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Train specialists opinions?
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G-E
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 4:29 pm    Post subject:  Train specialists opinions? Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I'm contemplating adding tracks for a train set, something I've held off with because of previous tests where too many tilesets crash RA2, and that's why I spent a lot of time moving my custom stuff in place of the useless rubble sets. This freed up enough tilesets that I'm only now approaching the limit again, but I have big plans that will need every tile I can get...

Sooooo my question is, is it possible to make a track set entirely out of overlay? Specifically 1 overlay and selecting the various frames, including for slopes?

PS. Not concerned with train bridges...

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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

DTA mod uses overlay Tracks 13 for train tracks with 70 frames. Though FA2 will restrict displaying overlay frames upto 60 only, but not a problem with game. I did a test map to test over 60 frames, game can use all 256 frames (0 to 255). DTA doesn't have slopes. Slopes are .tem files in TS.

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G-E
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 5:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Ok but overlays can be placed on slopes, would therefore a track overlay on a slope function correctly for this purpose?

I realize much of the train set exists as .tmp, hence why I'm being specific about overlays ONLY.

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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 7:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

It is fine for slopes also if you are using tracks13 (or 14/15/16) overlay for it. I haven't tested but there may be hardcoding for tracks 1 to 12 that may be leftover in the game engine from TS.

Can't understand what is the problem with tilesets. It shouldn't have problems. You are just using 81 tilesets in temperat.ini.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 7:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

a little sidenote:
When i tried a different Overlay Index than the ones used by Tracks, the train pathfinding got bugged, with wagons disconnecting and trains refusing to move.
It seems there is something hardcoded about the Overlay indexes used by tracks to improve train railroad pathfinding.

Overlays on slopes should work pathfinding wise, though if they still get rendered correct needs to be tested. I would assume the top half of the slope track gets cut off and rendered below ground, since it's not set in higher render layer.

If you can live without the map editors tracks auto-placement, a single Overlay would be enough to contain/provide all the needed track pieces.

However, there are certain situations where you can't get around a tileset with railroad terrain tiles. e.g. under bridges, where the bridge overlay doesn't allows to place a second track overlay under the bridge.

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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Overlays on slopes should work pathfinding wise, though if they still get rendered correct needs to be tested.

Just tested, tracks on slopes are drawn 2 pixels down, though pathfinding is no problem. There could be hardcoding for rendering too as veins in TS are drawn properly.

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G-E
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PostPosted: Sat May 26, 2018 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
a little sidenote:
When i tried a different Overlay Index than the ones used by Tracks, the train pathfinding got bugged, with wagons disconnecting and trains refusing to move.
It seems there is something hardcoded about the Overlay indexes used by tracks to improve train railroad pathfinding.

Are you saying this would happen if I used a common overlay for all the pieces, or would this only apply if I used say overlay #255?

I _can_ use the TRACKS1-16 as intended and have an extra overlay handle the special pieces I suppose, not sure I can use track tunnels without Ares anyway, so I'd have those slots free for the slope pieces right?

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
If you can live without the map editors tracks auto-placement, a single Overlay would be enough to contain/provide all the needed track pieces.

I'd expect such a tradeoff.

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
However, there are certain situations where you can't get around a tileset with railroad terrain tiles. e.g. under bridges, where the bridge overlay doesn't allows to place a second track overlay under the bridge.

Yes, I had considered this, the obvious solution is a train crossing tile for roads and avoid bridges altogether if it comes to that.

E1 Elite wrote:
Just tested, tracks on slopes are drawn 2 pixels down, though pathfinding is no problem. There could be hardcoding for rendering too as veins in TS are drawn properly.

Great so a tiny art adjustment? No clipping or any z-data artifacts?

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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 6:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

The slope frame gets clipped for a few pixels on the top and is drawn under the overlays of 1 cell above and below. It is not just art. Tried with adding few dots above and below the image and even moved the canvas up and down, didn't work. Unless some workaround is found, slope frames go to tiles.

What I understand from LKO's post is to use index #39 to #54 only that is set for tracks 1 to 16 for train tracks, not any other index.  In tracks13 to 16 itself you get 4 * 60 = 240 frames without FA2 restriction. Currectly can't even see tracks in FA2 Overlay dropdown, may be there is some setting for it. #255 index is used to indicate no overlay, so don't use it.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 7:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

E1 Elite wrote:
What I understand from LKO's post is to use index #39 to #54 only that is set for tracks 1 to 16 for train tracks, not any other index.

correct.

