Rolling Line News

[h2]It's time for a layout jam!! [/h2]

In the previous update I mentioned that there was going to be an event coming that was going to involve the new flags feature, well here it is!

This update also adds a brand new official map to kick off the jam.
And for this event, I've decided to make a map based on Tibet!
(more info on this later in the news post)

But first off, here is the info for the Jam:



There are basically no rules, the idea is just to choose a country (real or fictional) and use that as the inspiration for your map.

You can use mods, liveries, custom props, custom flags, etc. Anything.
In fact your map doesn't even need to include trains! By all means just make some scenery inspired by a country, no railway necessary.
You can also choose any time period you like.

When you upload your map to the workshop, just make sure to tick the "International layout jam entry" option so it gets tagged as part of the event:



You can make as many entries as you like.

Also since this is a "jam" not a competition, there won't be any specific winners (or prizes) so don't be too competitive. These events are just meant to be a good opportunity to get inspired and make a layout with a theme.

Though as usual, I'll still give shout-outs at the end of the event towards some of my favorites!

This jam runs from the 10th to the 30th of September.
Please remember to use the International layout jam tag option when uploading your map (mentioned above) so your map is included in the list of entries!



[h2]New official map: Tibet[/h2]

To kick off this jam ive made my own entry!
Just like with the previous layout building events, I love to personally make my own layout at the beginning to give people inspiration for making their entries.

It's based on the beautiful landscapes of Tibet, and features the Qinghai–Tibet railway.

You can find lots of real-world locations like Lhasa, Larung gar, Golmud and Lake Namtso.
This map makes full use of the new custom posters feature, and has lots of photos of the real-world locations.

Here is a bunch of HD screenshots:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Jryqj2t



You can easily access this map from the "new game" list, just like any other official map:



And you can also download it from the Steam workshop:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2597864547

Alongside this map ive added some new props to use as "prayer flags" (the strings of colored cloth flags you often see in India/Nepal/Tibet):



There is also now a couple of dedicated flag pole props:



[h2]Other features and fixes[/h2]

This update also includes a bunch of other stuff:

• There is a new props drawer "props 5" which has the new prayer flags as wall as other decoration themed props like umbrellas and flag poles.
  
• There is an "extreme speed" setting in the "pause menu -> gameplay" menu which you can enable to make trains go stupidly fast. This used to be hidden behind a cheat but it's now easily usable in-game!
  
• The maximum distance you can extend the shadows in photo mode has been increased.
  
• The main menu will now show a little "new" flare on the next arrow to indicate that a map in the list ahead is new.
  
• Posters with the "unlit alpha" material option will now glow brighter at night.
  
• The "train movement mode" setting (either simple/dynamic) has been removed. It is no longer needed and often causes confusion.
  
• The "freeze time" and "freeze weather" settings are now enabled by default. So you need to disable these if you want dynamically changing time of day and weather.
  
• Fixed bug where holding a poster in your hand on PC would show up as invisible.
  
• Fixed bug where the photo mode camera would pan slightly when holding down the mouse but not moving it.
  
• Fixed bug where the ambient audio would not reset to default correctly when leaving a custom audio region.
  
• Fixed bug where the default ambient audio would not be saved when reloading a save.
  

And that's everything!

I hope you enjoy the new Tibet map, it was loads of fun to make!
And I can't wait to see what everyone makes for the International Layout Jam!

If you have any questions about the Jam feel free to ask in the comments.
Enjoy!

Flags! flags of every country (252 total), and you can easily drop your own image files into the game to use your own!
These flags even have cloth physics and blow in the wind:



As well as flags (with physics) this update also adds "posters" which are literally just a 2D image you can place anywhere on your layout.
Just like with flags, you can easily supply your own custom images to use as well!

Posters can be used for all sorts of things, like backdrops, signage, advertisements, neon signs, or even just decoration for your layout room:









Here's an example of using a custom photo in a poster as a backdrop:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2591412484

[h2]Importing custom images[/h2]

Adding your own custom images is incredibly easy!
All you need to do is paste any PNG or JPG images into this folder:
"Rolling Line -> Modding -> Custom Images"



You can even include custom images inside your workshop uploads!
Simply choose the "Package custom images" option when uploading your save and any images you've used will automatically be uploaded with the layout.



[h2]Customizing flags[/h2]

You can find the new flag and poster props in the "Room -> tools 2" drawer.
Once you have spawned in a flag you can customize it using the popup menu (press Q).

From here you can choose the image from a list of options (custom images will be shown at the end of the list).
Plus you can set whether the flag physics are pinned to the top or the side, or simply "static" (not moving).



