More legacy textures for RealRailway (RRW)

[Chrisim 44]

Introduction

The RealRailway (RRW, the standard rail network in the NAM) is not a textures replacement, it is a complete rail network replacement of the original Maxis railways with more realistic minimum curve radius and numerous fantastic improvements and enhancements, described here: https://www.sc4nam.com/docs/feature-guides/real-railway/

I have many cities created more than twelve years ago with NAM version 30 or earlier (before RRW). Loading such a city with the normal NAM (version 48 presently) gives a very ugly view because original grey (Maxis-style) and new brown textures (RRW-style) are mixed (scene 2 of the animated image). The same happens when using the normal NAM and loading a city created with the NAM-Lite.

Although I want to use the superior RRW network, I cannot accept the ugliness of mixed grey and brown textures – and I won’t re-build my old cities. Therefore, I need brown RRW-type textures for legacy rail tiles.

The RRW in NAM 48 contains some legacy rail textures that replace grey original Maxis (or early NAM) textures in existing old cities by brown RealRailway (RRW) textures. Unfortunately, replacements for many grey Maxis textures are still missing. Maybe these exist somewhere, but I don’t know about them.

More legacy textures for old existing cities

I created brown RRW-style replacement textures for 62 original grey rail textures and assigned them legacy TGI's. I also colour-corrected three of the existing legacy textures in NAM 48. Now I can use NAM 48, simply load an old city (or NAM-Lite city) and all rail tracks look fine (in brown RRW-style). I can, but I don’t have to change the rail network. When I create a new city or extend a city, the superior RRW network implemented in the NAM is used.

The animated image demonstrates the effect of my set of “More legacy textures for RealRailway (RRW)” that are attached to this posting.

Scene 1: when you created rail tracks in a city without NAM or using an early NAM version (e.g., version 30) or NAM-Lite, you see the original grey rail textures. The image shows many rail tracks that you could create with NAM 30 although some displayed connections are unrealistic for a rail network. Many of these connections cannot be created with the RRW that provides more realistic rail tracks.

Scene 2: when you load this city with NAM 48, some of the original grey rail textures are replaced automatically by brown RealRailway (RRW) textures, but not all. This mix of grey and brown textures is not a problem for the city, because all rail tracks continue to work normally. It just looks ugly.

Scene 3: I clicked with the rail tool (“T”) onto all tiles with original grey rail textures of scene 2. Some of them converted to the RealRailway (RRW) network and show smooth, more realistically curved rail tracks in the brown RRW style, but many tiles cannot be replaced by simple clicks. This may be due to neighbouring lots near a track, terrain height changes (slope), too strongly curved tracks or other changes introduced by the RRW. RRW’s rail network replacements are causing changes that may break rail connections, although most rail tracks continue to work normally. The mix of different texture styles looks ugly. Also, you can see that some of the brown legacy textures of NAM 48 are too dark.

Scene 4 is obtained with my set of “More legacy textures for RealRailway (RRW)”. All original grey rail textures (scene 1) are replaced by brown RRW style textures. And the too dark brown legacy textures from NAM 48 (scene 3) are corrected. Now I can look at all my legacy cities and enjoy.

Scene 5 for completeness: if I click with the rail tool (“T”) onto tiles of scene 4, RRW’s rail network replacements are applied. This leads to several changes for textures and rail paths and breaks those rail connections that are not permitted by the RRW network. The conversion to single rail in the lower left part of the test city is however strange.

If rail connections are breaking when clicking with the RRW rail tool, you may leave the city without saving or apply further changes to repair your rail network consistent with the RRW.

Installation

My set of “More legacy textures for RealRailway (RRW)” is for NAM version 48. Don’t use it for the NAM-Lite. You find two files in the attached zip file:

• zzRealRailway_Textures_Legacy.dat contains colour corrections for some textures stored in NAM 48’s file RealRailway_Textures_Legacy.dat

•           RealRailway_Textures_Legacy2.dat contains 62 further textures in RRW style

Copy both files into the NAM subfolder: 2 Network Features\z_Rail (RealRailway)\0_Rail_Legacy\

There is no impact for cities created with the RRW, because the RRW uses TGI that are different from grey original Maxis and early NAM rail textures (the latter are used by these textures).

I was a NAM-Team member years ago, but after my long absence I don’t have access to a private NAM – Team forum anymore (if it still exists). Therefore, I use this public forum to share the files. I propose to include them in a future NAM version.

