PM2IM Tutorial.pdf

Tools for Asset Repair by PEV Image by Alberte Zato

PM2IM Revision 3 12 August 2012

This is the second in a series of tutorials where I describe

the use of the tools I have written to bring assets up to

date for TS2009/10 and TS12.

What Can PM2IM Do?

1. Convert one PM mesh to IM format, from the File Open

menu or by double clicking on a PM in windows explorer.

Introduction

2. Trawl (or search) for PMs and convert any it finds to IM

format.

Reiterating the background, Trainz uses a render engine

called Auran Jet to display and move objects within the

simulator. Auran Jet supports a suite of proprietary file

formats that define 3d objects, surfaces, animations,

sounds and so on.

3. Remove unsupported texture types.

4. Change specular lighting to remove an unwanted shine

on object surfaces.

Any 3d object or surface can be modelled as a series of

triangular facets, on to which surface colouring (textures)

are added. All of this information is gathered together in a

"mesh". The mesh contains all of the 3d geometrical data

needed to define the shape of the object as well as the

texture specifications to select surface colouring, and the

texture mapping details to correctly place the texture

images on to the various portions of the surfaces.

5. Remove non-english characters from material and

texture names.

Using PM2IM

Installation

If you don't have this program, please download its

installer program from my PEVSoft Download page.

The Auran Jet mesh type is now the "Indexed Mesh"('IM')

which has superseded the "Progressive Mesh" ('PM').

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

The progressive mesh was the same as the indexed mesh

but with the addition of data that could simplify the mesh

for distant viewing. (lower the Level Of Detail). Auran later

chose to use multiple 'IM' meshes instead of a single 'PM'

for their LOD method. The PM method of collapsing the

mesh is a bit hit or miss as some of the content on the

DLS shows.

Run the installer and the program will be loaded on to the

Program Files area of your C: drive, along with a desktop

icon and an entry in the PEVSoft folder of your All

Programs menu.

If you have TS2009 or later, you can automatically set up

'OpenWith' macros for Content Manager in each Trainz

installation. When PM2IM is run for the very first time it

will attempt to install these macros. If you Trainz

installations are in the default locations this will happen

without any input from you.

PM meshes were obsoleted in TRS2006, though they still

work in the game. In TS2009, PM meshes cannot be

committed into the game by the Content Manager; so any

one doing reskins of assets with PMs will not be able to

commit them. So a way of changing PMs to IMs seemed

to be important.

As an example, the “OpenWith” macro for TS2009 is

located in the following base folder:

'C:\Program Files\Auran\TS2009\bin\CMPData\tools'

I created my first PM to IM converter for TRS2006. That

program took the PM mesh and stripped out those

portions of it which performed the LOD functions.

In this folder , the PM2IM program will make a new folder

named 'OpenWith' (one word). PM2IM then builds the

macro (a DOS batch file with the name "PM2IM.bat" or

similar) that looks as follows:

PM3IM Converter 2 is an all new version that performs the

same functions as well as those such as “strip textures”

and “adjust speculars” that were part of the previously

released version. This new version makes no changes to

the animation base data.

@echo off

"C:\Program Files\PEVSoft\PM2IM\PM2IM.exe" -trawl %1

To use the OpenWith facility select one or more items in

Content Manager 2, then right click to bring up the menu.

Select Open With, then click on PM2IM.bat.

The selected items will open for edit and the PM to IM

conversion will be done as they are opened.

I recommend, also, that you you make PM2IM.exe the

program that opens *.pm files when you double click them

in Windows Explorer.

Fig. 2.

Opening a File

The program can open .pm files only. (or .im files for

texture stripping).

Replace pm with im makes an im file with the same

name as the pm. The original pm file is deleted.

Make im of same name makes an file of the same name

and retains the original pm file.

Make im with new name makes an im file with whatever

name you enter into the edit box.

Choose an option and click on the “Convert” item in the

Main Menu and the conversion will proceed.

When completed the program will tell you that the IM file

has been created.

Fig. 1.

To Open a File, start the program and click on the File

menu. Click on Open and the open file dialogue box will

be displayed. The file extensions are filtered so only the

correct type can be opened.

Fig. 3.

Many PM's have incorrect values (usually 1.00,1.00,1.00)

for Specular lighting in the texture settings. With later

versions of Trainz these settings cause an unnatural shiny

look on object surfaces. To prevent this enable the Adjust

Speculars option.

Files can also be opened by double clicking in Windows

Explorer. You must add the .pm file extension to the list in

Windows explorer and point it to this program before this

will work.

The Exit option closes the program.

Convert to IM

When opened from the Start Menu or the desktop short

cut, the program will await a file open instruction from the

user. Click on the File menu. Click on Open and the open

file dialogue box will be displayed. The file extensions are

filtered so only PM will be visible. Select a PM to convert.

