dragonsteincole's Workshop

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Another detour, fixing up something I started up in 2020. Class 08 shunter locos, which will be in just a wild array of colours and liveries and states of dirtiness.
These will come with animated connecting rods, something I didn't know how to do at the time.
I may also make track-checker versions too.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I've just updated my Class 33 mod to version 2.

A big update, adding so many more liveries and polishing up stuff, and hopefully setting myself a template for how to do further big locomotive packs in future.

One thing I am aware of, the track checkers do have a slightly jank animation when on tighter curves, but isn't too noticeable and is comparable to how certain road automata pivot from the front of the vehicle rather than midway along the wheelbase. I decided to keep them in the mod for the visual variety they add to railways.

They also lend themselves well to unique situations like these, which imo look neat and replicate triple-unit drags in real life.

 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Random musings of the day:

I think I stumbled across one of the original listings or models for the vanilla bus.

 

This is the texture for the default vanilla bus ingame. lots of small details that can't be read easily, small yellow posters with some text on them, and it looks like the blue was not the original colour, as there's hints of red/purple around the edges

https://www.3dcadbrowser.com/3d-model/bus-emt

This is a listing from 2002 for an 'EMT Bus' model. it seems to be just a blank texture, but the shape, poster layout, and other detail seem to line up with the texture.
https://www.renderosity.com/marketplace/products/87225/emt-bus-for-poser

This appears to be a re-listing (of which there are many) of this same model, but with the textures included and clearer. and the destination boards appear to line up, the logos on all sides of the bus also match what was listed. and importantly this listing also demonstrates the bus in both a red texture and a blue one.

I don't believe any of the models themselves were used for the automata ingame, nor do I have the make of the vehicle itself. But it does seem like those model(s) were the basis for the textures themselves.

I do not know what i'm to do with this information, but I wanted to put it somewhere. :v

 

[art128 4,622]

@dragonsteincole Interesting find!

Since you seem to be doing bus stuff recently... Would you consider creating a school bus replacement?

There really isn't one in the specific style I use (Japan), and seeing the yellow American school bus is kind of annoying. 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

4 hours ago, art128 said:

@dragonsteincole Interesting find!

Since you seem to be doing bus stuff recently... Would you consider creating a school bus replacement?

There really isn't one in the specific style I use (Japan), and seeing the yellow American school bus is kind of annoying. 

I'm willing to make something, but I would ask for a reference for the sort of thing you want. It helps guide me to something you want, because a quick Google shows two very different types of school bus. :v

[art128 4,622]

1 hour ago, dragonsteincole said:

I'm willing to make something, but I would ask for a reference for the sort of thing you want. It helps guide me to something you want, because a quick Google shows two very different types of school bus. :v

Now that's funny.  

From what I was able to understand Japan doesn't have dedicated school buses like the Yellow American one. They're general buses with signs on the sides to indicate the presence of kids inside.

Example of a standard sized bus:

And smaller examples:

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

9 hours ago, art128 said:

Now that's funny.  

From what I was able to understand Japan doesn't have dedicated school buses like the Yellow American one. They're general buses with signs on the sides to indicate the presence of kids inside.

Example of a standard sized bus:

And smaller examples:

Managed to find some nice references for a Mitsubishi Rosa minibus, so I have a template for the smaller bus - which I gave a go tonight.

[Ke|is 3,337]

Thats beautiful ! Thanks Arthur for pointing this out. I think our little japanese kids will be happy soon 😁

What a nice job mate. I hope you can create some more Japanese trains too. 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I will do my best to make some more japanese trains in the future. There are some in the request queue already but the scary thought is some earlier requests have been in there for almost  years :scream:
It's always going to come down to whether I will have the time to complete everything, but i'll try my best to get around to some eventually.

In the meantime, I did a little tweaking to this model and minor differences aside, i'm happier with this model now, so this is the base i'll work from for a couple more japanese minibuses, as well as the other bus automata I started on before. Will aim to get a pack each of about 5 designs and put them out.

[art128 4,622]

Yep that's looking really good.  Thank you very much!!

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

A little bit of tidying up to do but a few more variations. the Yellow minibus is from Hong Kong, but seemed to fit with the overall theme and was also based on the same chassis as the others, so I am taking a touch of artistic liberty there.
 