G-E wrote:
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
If you can live without the map editors tracks auto-placement, a single Overlay would be enough to contain/provide all the needed track pieces.

I'd expect such a tradeoff.

Tracks 13-16 are never used. You can safely replace those without breaking the editors auto-placement.
Those were probably meant as dummy connector pieces for vertical/horizontal placed tracks, where only the corners of the adjacent tiles meet. With the adjacent tiles not having a common edge, this was probably an early dev stage way to fix the pathfinding, before the track overlay indexes got their own special pathfinding applied.

In DTA, 1 Overlay is enough to contain all track pieces
-4 straights, 8 corners, 4 tunnel connectors, 26 junctions, 8 track ends, 4 road crossings...
no clue what you plan that the 4 unused overlays aren't enough for you.

Also wondering how you managed to exceed 255 tilesets. The number of RA2 tilesets for each terrain barely reaches 100 tilesets, so there is a ton of unused numbers left.

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G-E
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 10:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

E1 Elite wrote:
The slope frame gets clipped for a few pixels on the top and is drawn under the overlays of 1 cell above and below. It is not just art. Tried with adding few dots above and below the image and even moved the canvas up and down, didn't work. Unless some workaround is found, slope frames go to tiles.

This could have to do with the z-data of the average ramp tile, I noticed even the detault slopes occasionally show the extraimage over top of units as they merge onto or off to flat land. I do have the intention of redrawing my impassable borders (which look like wall right now) since I have the sound barrier terrain bits that can do the same thing. I can thus modify the z-data to be lower and maybe avoid that problem?

E1 Elite wrote:
What I understand from LKO's post is to use index #39 to #54 only that is set for tracks 1 to 16 for train tracks, not any other index.

So say you have all variations of straight track sections in tracks01, that would cause pathfinding issues? This isn't something I need to do I'm just trying to understand it correctly.

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Tracks 13-16 are never used. You can safely replace those without breaking the editors auto-placement.

That's fine, if the tunnel pieces can hold 4x60 non-standard track bits then that's more than adequate.

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Also wondering how you managed to exceed 255 tilesets. The number of RA2 tilesets for each terrain barely reaches 100 tilesets, so there is a ton of unused numbers left.

When I last had up to tileset0126, placing even a single square from it crashed RA2. I know everyone says there's no hard cap here, but it was crashing... I'm currently at tileset0121 so there's no panic, but I'd like to avoid creating unnecessary sets.

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G-E
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2018 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

E1 Elite wrote:
Currectly can't even see tracks in FA2 Overlay dropdown, may be there is some setting for it. #255 index is used to indicate no overlay, so don't use it.

It's in the .98a3 beta I posted.



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TAK02
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

G-E wrote:
E1 Elite wrote:
Currectly can't even see tracks in FA2 Overlay dropdown, may be there is some setting for it. #255 index is used to indicate no overlay, so don't use it.

It's in the .98a3 beta I posted.
Wasn't there a FA2YR that showed up the tracks too? Just asking.

Last edited by TAK02 on Mon May 28, 2018 6:23 am; edited 2 times in total

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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Tested by switching off the z-data flags in ramp tiles so that game doesn't use z-data and the clipping is gone and no pathfinding problems too. So, you should be able to modify z-data and get it working. Touching xtra-data causes graphical changes.

FA2 1.02 has removed that tracks stuff from right side overlay dropdown but is still available in 0.98a4. In FAData.ini, there is a [Debug] flag EnableTrackLogic=Yes/No, could try that too if available in 0.98a4.

Tileset at 121 should not give troubles as TI mod has upto 250. IsoMapPack5 can have tileindex upto 64K, so that should not be a problem too.

@TAK02: Tracks that come with TX are tiles and G-E wants overlay. Latest FA2 doesn't show tracks on the right side Overlay and Special dropdown.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 7:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

G-E wrote:
E1 Elite wrote:
What I understand from LKO's post is to use index #39 to #54 only that is set for tracks 1 to 16 for train tracks, not any other index.

So say you have all variations of straight track sections in tracks01, that would cause pathfinding issues? This isn't something I need to do I'm just trying to understand it correctly.

attached a screenshot. hope this clarifies it.

G-E wrote:
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
Tracks 13-16 are never used. You can safely replace those without breaking the editors auto-placement.

That's fine, if the tunnel pieces can hold 4x60 non-standard track bits then that's more than adequate.

we are talking about TRACKS13-16, not TRACKTUNNEL01-04.
TRACKTUNNELs are most likely not used. Tunnels use an attached animation with a high ZOffset assigned to the tiles directly in the tileset. The tunnel Overlays are probably leftovers from early dev stages.