You can do the same with posters.
When the options menu for posters is open you can also change the material type:

• "normal" - standard solid material
  
• "alpha" - smooth transparency (see-through)
  
• "alphaCutout" - hard-edge transparency
  
• "unlit" - appears fully bright (unaffected by lights) at all times, like it is emitting light.
  
• "alphaUnlit" - a combination of Alpha and Unlit, which is both transparent but emits light.
  

[h2]Other features[/h2]

This update also fixes a couple of bugs:

• The Glowbells minigame now works properly, after being broken since the last update. You can now load and play the game as normal.
  
• Fixed the UI position of the workshop requirements panel
  
• Widened the collision on the walls so that props aren't hidden behind the sky material if enabled.
  

Also the "many lights" lighting mode has been removed.
This is because it was causing lots of issues with certain materials and really wasn't providing much benefit. the "many lights" render mode uses a technique called deferred rendering to display lights, which is supposed to be more efficient for large numbers of lights, but the performance increase is so small it wasn't worth the trouble it's been causing.

Let me know if you run into anything unusual when viewing maps with lights! as these changes might have unforeseen effects.

[h2]Layout competition just around the corner![/h2]

As mentioned in the previous update, there's a layout jam event on the way!

I decided to release this flag update on its own (instead of it being combined with the competition announcement) since It's ready for release now, while I'm still going to spend a few more days getting things ready for the layout jam.

As you can probably guess, the layout jam has something to do with flags!
And just like with the Railroad History Jam, I'm making my own example map to kick off the event.

I've still got more work to do to finish this map, but here's a preview:



More news on that within the week... ːsteamthumbsupː

But in the meantime, have fun with the new flags!

A common problem indie games run into is that they get more and more bloated and unoptimized as updates get added. Seeing developers get roasted for not spending time on optimization and "Cleaning up the game code" is a tale as old as time.

Well that's exactly what this update is all about!
Rolling Line is over 3 years old now, and has had 126 total updates so far, so It's fair to say that the core structure of the game has gotten pretty messy over time.

So over the last few months I've been putting time towards finally re-organising and cleaning up the code of the game!

This pretty much sums it up:



The end result is a much, much more stable game and significantly faster loading times.

Specifically, the startup time between launching the game and getting to the main menu is up to 4x-5x faster!
In fact the game can launch in about 3 seconds with a fresh install (no mods) on a decent PC.



The process of loading mods is now much faster too, and the game now stays responsive while loading! (instead of freezing).
Before this update the game would just freeze and hang unresponsive till the loading was all done, but now it will remain responsive during the load process, and show progress.

This means the load screen will actually tell you exactly what it's loading.
e.g.
"loading save files 1/20"
"finding mods 6/542"
"loading skybox 89%"



[h3]Please keep in mind that this ONLY AFFECTS STARTUP! [/h3]
The process of loading save files has not changed and will not be much different than it was before.
Although it will still be a little bit faster thanks to the improved loading times for mods.

I am planning to do an update in the near future which entirely focuses on the way the game loads maps, which will involve some similar optimizations for that too!

[h2]This update also vastly improves RAM usage[/h2]

Launching to the main menu has gone from using around 3.5GB of ram down to 1.5GB in some tests, and the amount of RAM used by having lots of mods and save files is greatly reduced.



[h2]Organising the games structure [/h2]

This update is focused on more than just speeding up load times.
I've actually made massive changes to the core structure of how the games programming is organized and structured. While this isn't something you'll see on the surface, it's something that makes a MASSIVE difference to how hard it is to track down bugs and issues. It also helps immensely for future updates.

And knowing that the game's code isn't a jungle of chaos anymore helps me sleep at night.
ːwinter2019happyyulː

As an example of what I mean by "Cleaning up the game's structure", here is what the Unity scene hierarchy looks like both before and after this update.
In fact RL actually now launches from an empty scene, and all of this data shown is set up through code!



Overall this update has far too many background changes to list, but here are a few things that you will actually see as the player:

• Easter egg scenes are now loaded differently, and exiting a scene and returning to the game is much faster (the game is no longer reset).
  
• The "resume" option for loading a save now works much better at selecting the right save. e.g. loading workshop saves or backups will not mess it up.
  
• The wheels in photo mode will no longer show up in low detail.
  
• Backups over a month old are now automatically deleted when the backup folder gets too large.
  
• The mountain props now no longer snap to the surface angle (so they face upright by default).
  
• Trains that were placed on the old legacy "Top of the south" layout are no longer loaded in save files.
  
• The "Dark mode" setting is removed, and dark mode is now the only loading screen style.
  
• The debug option to show "paint colors in file" has been removed, as this has long since been unused and broken.
  
