The 242 Holiday Special: A train for all seasons?

stormfather · Post by **stormfather** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:54 am

Call me a grinch, but I always thought that the Holiday special was a waste of a train. Besides the festive paint scheme, the train has so many jingling bells and holiday-themed whistles it seems completely out of place anywhere but on the Christmas map. A shame, too, since it's a pretty sharp looking locomotive.

Its v1 skin, however, doesn't have the festive colors, so I was able to make a non-holiday version by copying and editing the original skins, kfm, and nif documents. Unfortunately, the train still sounded more like santa's sleigh than a freight train.

After poking around the XMLs, I realized I was wasting my time, something in the kfm is calling on the scripts that play the bells and whistles. I looked through the kfm, but to no avail, and eventually decided to go right to the audio defines XML and change all of the 242's christmas themes to standard steam engine noises.

The plus side is I've freed up a new engine, which I've been playing around with as a 4-8-2 Mountain (The train has 2 wheels too many in the back, but the Mountain was an important American locomotive, with about 2500 in service in it's day).

The downside is that since I edited those XML scripts in the audio defines, the Christmas scenario's Holiday Special now sounds like a standard freight train, having lost all it's christmassy appeal.

Does anyone know how to change the audio scripts in the kfm? The closest I found was where event code 500 was called (event code 500 being the whistle, in the 242's case the really annoying 'tis the season to be jolly' one). I'd like to be able to have my cake and eat it to, ie have a freight train 242 without altering the Holiday Special 242's properties.

The 4-8-2 Mountain was introduced in 1911, and about 2,500 were built for fast freight and passenger service. I've been using the Mountain as a mixed cargo train that falls somewhere between the Pacific and Mikado, with MaxSpeed=7, Speed0=7, Power=13, a 120,000 pricetag and 4,000 maintenance fee.

As an interesting side note, Chapelon's 4-8-4 242A1 was actually based on a (somewhat badly designed) 4-8-2. So using the 242A1 as a Mountain on American maps isn't too much of a stretch!

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:38 am

Stormfather - I searched for it in the KFM file, but it wasn't there. Then I thought about the RRT_Trains.xml.

<fStartSoundCrossFade>2.0</fStartSoundCrossFade>
<szStartSound>AS3D_TR_STEAM_ENGINE_START_4</szStartSound>
<szStopSound>AS3D_TR_STEAM_ENGINE_STOP_4</szStopSound>
<fSpeedStartWait>0.75</fSpeedStartWait>
<fSpeedCrossFade>3.0</fSpeedCrossFade>
<iPitchChange>2000</iPitchChange>
<szTenderCar>P5ADummy</szTenderCar>
<SpeedSounds>
<szSpeed>AS3D_TR_STEAM_ENGINE_SLOW_LP_1</szSpeed>
<szSpeed>AS3D_TR_STEAM_ENGINE_MID_SLOW_LP_1</szSpeed>
<szSpeed>AS3D_TR_STEAM_ENGINE_MID_FAST_LP_1</szSpeed>
<szSpeed>AS3D_TR_STEAM_ENGINE_FAST_LP_1</szSpeed>
</SpeedSounds>
<szSharpAngleSqueal>AS3D_CURVE_SQUEAL</szSharpAngleSqueal>
<szAverageAngleSqueal>AS3D_CURVE_SQUEAL_MEDIUM</szAverageAngleSqueal>
<szSlightAngleSqueal>AS3D_CURVE_SQUEAL_LIGHT</szSlightAngleSqueal>
</Train>

Here are where your sounds come from. Just find an engine that is close to what you like and replace the Start, Stop and all the Speed sounds. Heck, even the Squeal. And yes, I did it, I put Santa in the MID EAST. Of course it worked better when I put the enging in the RRT_Trains_MID_EAST.xml file

Do it my man, kick that Santa guy off that engine, along with all his elves

stormfather · Post by **stormfather** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:40 am

I was looking through the forum and it looks like Dr. Frag beat me to the punch as far as this train goes, check out the Technical Issues forum, OzoB's post about the game missing a train.

snoopy55 wrote: ...

Here are where your sounds come from. Just find an engine that is close to what you like and replace the Start, Stop and all the Speed sounds. Heck, even the Squeal. And yes, I did it, I put Santa in the MID EAST. Of course it worked better when I put the enging in the RRT_Trains_MID_EAST.xml file

Do it my man, kick that Santa guy off that engine, along with all his elves

Some of the sounds come from the XMLs, but the most annoying of the sounds produced by the Holiday Special come from the whistle and the horn, which are referenced directly out of the kfm. You can change the sounds in the XML, but the train will still play christmas carols every time it leaves the station.

