Intro to reskining for Trainz with Fireworks

Authors Note: This post has been sitting in drafts for a while waiting for me to mock up some pictures for it. I'm pretty certain that won't happen for a good while longer, so I've decided to go ahead and post it without the pictures.


Lets start off with a few basics, terminology, etc. These tutorials are geared towards reskining 3D models for N3V (formerly Auran) Trainz Simulator series (TRS), for the most part these tutorials should work for any version of TRS.


Programs:

• Trainz Railroad Simulator - I'm using Trainz Railroad Simulator 2009, any version should work except Trainz Driver.
• Adobe Fireworks - I use CS5, most things haven't changed in Fww since it was owned by Macromedia, earlier versions should still work.
• PEVsoft Mesh Viewer - Great simple program for viewing the 3D files, locating textures, etc. If your doing this for a different game; look around there may be a similar version available for your game.
• Notepad - or similar program
• Irfranview - This program is great you should have it even if your not reskining. It opens almost any image file, has basic editing capabilities, & can convert to just about any image. Irfranview also has audio & video support, but there are better programs (VLC) out there.
• Web Browser - Chrome or Firefox are my recommendations, but you probably already have a favorite, if your reading this.

Terminology & File Types:

• TRS - Trainz Railroad (or Railway) Simulator, usually followed by a number to indicate version; such as: TRS9 or TRS2006.
• Fww - Adobe Fireworks
• .im - current mesh file used by TRS
• .pm - (Progressive Mesh) older mesh file used by TRS, you should convert up to .im using PEV's converter
• .tga - standard image file used for textures in TRS
• .png - Fww's native file format
• KUID - a unique identifier ever asset in TRS gets, no two assets should have the same KUID
• KUID2 - updated version of the KUID, allows for updating & replacing files.

A Fireworks Breakdown:

The best way to describe Fww to someone who knows a bit of the Creative Suite, is that Fww is a cross between Photoshop & Illustrator that has been tuned down a bit. Fww allows you to seamlessly work with both Raster & Vector images in one file, as well as using most Raster tools on your Vectors (and vice-versa).

In a default setup you should have your toolbar on the left, Properties area on the bottom (unlike most Adobe products), Optomize (History is hidden here, and more helpful) on the Right, Layers is below Optomize, then a bunch of collapsed windows my most often used is the Special Characters window.

The Layers Window

Unlike photoshop, anything you put into the file ends up here in it's own layer, instead of having a Layers & a Paths window. 

The Properties Window

Probably the most unique to Fww window. This window changes based on what tool or object you have selected. Down here is the best place to change colors, add effect & adjustments, change overlays, do your pathfinding, etc. There are two layouts you will see most often, the default (selection) setup and the type setup.

Selection Setup

1) Positioning & Size

2) Fill Color. Graidents & textures live in here.

3) Line Color. 

4) Filters & Effects. Top Line is opacity & Overlay types, Second Line is the "Filters" this includes adjustments. Hit the [+] button to bring out the listing. Each filter you add will show up in the box below. 

5) Filter listing. This lists all your filters you used, drag & drop to rearrange, double click to adjust.

Text Setup

1) Postioning & Size (box, not type)

2) Font Face, Size, Color

3) Kerning, Leading, Alignment

4) Indents, Stroke

5) See #4 in Basic.

PEV's Meshviewer

You can get PEV's Meshviewer here:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~villaump/pevsoft.htm

Right-Clicking on a loaded mesh will bring up a contextual menu. The most important option here for reskining is "View Textures". This will bring up a small window in the Lower Left of the viewer & will probably render your object in wireframe. Scrolling thru the list in the bottom left (yes it's a list) will render your object with only one texture at a time on it & give you the texture's file name so that you can find it for reskining.

Holding the Control key down and pressing an arrow key will move the object around in the view. just pressing the arrow key or clicking & dragging will rotate the object. Shift & and an arrow key will zoom, alternatively you can use your scroll-wheel.

Basic Rules with TRS models.

With the exception of built-in objects, some older stuff and ground textures; an Item must contain a minum of 4 files:

• Config.txt - this file contains the basic information about the object. See the Trainz Dev Wiki for more information on this.
• .im (or .pm) file - this is the physical mesh of the item. View this in Meshviewer.
• .tga (or .bmp, or .jpg) file - this is the textures for the file. Trainz supports 3 file types. Most people use .tga. I prefer to use .bmp or .jpg as Fww cannot write to .tga. However one can convert a .png to a .tga using irfranview.
• .texture.txt file - this file is a "pointer" file and tells the mesh where to look to find it's textures. DO NOT rename this file. If you are using a different texture file name or format, you must change the line inside this file to point to the correct texture. Edit with a Notepad.

Most object have many more than 4 files.

.Texture files

a .texture file (with no .txt at the end) is an encoded version of the .texture.txt AND the corresponding image file. Use PEV's Images2TGA to extract this file then delete it.