Repainting an OMSI Bus

Repainting an OMSI Bus OMSI\OMSI 2 Tutorial By Dash5155

Contents Section I: Introduction to files Which files you need to modify The contents of each file The location of each file Section II: Tools Needed Section III: Lets Get Repainting Finding the proper texture files Finding the proper texture tools Converting from BMP to mipmapped DDS (specific vehicles only) Section IV: The CTI files Creating and editing CTI files Formatting and notes Repainting parts of the bus not listed in the original model.cfg Section V: Closing Notes and Credits

Section I Introduction to files Before we get started on the painting, we first need to learn which files we are editing. For this tutorial, I will edit a default bus since they are the most complex. The files you will need to open is the following: BUS files - model.cfg files - CTI files - texture files

BUS files. - These files are located in the root folder of every drivable OMSI vehicle. This file lists every script, configuration, and camera angle used by the bus, as well as the default repaint name and the name it uses in game. You can open this file with notepad. Here's a rundown of what's in that file: [friendlyname] This section shows how the bus will show up in the model lists. Example: [friendlyname] MAN SD202 - D92 Beige <- The manufacturer name <- The specific vehicle model <- The name of the default livery [description] This section is what shows up in the description box in the model list. Normally, the powertrain and origin story is here. You can ignore this section if you wish, though if you do edit this section, do NOT remove the [end] tag else your bus will encounter errors [number] Basically, it refers to the file that lists the default fleet numbers. Normally, buses use the automatic registration which syncs the fleet number with the license plate number. Others use manual where if you don't type a regristration number out manually, the vehicle will have none [sound]/[sound_ai] These are links to the sound configuration files which list out which sounds play when triggered. [model] This is what we will need out of the.bus file. This section links to where the model configuration file for this particular bus is located. [paths]/[passengercabin] Similar to above, these are link to the passenger cabin and passenger paths files. Below this point in the.bus file is completely irrelevant to this tutorial and thus will be excluded

model.cfg files - Model specific files that specifies what objects and textures are used in the vehicle, as well as light postions, animations, and so on. Generally, model.cfg files are located in the model folder. for the sake of this tutorial, we will only focus on the first section of a model.cfg file [CTC] - While I'm not quite sure what CTC stands for, this part of the model.cfg file tells you the location of the repaints folder for this model (so any vehicles sharing this model will share the same folder for repaints) Example: [CTC] Colorscheme Texture\Werbung_D92 0 <- location of the repaints for this vehicle* *Please note that this file is always in relation to the root folder. NOT the model folder. [CTCTexture] - While I don't know precisly what a CTC texture is, I do know that this shows what file is being changed. This will be used later in the tutorial as well [CTCTexture] farbschema_tex1 D92_01.tga <- texture name* <- Original texture file* *Texture name - This is the name of the texture to be referenced in the.cti file This is not the file name but rather a keyword. Most buses use the default names but this line could contain any key word. Always look out for these lines before modifying a CTI file. *Original texture file - this is the name of a file that that contains the original texture file that the texture name is referring to. In this case, this is the exterior livery of the D92. It's reccommended that you use this file as a base for your repaint since it normally can be opened with any program (please note that TGA files cannot be opened with Microsoft Paint. Paint.NET is a free program that is capable of editing these kinds of files). The file mentioned here is located in the texture folder. There's normally more than one [CTCTexture] line in a model cfg file. This means more textures can be changed by a repaint. Please note that changes induced by repaints only apply to the repaint, that will all be explained in the CTI file.

