Railworks America

Hello all,

I have a question regarding assets and their viewing distances. I am working with the Stevens Pass "StP Quay-side Crane" on a personal route (CWRY). The asset disappears in parts as I move farther away from the object once placed in the editor. I edited the x, y, and z values for the scale of the object as follows: x=2.200, Z=2.000, and z=3.000. After editing the scale of the object, it seems to want to disappear quicker than when it is at its normal default values. What I would like to do is edit some lines of code in the .GeoPcDx file so that the crane will stay visible for farther distances. Might this have to do with editing the asset's LODs?

Thanks in advance for any information or insight...

In the same window, near the bottom there is an option to alter the viewing distance - a number 0 to 10; I normally use either 9 or 10 and all falls into place.

P.S. X, Y and Z values have a scaling effect, not directly related to appearence or non-visible factorsè

QcRail

QcRail wrote:In the same window, near the bottom there is an option to alter the viewing distance - a number 0 to 10; I normally use either 9 or 10 and all falls into place.

P.S. X, Y and Z values have a scaling effect, not directly related to appearence or non-visible factorsè

QcRail

QcRail,

Thank you for your prompt response and the information you have provided. The detail level is set to 9 for all the crane assets I have placed. Unfortunately, the problem still persists.

See an excellent tutorial by BoostedFridge here:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=20397&view=unread#unread

Chacal wrote:See an excellent tutorial by BoostedFridge here:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=20397&view=unread#unread

Yes, thank you Chacal for pointing that out. That's a great tutorial indeed; very thorough. I believe the detail level that BoostedFridge explained is the same detail level that QCRail pointed out to me. I can double check everything in the game again when I get a chance. Perhaps I overlooked something..? We'll have to see what's what!

I recently got contacted by BoostedFridge, and he pointed me in the right direction. I searched for a post on here regarding editing an asset's LODs. After a quick edit in the .GeoPcDx file, I managed to fix my problem. Now the cranes at the port appear at farther distances.

Thanks again for all the help and information everyone!

ET44C4 wrote:I recently got contacted by BoostedFridge, and he pointed me in the right direction. I searched for a post on here regarding editing an asset's LODs. After a quick edit in the .GeoPcDx file, I managed to fix my problem. Now the cranes at the port appear at farther distances.

Thanks again for all the help and information everyone!

Glad there is a solution and I am very interested where in the .GeoPcDx file lies the code for the asset's LOD parameter - I'm not shy to tweak a shape file.

Thanks in advance,
QcRail

The code for the crane asset I edited looks like this:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<cHcGeometry xmlns:d="http://www.kuju.com/TnT/2003/Delta" d:version="1.0" d:id="312503392">
   <LODController>
      <cHcGeometryLODController d:id="1630351520">
         <LOD>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
         </LOD>
      </cHcGeometryLODController>
      <cHcGeometryLODController d:id="1630351532">
         <LOD>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
         </LOD>
      </cHcGeometryLODController>
      <cHcGeometryLODController d:id="1630351544">
         <LOD>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
         </LOD>
      </cHcGeometryLODController>
      <cHcGeometryLODController d:id="1630351556">
         <LOD>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
         </LOD>
      </cHcGeometryLODController>
      <cHcGeometryLODController d:id="1630351568">
         <LOD>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
         </LOD>
      </cHcGeometryLODController>
      <cHcGeometryLODController d:id="1630351580">
         <LOD>
            <e d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000040BF40" d:precision="string">8000</e>
         </LOD>
      </cHcGeometryLODController>
   </LODController>


The section of code above is right at the top of the .GeoPcDx file in RWTools. I have come to find out that other assets are not set up exactly like this, however.

Thanks ET44C4

Easy enough : <LODController> will come handy

QcRail

Speaking of viewing distance, is there a way to enable grass/foliage to be viewed further away than the current 500 metres or so?

SAR704 wrote:Speaking of viewing distance, is there a way to enable grass/foliage to be viewed further away than the current 500 metres or so?

The exact method described above should work for all assets.

Ok, I set the above value for the asset to 8000. For some reason, the grass (next to the track, look carefully) isn't visible beyond a short distance in TS, as shown in the attached screenshot.



Here is a snap of RW tools showing the values of the grass asset (placed in the route via an asset block).



So I'm still curious about what a potential workaround for this may be.

Have you tried placing the asset by itself (outside of the asset block)? Perhaps your problem occurs because the grass asset is located in the asset block... Not an expert with models (hence the reason why I posted this topic; because I was in need of help! ), but maybe the asset block is the problem, or rather, what is causing the grass to disappear faster than if it were placed by itself.

ET44C4 wrote:Have you tried placing the asset by itself (outside of the asset block)? Perhaps your problem occurs because the grass asset is located in the asset block... Not an expert with models (hence the reason why I posted this topic; because I was in need of help! *!lol!* ), but maybe the asset block is the problem, or rather, what is causing the grass to disappear faster than if it were placed by itself.

It would be extremely tedious to place each piece manually. There are literally thousands of them placed in the (roughly) 45 kms of scenery that is in the route. I could always ask Rockstar to add ants to GTA VI. It's probably more likely to occur.

Anyhow, just not practical in my opinion.

The asset blocks whilst useful, do have their downsides.

I thought about that too, and knew you wouldn't place each individual piece of grass down on your route. Lord have mercy!

Now, perhaps there is a way to edit the asset block itself. There is not much in the asset block.bin file, so I'm not exactly sure what to look for or edit regarding that matter.