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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 7:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

OffTopic:
@LKO: If you want to, something could be done to make use of those above 60 frames in DTA tracks by manipulating OverlayDataPack with Starkku's MapTool. But FinalSun will show hex code for those. I did try a simple replacement on a DTA test map, attaching.



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G-E
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 1:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

So apparently mutli-frame overlays for this will be totally useless as FA1 only supports single frames from the All Overlays list, not from the dropdown on the bottom. This is aside from the small issue that FA1 has terrible mod support and will save maps* uncompressed at 50-100% bigger which then requires a re-save in the newer.

I also spent some time testing if names (nominal and filename) makes a difference to support in FA2, nothing, it must be skipping the slots themselves not just recognizing the tracks.

So while overlays seem like the best option in general, the best option for ease-of-mapping is probably entirely within terrain.

That is unless someone can pinpoint where precisely FA2 is blocking them and patches it? Should be straightforward if it's by index....

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Mig Eater
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 8:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Here is an overlays list that shows what can & cant be edited/changed & also which ones (the blue entries) dont work with FA2's dropdown menu.

BTW you can use multi frames overlays from the All Overlays list,  use the "Set overlay data manually" tool at the bottom of the list to change the frame.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 10:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Mig Eater wrote:
use the "Set overlay data manually" tool at the bottom of the list to change the frame.

oh, this is great. i never noticed it.
This also helps in DTA to place tracks that are beyond the 60th frames.

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G-E
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well as I have discovered, it's pretty darned easy to make FinalSun work with my mod, so there's really no major obstacle to entirely overlay track sets.

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Mig Eater
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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 10:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I dont know what problems you are having but I have multiple multi-framed overlays (train tracks & other sets) that all work fine without any problems in FA2.

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G-E
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 2:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I don't want to enter them manually, much easier/faster if all frames are accessible, but if you like doing it the hard way, go right ahead.

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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 2:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

@Mig Eater: Are you using #39 to #54 for train tracks or some other overlay ID? Your overlay detail post doesn't show tracks in blue, does that mean there is some setting in FA2 1.02 to make tracks available/visible in right side Overlay & Special dropdown?

@G-E: Why FinalSun over FA 0.98?

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G-E
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 5:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

E1 Elite wrote:
....does that mean there is some setting in FA2 1.02 to make tracks available/visible in right side Overlay & Special dropdown?

@G-E: Why FinalSun over FA 0.98?

This is the fundamental problem, FA1/FA2 will not show the overlays in the dropdown at the right, you can only get 1.02 to show the tracks under the "other" popout on the left to paint with, thus you have no overview of all the frames nor easy selection for multi-frame overlays. This is why I said if someone can hack the .exe to stop it from skipping those overlays, perhaps it can be forced to show them. As it is I've tried renaming, adding them to the marble.mix and various other tricks to no avail.



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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 5:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

FA 0.98a4 etc. beta versions does show tracks on the Overlay dropdown, so you don't want to use those?

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G-E
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 6:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

FS saves the map perfectly with compression (no need to re-save), the UI is much better, the minimap is proportional, I can scroll with right-click, and it has full mod support, so I can see all my terrain and buildings while I'm working....

In short, I can use FA1 on a snow/temperate map with no terrain expansions beyond RA2 since it won't load them from any other mix except ra2.mix ... but I can't use it on my urban at all, precisely where I expect to use the majority of it.



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E1 Elite
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 7:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

For urban, you could use any other free overlay IDs that is visible on the dropdown in FA2 for placing on the map and can use Starkku's Maptool to switch the overlay IDs. That tool also has a better IsoMapPack5 compression feature.

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Mig Eater
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

After rereading the topic I see the problem (missed LKOs post), I'm not using the original track overlays entries (42 to 57) I have new sets at the top of the list overwriting the old RA1 entries. I haven't encountered any pathfinding problems when using these overlay sets thus far. AFAIK all an overlay needs is Land=Railroad & any of them can be used as a track.



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Lin Kuei Ominae
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 10:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

no problems (disconnecting wagons, trains refusing to move) on
-straight vertical/horizontal track sections
-tracks placed on water outside the visible map, to make a track connect one island to another (no ground path connection at all inside the visible map area)
?

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Mig Eater
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well truth be told I've only used them on one map so far, but they use most of the pieces & go on & off screen in multiple places (not over water with no connections tho).

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G-E
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PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 3:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That would have been a relevant point to make earlier in the convo...

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