Engine Skin Problem

[Frozer]

Hello everyone. I'm a new comer to this forum.

Today I have a engine skinning problem that I want to consult to all of senior RRT3 players.
I have searched this forum with several keywords, but I didn't find the answer...
That's why I post my problems here.

I believe most of you have experiences of using the skinning tool from "Coast to Coast Expansion" or downloading new engine skins or engine models.
My problem is, for most of new engines, both new skinning or new models,
when the in-game "time" becomes night, those models have strange "gold (or light yellow) frames"...

(This is my homemade painting of "Class EF66")

For another two examples, these are two new painting or new models I downloaded from this website.




These photos show the strange "gold frame" phenomenon mainly occurs on the wheel, handrail and pantograph (for ELs ).
It also happens even on new freight coaches! (I saw it happened on the new pulpwood coach last night.)
But for some new models (like N&W SD40)and already-exist engines from original game, this wouldn't happen.

Below is the comparison of normal "Homemade Class EF66" and "Original Class EF66" at night time




I tried to solve this problem, but the only conclusion I got is "this is not texture's fault! "
That means, the texture has nothing to do with this problem (I think).
Because Even I use the same .tga file of original painting to create a "new" skin, this problem still occurs.
Did anybody know how to solve this strange problem?

If anyone is interested in my "homemade Class EF66" skin (which is the original painting of JNR, Japan National Railways) and solve my problem,
I can send this skin data as my appreciation.

P.S. The following is the spec of my computer
CPU: Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo T7300
Memory: 2 GB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Graphic card: nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS 256MB

[Hawk]

First of all, aboard. Sorry for the inconvenience when you tried to register the first time and I do appreciate you understanding why it happened.

Actually it is in the texture. It has to do with a clean edge line and alpha channel.

Here's some posts about it. BTW! I'm not sure what search terms you used but I found these using glow as a search term. I just picked out three but there is more.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=250&p=10051&hilit=glow#p10051

viewtopic.php?f=67&t=2001&p=19193&hilit=glow#p19193

viewtopic.php?f=67&t=1329&p=12465&hilit=glow#p12465

[Frozer]

Thank you VERY MUCH, Mr.Hawk!!
Now I've fixed up my EF66 JNR Color, and there won't be any glowing at night now.
Sorry for asking a question that have been discussed...
I used terms like "skin error", "skin problem", "engine skin"...and so on,
That's my fault the word "glow" didn't cross my mind

Now I share how I "brutal forced" on my skins...

1.First, I use Photoshop to edit the alpha channel of the first skin, replace light gray pixels by white ones,
and adjust contrast to make dark gray pixels black.

2.Then I downscale the whole picture for 50% width and 50% height, again I did the same process to make the alpha channel "black and white".
Since my Photoshop didn't recognize .dds files, I saved it as a .tga file (trainsname_B.tga) and renamed it "trainsname_B.dds".

3.Using the same process above, I created trainsname_C.dds, trainsname_D.dds and trainsname_E.dds in sequence.

4.Put these files SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN THE FOLDER where TrainSkin.exe exists, or they will be OVERWRITED! (that's exactly what happened to me and destroyed my first try )

5. Use Ctrl+C to copy these files (if you've already made the alpha channel of your original skin clean and have it saved, you only need to copy files from "trainsname_B.dds" to "trainsname_E.dds"), then execute TrainSkin.exe. Choose desired "profile", "beautyshot" and "loco" files then press the convert button.
Now here is the key part. When extra files start showing up inside folder (it takes only seconds) and BEFORE the .pk4 file shows up (this is when all other files disappear), press Ctrl+V to overwrite files created by TrainSkin.exe and make sure that the overwriting is successful.

6. Start the game, now this notorious glowing problem should have been eliminated. (Better have a night-time saved game for testing, and DO NOT use the engines to be tests during the whole game, or sometimes the game will break to desktop while loading.)

I hope there will be some other simpler way than mines, or I'll have to unpack many .pk4 files and fix up all the engines I've downloaded...

BTW, Mr.Hawk, are you interested in my engine skin?
I can send the .pk4 file to you as I promised
And...is there anybody interested in Japanese or Taiwanese trains?
(Well...frankly speaking, I'm a Taiwanese from Taipei... )

[Hawk]

If you want to add your work to the Xtras section of the site http://hawkdawg.com/rrt/rrt3/xtras/xtras.htm I'll be more than happy to add them for you. Just email me the files.
As for me using them personally, I don't get much time to play anymore.

Oh yea! Do me a favor. Drop the Mr. I'm just plain ol' Hawk.

[WPandP]

Glad you figured this out! Unfortunately the TrainSkin tool that comes with Coast-to-Coast always produces this nighttime glow phenomenon, because it just resizes the original TGA for the reduced-resolution skins without cleaning up the alpha channel. That's why I stopped using it altogether when I made my own mods and skins. Welcome to the forum, and looking forward to seeing your creations hosted here, by Mister Hawk!

[General_Popeye]

First off welcome its always nice to see others intrested in reskinning poptops original engines to a more realistic look or to just add a varity of colors to the game (guilty of using neon pink on more than one engine) dont ask but still glad to see others working on skins.