Notes:

The second image shows the 62 new textures and 3 colour-corrected textures (on the lower right) of this set of “More legacy textures for RealRailway (RRW)”. I started from existing RRW textures and changed them using Adobe® Photoshop®. Maybe these textures existed before somewhere, but they were not available to me.

Many of these rail track configurations cannot be created in-game when using the RRW, but they exist in many pre-RRW cities. These legacy textures are needed to open old existing cities (or NAM-Lite cities) and to get all existing rail tracks displayed automatically in the brown RRW style.

I also used a test city that was created and saved with the NAM-Lite. My set of “More legacy textures for RealRailway (RRW)” worked fine, but my tests were not extensive.

This set of legacy textures might still be incomplete. My analyses and tests focussed on cities created with NAM version 30 (or earlier). NAM 30 contains some complex grey rail textures that I was unable to create in the game. I guess that these are unused left-over textures from testing various rail connections in an early NAM beta version or disabled tiles from earlier versions.

Sidenote: I observed some minor issues (misalignment of rails, brightness of some textures, paths issues) of the rail network in the NAM-Lite unrelated to my new set of textures.

If you use this texture set for a city created before the introduction of the RRW (NAM 32) and you still observe grey original Maxis rail textures, take screenshots, post them and I may have a look whether I can create a replacement texture in the brown RRW style.

Many thanks to rivit for the excellent GoFSH tool and to Null 45 for the incredibly useful tool "Fsh Format Plugin for Adobe® Photoshop®" !

More_RealRailway_Textures_Legacy.zip

[Eggman121 1,053]

Very nice work and long overdue.

I am slowly coming out of hiatus for making rail content so there should be some more movement in coming months.

That being said, Are the source images based on layers like Ballast, Sleepers and Rails? This is due to the Reskin that currently exists for the Real-railway that can edit the colours and textures to make a uniform set of textures with @rivit's GoFSH tool and guidance and with help from @rsc204 on the installer front. If not is is possible to get the geometric bends so I can make some D0's (Masks to make the pairs).

Thanks

-eggman121 (NAM team member)

[Chrisim 44]

Thank you for the good feedback. I know that you are the lead developer for the RRW. Thank you for creating it !!

I am sorry, but I did not create layers for Ballast, Sleepers and Rails nor masks suited for re-skinning. After my long hiatus, creating and implementing these textures was a steep (re-) learning curve for me with trials and errors. My intermediate files are not suited for re-skinning, because I had not been aware of such efforts. The brown RRW textures look great, in my opinion.

First, I used the old SC4Tool to get an overview of textures in existing dat-files and to know their TGI. I partly remember RULs and I learned the differences for original Maxis railways & early NAM mods versus the RRW. I can tell that the RRW is an amazing development. Maxis should have used this concept, in my opinion.

As base for creating more legacy textures, I used the existing textures from the file RealRailway_Textures_LotSupport.dat, because they have the rail curvature required for the legacy pieces. I used @rivit’s fantastic GoFSH tool for batch conversions and colour adjustments. To create a new legacy texture, I usually imported two base textures as layers in Adobe® Photoshop® and used the eraser on a layer or copied parts into an additional layer. Only for the last few textures, I learned how to use masks for two layers in Photoshop, a software new to me. Therefore, I don’t have intermediate files suited for re-skinning.

[Eggman121 1,053]

16 minutes ago, Chrisim said:

As base for creating more legacy textures, I used the existing textures from the file RealRailway_Textures_LotSupport.dat, because they have the rail curvature required for the legacy pieces. I used @rivit’s fantastic GoFSH tool for batch conversions and colour adjustments. To create a new legacy texture, I usually imported two base textures as layers in Adobe® Photoshop® and used the eraser on a layer or copied parts into an additional layer. Only for the last few textures, I learned how to use masks for two layers in Photoshop, a software new to me. Therefore, I don’t have intermediate files suited for re-skinning.

 

Thanks for the reply. Did you have the bends that you did with rivits Bender tool? That would be helpful to make the D0's

Thanks,

-eggman121 (NAM Team Member)

[Chrisim 44]

No, I did not use rivit's Bender tool. I don't have "bends", sorry. 

I started from existing textures that had the right rail curvature required for the new pieces. I worked on single tiles (128x128 pixels, for color and alpha channels), combining parts of two or three existing textures in Photoshop into a new texture (as DXT3 fsh file with color and alpha channels). That’s all.

 

[Eggman121 1,053]

Ah Ok.

With that information I should be able to make some D0's that fit in.

Thanks for the update.

-eggman121 (NAM Team Member)