Currently, this is set up so one is a replacement and three additionals for the school bus. Would people want these as additional regular buses too?

[sejr99999 8,363]

yes it would be a nice option to have these as regular buses  very attractive vehicles BTW

[hugues aroux 3,854]

These mini-buses are really superb !  ...  I'm almost sorry we don't have them at home. 

[matias93 7,535]

To use them as transit buses it would probably require to add one or two full height doors, though...

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just released Mitsubishi Minibuses mod.

These look pretty good ingame, have fun spotting these as they roam around your cities

 

And there are versions for the school minibus 

And the commuter version does have full height doors

But finally - there is one variation of the school bus that i've not shown in any screenshot or WIP shot. The first person to spot it in game and post a screenshot here will win... my respect and admiration.  I'll also post a larger view of it.

[art128 4,622]

Thank you so much for these! 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

It's only taken me 4 and a half years but i've somehow cracked out the Class 800 request that @Tyberius06 requested - and I will also include a few other liveries to cover those requested by the late Odainsaker, plus a few other liveries of my own choosing.
This was done in the span of an evening, but as impressive as that may sound, it's fortunate that i've had models for other automata releases i've been able to adapt. The engine and coach started as the Mk2 coach i made a few years ago.This work will also form the basis of another coach/carriage pack in the future.

There's some minor tweaks I'd like to do before release:
- tweaks to the nightlighting
- add catenary equipment to the loco and to an additional coach
- may darken the roof a little for this specific livery

I will also be providing a Hybrid Rail (aka monorail) version for those using NAM.

[Tyberius06 12,237]

1 hour ago, dragonsteincole said:

It's only taken me 4 and a half years but i've somehow cracked out the Class 800 request that @Tyberius06 requested

Thank you very much!!!!  

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Further progress. One issue to fix on one of the textures, but otherwise very happy with these now. All six commuter versions are now complete, will work on the Hybrid Rail/HSR versions tomorrow.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just released the 'DSC - Rail & Hybrid - Class 800s pack!

I wasn't expecting to have another pack done so quickly after the buses, but its nice to have knocked out two requests in one go, and one of the oldest in the list of suggestions. And I think they have come out very nicely, with a nice variety of liveries.

 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just released another big pack, the 'Super Sprinters (class 153 and 156) pack'

I'm including the reference image here just incase. https://i.imgur.com/WOey0Su.png.

But these were fun to work on (although it gets a bit tedious doing the same edits 28 times!)

I like being able to give people a lot of variation and things to choose from, and whilst these are not every livery these trains have ever worn... its enough, lol. I don't think there's a method that would make things that much faster, any suggestions are welcome though.

Whilst these units are normally single or two-coach sets, I did not include any patches to the Passenger train length, as I did not want to interfere with any other mods that alter those values, such as NAM. If you wish to edit those values to reflect their proper nature then that is down to you.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just release a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' pack!

A weekend project, scratch-built. I'm definitely one of those that grew up watching Thomas as a child, so the series holds a dear spot in my heart. So given the day i'm posting this (12th May 2025) is the 80th anniversary of the book series' debut, it felt fitting to work on something like this. and it was fun to get my head back into making steam automata as well.

The obvious thing - yes, I would like to make a few more of the engines from the series, but over time perhaps.

 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Having a bit of a "godammit" moment. Came to my attention yesterday and today that a lot of my automata releases occupy the same IIDs as the LRMv4 mod by Mandelsoft. Both are trying to occupy the same IID range of 0xdc______ for both models and FSh textures.

For example, I've currently used 0xdca, 0xdcb, 0xdce and 0xdcf for different categories of stuff, all of which are used across the various LRM styles, so there's not like a good range to slot into there.

A significant portion of my automata released will need to change to avoid those clashes, so I may as well ask for general wisdom here. Any way of figuring out a decent IID range for use that wouldn't clash with a large pre-existing mod?
And is there a decent bulk method of changing all instances of IIDs in DATs for exemplars, models and FSHs in either iLives or SC4 Reader, or another program entirely?