Appearantly, Dr. Frag found a reference to the whistle in the .kfm file, so I'll go take another look tomorrow and see if I can find it and change it without fouling up the christmas map.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:47 am

As I was looking in the KFM and NIF, I found some references to Horns, but I couldn't find where it got those from. All it said was UserData, or something like that.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:09 am

GOT IT!!!!! you need to open up Trains0.FPK and find the engine you want the horn to sound like. I used the 4_8_4_242_A1_HORN_Layer_Horn.kf. Extract it to \CustomAssets\Trains where the Xmas engines goodies are. Find the original one, right click and click on RENAME. Right click on the name and copy. Then delete it. Now do the same thing for the file you extracted except PASTE it. You now have the new horn.

I do hope you got that......

stormfather · Post by **stormfather** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:23 am

I got the same effect by editing the 242's parameters in CustomAssets/XML/Audio/ audiodefines, however both of these approaches still have the same downfall: the 242 Holiday Special in Tycoon's Tale will no longer have it's christmas cheer. Of course, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that, but nonetheless if there is a way to avoid that, I'm all for it.

Although come to think of it, I like your method a bit more because it avoids editing global XMLs, something I've learned can be a tricky situation, as evidenced by my America 1.2

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:24 pm

Just for a test, make a copy of your files for it, including the Trains folder. Then go in and change the A1 in the names to A2, making the same changes to the NIF and KFM. That may just be the way it attaches all that data in the Trains folder.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:29 pm

Edited Again
Basically what I did was create a new train by copying the following files.

4_8_4_242_A1.kfm
4_8_4_242_A1.nif
4_8_4_242_A1_DIFF.dds
4_8_4_242_A1_EMSK.dds
4_8_4_242_A1_HORN_Layer_Horn.kf
4_8_4_242_A1_NRML.dds
4_8_4_242_A1_SPEC.dds

For me the Holiday Special was the non-standard train so I added a '_HS' to the above files to make them the exception.

4_8_4_242_A1_HS.kfm
4_8_4_242_A1_HS.nif
4_8_4_242_A1_HS_DIFF.dds
4_8_4_242_A1_HS_EMSK.dds
4_8_4_242_A1_HS_HORN_Layer_Horn.kf
4_8_4_242_A1_HS_NRML.dds
4_8_4_242_A1_HS_SPEC.dds

Then I edited the top two files to point to the bottom five files and also the Global XML to reference the new Holiday Special files.

Then I edited the regular 4_8_4_242_A1.kfm, and 4_8_4_242_A1_HORN_Layer_Horn.kf to point to the regular steam engine sounds.

Of course you have to create a new entry in the Global RRT_Trains.xml for the regular 242 A1 and I also made a new routing image.

This is probably more work than needed but I wanted the Holiday Special to be the non-standard 4 8 4 so this is what made sense to me.

DF

stormfather · Post by **stormfather** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:50 am

I understand what you're saying, but here's where I'm getting hung up:

Where in the .kfm or .nif does it reference 4_8_4_242_A1_HORN_Layer_Horn.kf ? I can't find that, which I need to change to a horn layer I've prepared based on the mikado.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:50 am

stormfather · Post by **stormfather** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:31 pm

Awesome, thanks. I missed that, I was looking through the block details.

Thanks a lot for helpin me out with this.

Dr Frag · Post by **Dr Frag** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:32 am

You're Welcome
Glad to share

jayo · Post by **jayo** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:43 am

I'm trying to edit this engine, but I can't find the rest of the whistle sounds to reference to! You think you could send me a copy of your modified A1?

jayo · Post by **jayo** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 3:57 am

OK, I'm having a hard time getting this to to work. First, I'm finding 2 variations of the files such as ...DIFF and DIFF_v1. Which should I use? And I'm a bit confused with the process, go through it again step by step please.

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 7:46 am

There are two ways to do it. I think the simplest would be:

1) Copy all the files for the Engine to a seperate folder

2) Remove the four DDS files that do NOT have _v1 them.

3) remove the _v1 from all four of the DDS files.

4) Rename the KFM and NIF file to 4_8_4_A1

5) Open the 4_8_4_A1.kfm and change 4_8_4_242_A1.nif to read 4_8_4_A1.nif, go down two lines and then save the KFM file.

6) Copy the XML section for the Santa engine. Change the Tag name to 4-8-4 A1. The year to 1946 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Chapelon (The 242 A1 was a rebuild that first saw light of day in 1946.)) The best I can see is Andre Chapelon for the Manufacturer Name. The model should be changed to 4_8_4_A1.kfm.

The XML uses a 2-8-2 Mikado for the images. It really could use some images of the engine itself.

That should do it. If you want, I can run it up and put it in a BB. If you post it, we'll use yours as a BB.

Smr Simple!

The 242 Holiday Special: A train for all seasons?

The 242 Holiday Special: A train for all seasons?

Re: The 242 Holiday Special: A train for all seasons?

Re: The 242 Holiday Special: A train for all seasons?

Re: The 242 Holiday Special: A train for all seasons?