Hello again!
I start the work at Loksim Romania Route 1, but I have problems from the beginning: How to use the Object Creator or Loksim Editor for objects. I try to make some objects by my own but I don't make anything. The problem is I don't understand very much of the program commands. Can someone help me to use this program correct. I ask you because I have to make a object locomotive that has not the box shape predefined in Loksim Editor.
Thank you!
Hello,
here's some sort of a short introduction:
I suppose you already have some idea how you'll build the object.
For Loksim, think about how you could group the loco into several l3dobj, which are the put together in one l3dgrp.
All parts, which appear multiple times are candidates for this, e.g. in the simplest case you could make a bogie object and a "rest of the loco", and in the l3dgrp object you merge the loco object and the bogie object, which of course you will use two times there then. l3dgrp files are also neccessary, if you want to give the user a choice, if the loco should have pantographs up or down etc. etc.
When preparing the texture, keep in mind to use only quadratic ones whith 2^x sizes (64*64, 128*128,...) because if it's just one pixel larger, DirectX will inflate it to the next size (so 513*513 becomes 1024*1024 and occupies four times more memory). ASFAIK you shouldn't use sizes bigger than 512*512, except when really neccessary. Do not forget to use just 8 bpp colur depth, whith a good graphics programm you shouldn't note much difference.
Finally :D, the modelling itself.
Before I continue writing, it would be nice if you could tell me which language version of Loksim you use and how much experience in 3d modelling you've got, becaue this would make writing for me much easier.
Salut,
Jan
You can the LoksimEdit open and touch "?" and touch "Inhalt...". Then you can "Führerstände" touch and if you not understand the text, try to translate it by Google Translation or whatever. But there are lots of pics, so i hope that you can it unterstand.
I would be happy, if there would be more Englisch railways for Loksim.
ZitatOriginal von Christian Gübler
I would be happy, if there would be more Englisch railways for Loksim.
Mööööp. Rumänische Strecke! Keine Englische!
Romanina Route! No English Route.
Danke schon! Ich kann sprache Deutch aber nicht so gut. Ja, ich kann die elementar funktionalitat fur Loksim. Danke schon fur ihre Hilfe und ich hoffe dass ich ende das Strecke schnell, selbst ob ist sehr lange! 
English Translation:
Thank you! I can talk in german but not so good. Yes, I know the elementary functionality for Loksim. Thank you for your help and I hope I finish the Route fast, even if is very long!
Now the 2nd part:
There's already some sort of tutorial for object creating on the LoksimWiki, don't know how much you'll understand, but the Google translation doesn't seem too bad, either.
This tutorial only deals with the predefined objects but it's still a good introduction.
If you want to create an object completely from scratch, the following steps might help you getting started:
- Get all the basic things, like the dimensions, texture photos and an idea how you want to model the object and how to arrange the textures so they fit in one image
- Because you said you wanted to model a locomotive, have a look at some other locomotive objects to see how they're made. You might also reuse some smaller parts, e.g. the pantographs
- Create a new empty l3dobj. If you already have some texture, you can enter it the respective field, otherwise leave it empty. The other options are hopefully pretty selfexplaining and you won't need any of these for a basic locomotive model
- Start adding points by right-clicking in the object tree view (probably the upper left part of the editor where 3D-object is written). If you click on one of them, the property page will now display the point properties. Position/coordinates should be obvious, but the Normal vectors are a bit more complicated. They are the arrows you can see in the wireframe view and influence the lightning of the object. They should point always point to the outside of the later object surface.
- When you've got enough points to make a surface, you add one by right-clicking in the object tree and Add -> Surface. In the property window you now add the points, which will form your surface. If "Show backfaces" isn't ticked (do this only if you need to), the visible side of the surface is that where the points are going clockwise. The surface must be completely plain and mustn't contain angles bigger than 180° degrees, because this will give graphical errors; so normally a surface has maximum 4 points. If you like, you can now adjust the texture assignment in the lower left window by clicking and dragging those little blue points.
That's it for now. I hope I haven't caused more problems and questions than I solved ;-), so just try and play around a bit with it. It's probably better to start with some smaller objects first, so you get the hang of the editor and later move on to a more complex object like a loco is.
Oh, and for locos keep in mind the Loksim rails are 0.37 m high and the standard overhead line height is 5.35 m.
Good luck,
Jan
Edit: Clicked on "Save posting" by mistake