• Fixed a glitch where the tutorial menu would bounce around if the train was derailed during the tutorial.
  
• Added a launch tag "-iwanttobelieve" which makes the UFO easter egg show up 100% of the time, just for fun.
  

And that's the bulk of it!
This update has been a massive undertaking, and It's something I've been worried about and putting off for years.
But it feels so good to finally take the time and clean up this behemoth of a game.

I recently figured out that September 10th, 2017 is the closest thing to Rolling Lines birthday as there is, since that was the day I first started officially working on developing it. And that means that some of the code in the game is almost 4 years old!

After 4 years of development and updates, it's no wonder it got so messy.
Rolling Line has grown into a larger game than I ever could have imagined!

This has been a pretty exhausting last couple of months, so now that this is all wrapped up, I think it's time for a nice and relaxing layout competition for the next update!
So keep an eye out for that ːsteamhappyː

Here comes some new freight wagons!

Since I'm working on lots of programming improvements in the background, I wanted to give everyone some new content to enjoy in the meantime. It's been ages since any new wagons or trains have been added into the game officially, and these american freight wagon types have proven very popular in the community, so why not get them into the game officially!

These new freight wagons are some very popular ones from America:

• Autorack
  
• Tanker
  
• Hopper (flat side)
  
• Hopper (curved side)

Each one of these models was made by members of the community in the form of QuickMods, and then modified a bit (as well as adding official livery support) to be included in the game.

Thank you so much to:

• G5K (for making the tanker mod)
  
• ABStudios (for making the Autorack mod)
  
• Stationmaster (for making the hopper box mod)
  
• TrainTiny (for making the hopper curved mod)

This is a perfect example of how much the community contributes to Rolling Line!
It's awesome to see community-made content directly making its way into the game for everyone to enjoy, and there's bound to be more of this in the future!

[h2]Custom liveries [/h2]

And of course all of these new wagons have official custom livery support!
In fact there are tons of examples people have already made on the Steam Workshop:



You can find them simply by going to the Steam Workshop and using the “livery type” drop-down list:



Just as with all the other liveries, you can find the templates in the "Rolling Line -> Modding -> templates" folder.



Plus there's a guide here on Steam that explains how to make your own liveries!
All you need to make liveries is basic image editing software (even MS Paint is fine):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1405658466

[h2]Legacy rooms [/h2]

Meanwhile in the background, this update makes a big change to how the old "legacy rooms" are handled. For anyone who remembers back when Rolling Line was released, there was no "custom table" room, and you could only build maps on a selection of pre-made tables.
These old pre-made table rooms have always been sitting in the game to preserve old maps that use them, but they haven't been accessible from the new game menu for a long time.

These are the maps im talking about:
(the three "oval / double / horseshoe" rooms, and the old main layout outer loop)



Well this update replaces all the tables/drawers/controllers/menus/walls etc of those old rooms with prop versions (e.g. replaces the old menus with the modern dynamic menu which players can use in their own maps).



The reason this is happening is so that I can finally remove more of the old hard-coded legacy parts of the game, and those old tables were a big part of that.

From the player's perspective, nothing will really change, so you don't need to worry about the technical side of this update.
But one thing that is important is that after this update you will not be able to edit the color of tables in these old rooms!!
Any old maps will still work perfectly fine, but you can't change the table colors past this point.
This only affects the old legacy rooms, so unless you are still making a map in those old rooms, then this will have zero effect on you.



So to summarise, on the surface these changes won't affect you at all, but lots is going on in the background which helps remove old legacy code and features that the game no longer needs.

This is all part of the big optimizations which are on the way in the near future!

Rolling Line's code is going through massive changes and improvements, which is something I've been needing to spend time on for YEARS. So it's amazing to finally be focusing on this. It's going to massively improve the game (both performance and stability) in the long run.

[h2]Other features[/h2]

In addition to the new freight wagons and the legacy map changes, this update also includes:

• Drawers now use a different menu position if they use the slide in/out style instead of the stationary option
  
  
  
  
• There is now a "new" flare on the "next page" button on drawers when there are new props on the next page of drawers (like the new freight wagons, which are on the second page)
  
  
  
  
• VSync is now on by default. If you find that the game is using heaps of GPU processing then try turning VSync on! (in the "graphics -> advanced" menu)
  
• The "menu location" option is now gone, since it's no longer used
  
• The player spawn location when teleporting to menus has been adjusted a bit
  
• You will now be snapped to the closest menu (instead of the root menu) when capturing thumbnails and such
  
• Fixed a bug where the collision for the small table next to the menu would not be moved when changing the room size
  

And that's everything for this update, I hope you all enjoy the new freight wagons!

