[Jonatan]

What about cars that dump through the bottom? Will they also rotate? Or will you be able to set in the wag file if it should rotate or not?

[Lutz_s]

If I understood it right, the animation of the rotating car is in reality a door animation. So the rotation is part of the car and not of any other object. An animation of a "door" in the bottom of the car should be also possible.

@Carlo
Great job. I only tested the loading functionality so far, but that worked great.

Lutz

[asullenger]

I made Carlo a bottom dumping coal car to work with, so it shouldn't be to long before he has that going. Hope I'm not speaking out of order here Carlo.....

[Csantucci]

@Lutz: thank you. The wagon animation isn't a door animation (this was only the starting point to develop the car); it is a new animation whose matrixes within the .s file must be called UNLOADINGPARTS, and that is triggered by pressing and keeping pressed the T key on an unloading station.

@Jonatan: the rotation or not is automatically defined by the behaviour and the hierarchy position of the UNLOADINGOARTS. So no need for this reason to tell OR if there is a rotation or not. However I found out that this is info is needed to OR so that it knows if it has to rotate the load. So I think I will add that parameter within the ORTSFreightAnims block, as well another optional parameter that tells how many seconds pass from the the moment the T key is pressed to the moment where unloading begins (in case of rotation unloading does not begin immediately, instead it begins when the wagon has already rotated a certain amount of degrees).

@Anthony: referring to the hopper you prepared, you got a PM.

@Mervyn: I'm not an expert in the include features of OR, and therefore I don't know if OR accepts your way round referring to the includes.
However, even assuming that your solution worked, I still prefer my solution, for following reasons:
1) it does not require editing of the .wag files
2) it keeps well separated original MSTS files and added OR files
3) it should allow the creation of multiple .wag files (each include a different .wag), each with its own loads, having all the same base .wag file (I admit I didn't test this).

[Csantucci]

I have now tested Anthony's hopper (thank you!). I added a parameter in the general lines of the ORTSFreightAnims block, that is

	UnloadingStartDelay (5)

that indicates the delay from unload animation start delay to effective begin of freight unloading.
Here some picture.
This is the starting state: wagon full, wagon bottom closed


Pressing the T key, the wagon bottom begins opening, however freight doesn't yet decrease (hole too small)


Freight begins decreasing, while wagon bottom continues opening


At the end freight has been completely unloaded, wagon bottom is completely open, wagon weight is at its minimum


T key is released, wagon bottom slowly returns to close state


This is the include file for the hopper

include ( ../HOPPER_BOTTOM.wag )

Wagon (
ORTSFreightAnims
(
	MSTSFreightAnimEnabled (0)
	WagonEmptyWeight(22t)
	UnloadingStartDelay (5)
	FreightAnimContinuous
	(
	IntakePoint ( 0.0 6.0 FreightCoal )
	Shape(Coal.s)
	MaxHeight(0.1)
	MinHeight(-0.9)
	FreightWeightWhenFull(99t)
	FullAtStart(0)
	)	
	FreightAnimContinuous
	(
	IntakePoint ( 0.0 6.0 FuelCoal )
	Shape(Coal.s)
	MaxHeight(0.1)
	MinHeight(-0.9)
	FreightWeightWhenFull(99t)
	FullAtStart(0)
	)
)
)

[asullenger]

Glad to help out Carlo...........need anything else just give me a holler :sign_rockon:

[Jonatan]

I know of a bug(?) in MSTS where if you press shift+T, you'd lock a refill object to operate as long as the loco is stationary, and stop operating once the loco begins to move.

Since trains with bottom unloading do not stop entirely but slowly crawl over the unloading chute, maybe that should be in OR as part of the unloading object? Like set a min/max speed for unloading to begin, then you can roll your long coal train through e.g.: a power plant unloading facility at 2-3mph and unload each car continuously as it passes over the unloader.

[Csantucci]

This video shows the result of today's work, which has been made in cooperation with asullenger (I stopped the wagon some inches too late...):
https://youtu.be/Qbpkj1tTbO0



To Jonatan: yes, foreseeing a slowly rolling hopper train that unloads is in my mind.

[Csantucci]

The first release of this functionality has been uploaded in x.3263, featuring continuous and static freight animations. I have the intention to prepare an update of the manual about this.

[edwardk]

Thanks Carlo. The type of work that can be done in activities was just expanded. Does this mean certain coal cars have to be used?

Edward K.

[Csantucci]

I anticipate here the section I'm adding to the manual about OR freightanims
 OR_freightanims.zip (1.38MB)
Number of downloads: 614

Edward, I hope you find there the info you're looking for. If something is missing or not well described, pls. let me know here.

30/9/15: new release of documentation describing the static animation freight weight feature (see next post)
1/10/15: new release of documentation describing the static animation flip feature (see related post further down)

[Csantucci]

With release 3272 a new feature has been added: weight management for static freight animations. If in the general part of the ORTSFreightAnims() block parameter WagonEmptyWeight() is defined, and if in the FreightAnimStatic subblocks a line FreightWeight(22t) (example value) is inserted, OR computes the total weight of the car adding to the empty weight the various static freight weights. If there is also a continuous animation with a load in the car, its weight is added too.

See previous post for revised documentation.

[edwardk]

Carlo,

Since you are on the roll, try to develop this area as much as you can. One other possibility that comes into mind is intermodal. Any possibilities of including this?

Edward K.

[Eldorado.Railroad]

Can this also include ideas like...free running...fans on diesel locomotives...etc? These animations would not be tied to the speed of the locomotive.

Thanks,

Steve

[Csantucci]

@Edward: with static animations you can e.g. add to a wagon some containers, even stacked, in a modular way. However things are static, that is containers can't be loaded/unloaded. This would require some sort of an interactive crane, and a management of stacks of containers on earth. This is beyond my coding capabilities. For this, the discrete animations were foreseen and a hook is there in the code for them. If someone liked to integrate the code with these capabilities I would be happy.

@Steve: fans are an interesting story, however I think they should be managed outside the FA. You could open a discussion on this.