CTI files - these files are supposed to be in the repaints folder specified by the model.cfg. The contents of these files can be modified with windows notepad. CTI files tell OMSI bus simulator the location of each texture file, as well as which repaint the new texture will be applied to. Example: [item] SEPTA farbschema_tex1 septa.dds <- opening tag <- Repaint name <- Texture name <- file name relative to the repaints folder The opening tag should always be [item] as this lets the game know that you're referring to a new texture. The repaint name specifies which repaint the new texture will be applied to. The texture name specifies which texture is being changed. The texture name is the same as it is in the model.cfg file. Finally, the file name relative to the repaints folder is referring to the new texture file containing the texture that will be used by the repaint. Most CTI files contain a section with the following tag: **************** [Repaint name] **************** Generally, this tag can be ignored. Like with most OMSI files, this tag is added for organization reasons and is ignored by the game itself. If you wish to keep your repaints organized, add this tag so that your eyes are instandly drawn to the section of the CTI file that contains your repaints. Texture files - these files can be in any of the following formats: DDS, TGA, PNG, BMP, JPG, JPEG. Texture files are image files that, for a lack of better words, contains the textures. You'll notice that within each texture file, the images seem a bit disorganized and maybe even flipped. Because of how the texture is applied in vehicle's o3d model files, you should never try to "correct" the flipping or disorganization as the game will ALWAYS use the o3d model file as to refer to the location in each image where the textures are. Generally, DDS files used as textures are also required to be mipmapped a certain way. If a DDS file is used as a texture (or a repaint texture), it's recommended that you save your edited texture as a BMP file, find the repaint script that came with the bus (an RPC file) and use the repaint tool to convert it as DDS. This ensures the texture is converted properly and is using proper light mapping. This will be explained later in more detail.

Section II Tools you will need This is probably the shortest section in this tutorial. Most of the tools you will need come with Windows and OMSI 2, however if you're on OMSI 1 the OMSI SDK separately Repaint configuration file - these files are have the.rpc extention. They tell the repaint tool which parts of the texture needs to be mipmapped when converted to DDS format. Generally, this is only needed for exterior repaints. If the vehicle you're repainting didn't come with a repaint configuration file, you do not need need one at al. All the default

OMSI buses use their own RPC files, and they are located in the "repaints" folder in the OMSI SDK. In OMSI 2, they are in the SDK/RepaintTool folder (please note that they are organized by folder. To keep things organized it's recommended that you put your repaint templates here). As stated before, if the vehicle you're repainting didn't come with one (and is not a default vehicle) you do not need one. Your vehicle accepts BMP files as repaint textures and thus does not require the extra step. Vehicles such as the Solaris Urbino 15 do not need repaint configuration files. Repaint tool. - This comes with OMSI 2. It's located in the SDK folder, relative to the OMSI 2 root folder. If you're running OMSI 1, you'll have to download the OMSI SDK separately. Please note that you do not need the repaint tool if the vehicle you're repainting accepts BMP files as repaint textures. Text edting program - Windows Notepad can edit all of the files needed by this tutorial. However if you wish to use a better program, Notepad++ is also highly recommended. Image editing program - Any program that can work with 24 bit BMP files is good enough for this tutorial as that's all you'll need to be editing. Paint.net is recommended for this tutorial as that is the program I will be working with.

Section III Now let's get to repainting! Now that we got the tools and a pretty good understanding of what files are located where, we will now begin our repaint. We'll start by opening up the.bus file for the vehicle we want to modify. in my case, that will be the MAN SD202-D92. This file is located in the Vehicles/MAN_SD202 folder. The spefic file is MAN_D92.bus. However you always want to double check to make sure the.bus file is the specific one you want to open by checking the friendly name section and making sure it adds up If the friendly name matches up to the bus you wish to edit, scroll down to the model section to see the location of the model.cfg file. Now that we've found the location of the model.cfg file, we no longer need the.bus file open. You can now close out this file and open up the model.cfg file. For the MAN SD202-D92, the file is located in the model folder and is named model_d92.cfg. So now we will navigate to that folder and open up the model.cfg file with notepad.