[Kel9509 1,476]

6 hours ago, dragonsteincole said:

Both are trying to occupy the same IID range of 0xdc______ for both models and FSh textures.

Is there an actual conflict?  I'd have thought there was enough random letters/numbers that the chances of an actual conflict are rare, unless of course you happened to just pick a range that seemed ideal and Mandelsoft did the exact same thing.

[rivit 3,402]

14 hours ago, dragonsteincole said:

A significant portion of my automata released will need to change to avoid those clashes, so I may as well ask for general wisdom here. Any way of figuring out a decent IID range for use that wouldn't clash with a large pre-existing mod?

Having a dedicated Texture Range (PM @Tarkus to request one) will allow you be pretty sure they are unique. You can use the same IID block confidently for Models and Exemplars IIDs as well since you're making automata. Just keep track of them in a spreadsheet so you don't overwrite yourself. There is a chance of duplication even this way but its a lot smaller. For automata you can use all digits of the IID so you can pack them quite tightly together.  MAXIS was somewhat profligate leaving lots of free space between their automata IIDs.

As for the LRM its used a lot of IIDs because they are BAT models and they use 20 at a time, but even there there will be large spaces you could exploit between them. In this case you'll find that anything from the wxyz0500-0FFF parts of those iids are probably free - just one will get you about 1500 iiDS.

~

Renumbering those can be done in Reader but its pretty tedious and prone to error. If you've adhered to blocks consecutively numbered it will be easier as you just add an offset to the ones you've got to get a cloned version. But the exemplars and models need to be edited one by one to point to the new iids. So before launching into that I'd be very sure I had to do it, and pick off the most painful ones (those known to be in conflict) first. Otherwise find a block and sit tight - conflicts will be reported.

[koumus corporation 715]

When making new IIDs, I just use the TGI generator under Tools in Reader, for whatever set I work on. I think BAT generates the IID for models the same way, so it should be safe enough. Mass editing IIDs is a pain in ars though, I would clone exemplars with the new ID so you just change the last number/letter in File Info, then same with FSHs, S3Ds and so on. There might be a more sophisticated way to do this, the newer Reader allows running scripts, I have used other's to great effect for editing model files, but no clue how to write my own to automate repetitive tasks.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

To go through in order of responses:
@Kel9509 There are actual clashes, I've tried to grab examples of them in the image below this - but it turns out we have both chosen the same range of IIDs for our mods out of coincidence.

@rivit I'll see if I can grab a range. a lot of my early released are just done ad-hoc, but I decided to get more organised when I started making larger packs - wish i'd chosen something different now! I do have a spreadsheet to keep organised, and was updating it frequently as I went back and re-did older packs.

There are a few instances where by fluke, two mods will occupy the same IID range but 'weave' around each other. But a few packs where they do clash, and all it ever takes is to see one obvious error whilst playing and it whips you out of that immersive experience.

In regards to batching stuff, it's the "going into every model and changing IIDs" I was dreading, I kinda have a grip on doing incremental stuff but yah, was hoping to avoid some tedious tasks.
I will say i'm at least thankful for finding this out before I started building my next freight pack - that is currently at 200 models (for container traffic) and I'm dreading doing that once, let alone having to do it twice!

@koumus corporation In the beginning I did just randomise and sent it, but I felt for bigger packs it'd be better to organise them more. And I've no idea about the scripting stuff in Reader either, I would try but there seems to be so little documentation or examples of other people using it, I can't find a place to start with it.

 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Whilst I try not to cry about the amount of editing I have to do work out my new IID schema and what to tackle first, figure i'd throw the latest WIP in here to keep myself entertained. Class 43, and mk3 coach.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have now updated to v2 of 'UK Freight Rolling Stock - Pack 1'.

Aside from switching to the new IID range, I have also made it possible to use any full or empty versions simultaneously. This affects the coal hoppers and the box wagons in this pack.

Please remove previous versions from your plugins folder before using these. New files have the 'v2' suffix to make it easier to identify them.
 

For future mods that require updates, I will not provide further temporary versions, as it is time that could be spent working on the fixed versions themselves. I hope to work on the Class 33s next.

  Edited May 27, 2025 by dragonsteincole  
Switched from temporary to new version