Hello everyone!
This has been a slightly longer gap between updates than usual, but that's because some big changes are happening in the background! I'm finally putting some serious time towards improving the optimization of Rolling Line and cleaning up old legacy features that have stuck with the game since release day (over 3 years ago now).

And the single oldest part of Rolling Line is the original main layout, called "Top of the south"



Back when this game came out it only had one single layout, and the map editing tools were hilariously bare-bones compared to what they are now.
Because of this, the old "main layout" is actually built using entirely different tools and methods to how every map in the game is made now.

All the systems like skyboxes, switchboards, powerlines, turntables etc were all hard-coded for that single layout. But after many, many updates to the game all of these features can now be done using in-game tools!



Because of all these old "hard-coded" systems being used on the main layout it's been really complicated trying to make optimizations and improvements to how the game runs and loads maps.
So something I've been dreaming of doing for a long long time is to finally "convert" the old main layout into a modern map, all using in-game props, track, tools, etc.

And that's exactly what this update is about!

On the surface it hardly looks like anything has changed, but the new "Top of the south" layout (included in this update) is actually a painstakingly-built one-to-one copy of the original.
This means that you can now actually edit all the props, track, skyboxes, switchboards, etc, just like any other map in the game!





And best of all, I can finally remove all the old legacy code that the original main layout relies on.

This is all quite technical and hard to explain, but all you need to know is that Rolling Line just got 100x more flexible to future change, so the next series of updates are going to be focused on improving performance, stability, and all-around optimization!

Please keep in mind that no optimizations are in the game yet! This update is just the initial layout conversion that gets things ready for what I have planned next.

But even though it doesn't look like much on the surface, this update is actually a massive milestone for how far the game has come since release. Features like skyboxes, turntables, dynamic track, switchboards, etc, are all now proper in-game tools, yet back when the game came out these were all features I could only dream of. But now, 125 updates later, here we are!

Here is the full list of what's changed in this new version of the main layout:

• All track is now editable
  
• New audio sources and ambient audio
  
• Switchboards are now dynamic
  
• All signals now use the new system
  
• All level crossings are now dynamic and use custom triggers
  
• Skyboxes use the new skybox system and are editable
  
• All props (aside from roads and terrain) are editable
  
• The layout is now in the custom table room, instead of the legacy main layout room
  
• All powerlines use the new dynamic wire system
  

In addition to the main layout conversion though, this update also includes some new features to enjoy:

[h2]Drawer style customization[/h2]

You can now customize the visuals of the portable drawers!
Simply press Q (left-hand hover option) to open the popup menu and you can edit a bunch of options.



In this menu you can customize:

[h3]Opening drawers (with a handle) or stationary[/h3]
You can choose to make the drawers open/close when clicking on the handle. So you can place the drawers in the walls and open them when you need them:



[h3]Change the shelf style[/h3]
Choose between a few different shelf styles, like a glass case or a foam holder:



[h3]Change the colors [/h3]
You can change the inner and outer box colors. Just paint them like any other prop in the game:



[h3]Enable/disable the inner/outer box [/h3]
You can also choose to hide either the inner and outer box. This is great for making glass displays (where you don't want the drawer buttons visible).

[h2]New props[/h2]

During the process of converting the main layout there were a few new props which were added. These are:

• Two new industrial buildings (originally from Picton)
  

• A bunch of new rock & boulder types
  
• Playground prop
  
• Rubbish bin
  
• Various sign posts
  
• Various road signs
  
• Tent
  
• Roadworks barriers
  
• Seat
  
• Shipping container
  

[h2]New main menu[/h2]

The main menu is now the Hanmer Springs scene.
In the future I plan to make a system where you can create your own custom main menu scenes, or even share/download them on the workshop! But for now, this scene is replacing the old ones in various locations around the main layout.



[h2]Kaikoura earthquake map[/h2]

You may have heard of an easter egg where you could trigger an earthquake on the Kaikoura coast and get a unique post-earthquake scene.
Well in the process of re-making the main layout I decided to make this easter egg a proper map that everyone can access from the main menu!



[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• The "main layout quality" setting has been removed, since it's no longer used
  
• The "Startup load type" setting has also been removed for the same reason
  
• The "Kaikoura, picton, ward, etc" loading stages are now gone, since the game no longer needs to load these manually
  

And that's everything!

Even though on the surface this "main layout conversion" doesn't look like much, the amount of work involved was insane and the amount of flexibility for future changes and optimization that this has made possible is massive.
Rolling Line certainly has some big changes on the way, and converting the old main layout was the number-one roadblock to making that possible.

And I am very, very excited to be working on what's to come!