Scroll down in the model.cfg file until you see the CTC and CTCTexture section This tells me that the repaints are stored (relative to the vehicle root folder) in the texture/werbung_d92 folder. So now we know where to save our modified textures and CTI files. Right now we want to look at the first [CTCTexture] line as this is generally the exterior texture. Remember the texture name as we will need to reference this again in the CTI file. It's recommended that you keep this file open until you're finished the repaint, or are familiar enough with the format to remember the name of each file and whatnot. The file name is the name of the original texture is the file we want to open. This file is normally in either BMP format or TGA format. Please note that if you are editing a vehicle that came with an RPC file, the exterior repaint BMP that you must use is located in a folder within the folder with the RPC file. Look for a file with the same name as the original texture but with the BS tag [for example D92_01_BS.bmp] and edit that file instead.

Upon opening your texture file, you'll likely notice how jumbled up it is. Here's an example of how a template file would look. Since the file I'm showing is an exterior texture file, you'll instantly recoginize most parts of the texture. Unfortunately unless you instantly recognize the texture, it's hard to identify which parts of the texture affect which part of the bus. Some vehicles come with documentation that explain this, or even a repaint template photoshop/paint.net image (for the default vehicles, you can likely find this type of thing online), however most don't. For this reason, it's recommended that you only edit the parts you recognize unless you're willing to do the "trial and error" method. I warn you now you will weird effects like blue brake lights if you aren't careful.

Now that we've familiarized ourselves with the texture file, lets modify it. I'm gonna skip ahead to where I finish since there's no way to each you how to match the template up perfectly. Instead, I use a very basic livery which one can literally recreate with no real experience - the livery of my hometown's transit system, SEPTA Notice how the entire vehicle texture has changed. Now when you save your new image texture, you want to save it in the repaints folder as a 24 bit BMP file (if you do not remember the location of the repaints folder for your vehicle, please refer back to the model.cfg file) Exterior and interior repaints are always saved as BMP or PNG files. For the sake of this tutorial, we'll stick with BMP. Window texture files must be saved

as TGA since the contains transparent sections. Please note that if you are editing a vehicle that came with an RPC file, you also want to save it as the original BS BMP as well. I willl explain the reason later. We are done saving our file, we are ready to add it to a CTI file. HOWEVER if you edited the exterior texture of a vehicle that came with an RPC file (or a default vehicle), you'll need to take one more step. Converting mipmapped exterior textures to DDS - If the original texture was already a BMP/PNG/JPG file, or simply was not an exterior texture, you can skip this step as it's not needed for your repaint. Skip ahead to Section IV to continue this tutorial. Most people when editing the default vehicles often skip this step because the're used to how the other formats work. Ignoring this step for mipmapped exterior textures will likely result in lightmap issues such as glowing at night, blackness at day, non-transparent windows, and so-on. For the default MAN SD200 and SD202 buses, you'll also need to use this step for the interior texture. To do this, you'll need the OMSI SDK's repaint tool and the rpc file. If you have OMSI 2, the repaint tool is located in the folder SDK/RepaintTool folder. If you are running OMSI 1, you'll have to download the OMSI SDK separately. Find the repainttool.exe file and open it. You should get an interface like this: Please note that if you get errors with missing DLL files, simply copy the afore mentioned DLL file from the OMSI root folder into the folder with the

repainttool.exe. For some reason this was never addressed in an offical release. Now that we have the repaint tool open, we'll want to convert our texture from 24 bit BMP into a mipmapped DDS file. In order to do this, we must first select the rpc file for the repaints. When editing a default vehicle, it comes with the OMSI SDK. Normally the file name is the same name as the base texture but with an RPC extension. However in this case, the script we are using is named slightly differently than the name of the base texture. The location of this file varies from vehicle to vehicle as well as between OMSI versions, however for default vehicles it's always in a folder within the folder of the repaint tool. In this case, the MAN D folder. In the OMSI 1 SDK, the folder is SD202. After selecting the RPC file, the program will then ask you to locate the 24 bit BMP file from the repaints folder of the vehicle NOT THE REPAINTS FOLDER OF THE REPAINTS TOOL If you do not remember the location of this folder, please refer back to your model.cfg file.

