a second monitor so you could access any portion of the information at any time, without having to shift>F5. Would this be useful? Cheers rhs (Gerry)

[James Ross]

R H Steele, on 15 December 2013 - 06:52 PM, said:

Concerning the HUD display (F5); would it be possible to create the ability to have it displayed as an "instrument panel" with all the information visible? Something that could be displayed on a second monitor so you could access any portion of the information at any time, without having to shift>F5. Would this be useful? Cheers rhs (Gerry)

Do you really mean all the information? :) But yes, we've been looking at feasible ways to get data on to 2nd monitors and outside the game. Now that I'm on leave from work until the end of the year, I might get to try some of them.

[edwardk]

When it comes to features, what about the bounding box?. MSTS used this to prevent objects from passing through each other and OR is no different so does anybody know if this was looked into?

Edward K.

[R H Steele]

James Ross, on 16 December 2013 - 02:13 AM, said:

Do you really mean all the information? :clapping: But yes, we've been looking at feasible ways to get data on to 2nd monitors and outside the game. Now that I'm on leave from work until the end of the year, I might get to try some of them.

Well, not all --- I trust you and all the other more experienced and wiser heads than me to pick the most useful bits and include those. Cheers, rhs (Gerry) .... now I wish I had taken that programming class years ago.

[markus_GE]

R H Steele, on 16 December 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

I trust you and all the other more experienced and wiser heads than me to pick the most useful bits and include those. Cheers, rhs (Gerry) .... now I wish I had taken that programming class years ago.

In regard to the video Bernie just posted over in the thread about ancient (well, actually they are - sorry if someone feels this is an insult) computers and inregard to your last sentence:

Better take the bytes, as these might make more sense in the end :clapping:

Cheers, Markus

PS: Don´t try to find out any deeper purpose of this post - I´m just inspired right now after watching the video mentioned. And... I saw that computer smiley shown above, that so perfectly fits in here :clown: :D

[eric from trainsim]

Would it be possible to disable the keyboard sniffer when using the dispatcher window?

When I'm trying to zoom in on an area by entering data using the keyboard, I shouldn't have to worry about my train going into emergency if I happen to hit the backspace key...