There are three options in the action list:

Fig. 4.

You can change the colour of the specular lighting by

clicking on the colour patch labelled “Specular” as shown

in Fig. 2. A colour picker dialogue will appear allowing you

to select a colour. A dark grey (near black) is

recommended for starters.

The program also checks for non english characters in

material names and texture names. It will automatically

replace any non-english characters with an underscore. If

this occurs a message is displayed showing the new

name. The name of the texture or texture.txt file will need

to be altered by the user to match the new name if a

texture name is changed.

function in Windows explorer, except that when it finds a

file it processes it without asking any questions. Trawling

can save many hours of work by automatically converting

PM's to IM's. TS2009 and later do not allow .PM files to be

committed into the game without flagging an error.

So if you have faulty content caused by the presence of

PM files (as flagged by CM2/3) you can use the CM2

search filter for faulty content and open it all for editing,

then apply the trawling process to the editing folder.

All messages are included in the log if you are using

trawling. The log can be viewed by selecting View Log

from the File menu.

The Exit option in the File menu closes the program.

To use Trawling you must launch this program from the

command line with the -trawl switch, or launch from the

Open With menu (right click) in Content Manager 2 or 3.

Trawling.

Here is an example of a faulty bogey in TS2009, caused

by the presence of a PM.

Trawling is the process where the program searches a

folder and ALL of its sub folders for Progressive Mesh files

to convert to Indexed Meshes. It is similar to the search

and the presence or absence of shadow meshes.

If you click on PM2IM.bat as shown the PM2IM program

will open in trawl mode and an IM mesh will be made for

every PM found in the search. In this case only one IM is

made. Please note the the config.txt file will require

alteration to get the IM mesh to show up in the game. I do

not include any instructions here for config.txt modification

because the config.txt changes depend on Trainz version

If launched in normal window mode (not minimised) you

can stop trawling at any time by pressing the Stop button...

If you press the Resume button the process will continue.

The files processed are listed in the main text box as the

conversions progress.

The program keeps a log (named Trawl_Log.txt) of files

found and shows the actions taken on each file. The log is

accessed from the File menu and clicking on View Log.

The log file accumulates data every time trawl is started.

The Log should be deleted after large trawl conversions. A

delete option is included in the File Menu.

The PM2IM program only reads the "diffuse, bump and

reflect" slots, so during conversion it automatically skips

the other slots. Hence I was able to add an option to be

able to open IM files so that unsupported texture

references can be removed from IM meshes as well.

To allow opening of IM files the “Open IM Files” option

should be set in the Options menu. You can also over-ride

this by manually choosing the file filter in the File Open

Dialogue.

Command Line

The program can be launched from the command line to

automatically start trawling for .PM files to make new IMs.

Any unsupported texture references are automatically

removed from PM meshes when they are converted to IM.

To remove unsupported texture references from an IM

mesh, open the IM file from the File menu and the File

Open dialogue. The IM mesh option can be found by

changing the file filter in the dialogue.

The command line format requires the switch "-trawl" to

enable trawling as in the example below

PM2IM.exe -trawl " c:\Documents and

Settings\userPEV\My Documents\PEVContent\Carz"

If you are happy to proceed press the Convert to IM button

and the unsupported texture types will be stripped from

the mesh.

In this case the trawling would start in the ...\Carz folder

and scan through all its sub folders looking for PM files to

convert.

PLEASE NOTE: the original IM file will be lost (over-

written) if you chose to remove the unsupported texture

types.

The program keeps a log of files found and shows the

action taken on each file. The log is accessed from the

File menu and clicking on View Log.

If launched from the command line with an IM file as

argument the process will proceed without any prompts.

The default for this option is to run minimised showing only

an entry on the Windows task bar. The program closes on

completion of the trawl.

This option to open IM's does not work when launched

with the trawl option. Trawling is only for converting PM's

to IM's.

If you wish to check the log file or view item by item

progress, restore the window from the task bar. In this

case the program will remain open on completion.

Program Options

The PM2IM program provides the following options:-

Adjust Speculars

If converting old PM's it is advisable to set the "Zero

Speculars" Option to prevent unwanted shine on

converted objects. If you require a shine leave this option

un-set and see what sort of result you get.

Remove Unsupported Texture Types

Some content creators made assets using additional

texture slots in GMax or 3dsMax. Slots such as "ambient,

shine, specular, selfilum" were used in an attempt to

enhance the appearance. In TS2009 onwards, the use of

these slots causes an error in Content Manager.

Unfortunately the error is poorly flagged as "Cannot load

texture 'texturename.texture'in 'meshname.IM'" even

though the texture is present in the asset folder.

Open IM Files

If you wish to open IM files by default for removal of

unsupported textures then set the "Open IM Files" Option.

This replaces the old “Strip Textures” option.

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