Shortly after opening this image, the program will ask you if you wish to convert this image. Select "Ja" and let the magic happen. There's no confirmation message, so it's safe to assume that it's converted as soon as you can move the scroll bars. Now that this is done, we can now move on to Section IV

Section IV The CTI files Now that we've done all the hard parts, this next part is going to be a peice of chocolate cake. First we will navigate to the repaints folder and do one of two things: Create a new CTI file or edit a pre-existing one. Creating a new CTI file requires you to turn "show known file extensions" on in the windows folder options. First you must right click on a blank spot within the folder. On the menu that pops up, hover over "new" and select "Text Document." You'll notice there's a new file that say "New Text Document.txt" rename that file to anything you wish as long as you change the extension from txt to cti. Windows will ask you to confirm this change. For obvious reasons, click yes. Now open this file up with notepad and add your texture in.

For some reason, it's recommended that you put the orginization tag above the first new texture so your file should have the following header: **************** <- 16 astericks Pogo Stick <- Opening header of your choice **************** <- 16 more astericks Now that we have a header, we must now add our new texture to the repaint file and save it. Remember the format of which you add the file must be in this format. [item] SEPTA farbschema_tex1 septa.dds <- opening tag <- Repaint name <- Texture name <- file name relative to the repaints folder If you had to use the repaint tool to convert to a mipmappede DDS file, please remember to use the DDS file. Not the BMP file. If you've modified more than one texture file that you want to apply to this vehicle, you can insert another item tag for each modified texture. Just make sure you keep the repaint name consistent or else your modified texture will be applied to another repaint (Slight spelling errors are not forgiven by OMSI at all). Also make sure that the texture name is correct as having two texture files share the same texture name in a single repaint will give some undesired results. After adding all your changed textures to the new CTI file, save and close it. You're done with it. Your repaint will now be recognized as one of the vehicle's repaints. Next time you open the game, the repaint will be loaded into the list of repaints for the vehicle. You do NOT have to take any further steps. Please note that if you want to modify a texture on the bus that is not listed in the model.cfg, you must first add the line for the [CTCTexture] to the model.cfg file yourself and then repaint as normal. Please keep in mind that repaints to your modified model.cfg will only work for YOUR model.cfg unless others used the same texture name as you

Section V Closing Notes and Credits Now that we've finally covered all the basics, and crap, I think i finally should show the error with bad. Whenever you repaint a vehicle that requires you to use the repaint tool to convert it to DDS, you'll have to make sure you remeber to save your new texture as the BS BMP file (the one you used to repaint). There are ways around this, however if you dont, your new repaint will have parts of the original texture sticking out

Some buses have it more obvious than others, but it's almost never pretty when you're trying to replicate your hometown's livery. Also when you set the CTI file to read the BMP file for a texture file that you had to convert to DDS, you'll encounter graphics glitches that are very hard to explain other than DON'T DO IT! Now I'd like to take this moment to give proper credits: m-r software for producing such a wonderful simulator unlike any others that allows you to fully enjoy driving a bus. Marcel and Rutger, you guys ROCK! Of course myself, for not only writing this tutorial, but going deeper than any other English tutorial for OMSI has ever gone before. Legit. Very few OMSI tutorials written in English tell you as much detail about files you barely need. They also only tell you specifically one task, meahwhile this particular tutorial covers everything about applying a repaint to a vehicle. Also to the members of United Transportation Modeling, Simulaton, & Development group as on facebook as without them, I would never had been encouraged to get OMSI and OMSI 2 and would never had the experience to write this tutorial.

This tutorial can NOT be re-posted to another source without my written permission. Since this is the only fully detailed English repaint tutorial writen, it will be obvious you try to re-write it in your own words just to re-post it so how about simply not doing that, k? K. Email me at dashgaming5155@gmail.com for questions and support. Last updated: Monday, March 02, 2015 at 10:45AM