Tutorial 3: Make a Basic Locomotive from Scratch or Nearly...

Part 2

.Eng Editing and Files Set-up

We're going to export our engine now, but before we do, we need to get rid of the Blueprint cube. Select the BluePrint cube and hit the DELETE key on the keyboard.

Now, export the engine by going to File on the menu bar and select Export. Save the .3DS file to your myloco directory as myloco2000.3DS (Hit yes to preserving the MAX texture coordinates) and quit out of 3DSMAX.

When 3DSMAX asks if you want to save your project, hit NO. - we already saved it before with the Blueprint cube still intact.

To convert the .3ds file to a MSTS .s file, we'll need to modify our batch file from the previous tutroials.

Find the myloco directory, right-click on convertmyloco.bat and select Edit. Replace any occurrence of Dash9 or testtex with myloco.

Your convertmyloco.bat file should look like this:

conv3ds myloco.s myloco2000.3ds

txt2uni myloco.s

makeace myloco.tga myloco.ace -trans

Save the convertmyloco.bat file, close the text editor, then double click on convertmyloco.bat to convert the loco.

Let's copy some more temporary files into the myloco directory. From the GP38 directory, copy gp38.eng, gp38.sd, the Cabview folder and the Sound folder to the myloco directory.

In later tutorials we'll learn how to alias the Sound and Cabview folders so we won't have to copy them.

Also, from the Dash9 directory, copy the us2dash9.ace to the myloco directory.

In the myloco directory rename us2dash9.ace to us2dsh9.ace (you are just eliminating the a in the name. )

Also, in the myloco directory, rename gp38.eng to myloco.eng and rename gp38.sd to myloco.sd

To make the engine visible in the engine lists as well as the consist editor, we'll have to do some editing to the .eng and .sd files.

Let's edit the .eng first. Use Wordpad to open the myloco.eng. When you open the file, in the first several lines, change gp38 to myloco (see the example below - but don't copy and paste from the example below)

Wagon ( myloco

..............Type ( Engine )

..............WagonShape ( myloco.s )

Also, use Find(under Edit in Wordpad) to search for this Wagon ( GP38 ) and change to Wagon ( myloco )

Use Find again for this Engine ( gp38 and change to Engine ( myloco

And finally, use Find to search for ("GP38-2") and change it to ("My First Loco")

Save the file now. MSTS will now recognise our new loco.

Open myloco.sd in WordPad. Change

shape (Gp38.s in the first line to shape ( myloco.s

Save this file now. The .sd file contains information about the bounding box of our new locomotive. This bounding box size is important for detecting coupling.

One last thing, we need to make a consist for our new loco. We could do this in the consist editor, but we'll do it manually this time.

Go to the Microsoft Train Simulator root directory. Go to the TRAINS directory. Go to the CONSISTS directory.

Let's make a copy of an existing consist. Right-click on and drag the file, gp38-2 lumber.con . Let the mouse button go and select Copy Here in the pop-up menu.

Rename the file, Copy of gp38-2 lumber.con to myloco lumber.con

Open the myloco lumber.con in Wordpad.

Change this TrainCfg ( "GP38-2 lumber" to this TrainCfg ( "myloco lumber"

Also look down about 7 lines and

change this EngineData ( GP38 GP38 ) to this EngineData ( myloco myloco ) Save this file now. Our new loco should now be selectable in MSTS in any explore route.

Go ahead and run MSTS. Go to the Locomotive drop-down list. Scroll down to where the M's are and look for My First Loco and go ahead and run your new engine!!!

Part three of this tutorial will concentrate on creating our own bogies and wheels as well as giving our engine an interior. We'll also customize the engine physics a little bit more.

Also, We'd like to make a special request - If you find these tutorials are useful and you end up making locomotives and posting them so others can use them, please direct people, in your post to www.trainartisan.com

This isn't really for credit so much as, if people look at your work and like it, they might want to try creating a locomotive too - show them where to get the info. We make these tutorials because we want to share - help us in sharing this knowledge with others!

Thanks, from the Trainartisan team.

On to Scatch Built Bogies and Wheels