Getting Started With Path Creator

Upon opening the utility this is the window that displays.

You will need to enter a project name in order to begin using Path Creator. After doing that choose if you’re creating a:

►

basic path set,

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path set with extended pieces (not recommended), or

►

queue set.

Basic path comes up by default and we’ll use that for this example. We’ll name this example project Tutorial Example Project.

Note how when you’ve filled in something to Path Creator’s satisfaction the red field changes to green. Mouse click on the green field at the bottom right to begin your project.

As mentioned, several instances of this utility can be opened at the same time which is handy if you’re making a paths set and also a queues set that is coordinated to match. If you’re working on several projects at once Path Creator will list the name of your project, and whether it is a path, queue, or extended path project in the top bar.

Icons And Naming

Observe the pale blue header near the top left with the info icon displayed. This indicates we’re entering information into the utility. Here you’ll load the desired icon and enter the names you want. Icon textures should be PNG images.

Tip

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The in-game name is the name displayed as a tool tip when you hover over your path/queue in RCT3.

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The short name is the name given to the installation folder of your path or queue.

If you would like your icon to display any transparent areas, so that the transparent areas do not display as white in your game you should save your icon in a PNG format that includes transparency.

The Create my path! bar at the bottom is red because we need to give Path Creator more information. To do this click on the arrow at the bottom right.

The pale blue header bar indicates the utility now needs for us to enter the textures it needs.

Loading Ground-Level Path Textures

Ideally you will have already created your ground-level textures prior to beginning your project. After you’ve decided what texture you want your paths to be you’ll need to set them up in an image editor so they can be arranged and clipped to match DarkHorizon’s templates. To start, here is our selected example path texture. It represents one full terrain tile square in RCT3.

Of course you wouldn’t put numbers or a green zig-zag on your actual texture. We’ve included them here just for this example.

The next thing we need to do is to multiply this texture by 4 in an arrangement that is 2 x 2:

As you see there are now four textures on one texture map, with two textures across, and two down. Now we’ll apply DarkHorizon’s Straight Corners A template.

And then remove the marker zigzags.

This is what your texture map will look like after it's been clipped with one of DarkHorizon’s templates. After you’ve done this with one of Dark Horizon’s Corners A Templates you’ll need to repeat the process with one of Dark Horizon’s Corners B templates. You’ll need to do the same thing with your queue texture and DarkHorizon’s Queue Texture template. should be either 256 x 256 or 512 x 512. If you choose to go with 256 x 256 texture maps each quadrant of your texture map will in fact be 128 x 128. This size will display at a very low resolution in your game and will pull down the overall appearance of your paths & queues.

You’ll recall that a few paragraphs back we had gotten this far in Path Creator:

We should have already pre-imported our models and set them aside ready for use. Click on the Load shared texture file toggle near the bottom right. The shared OVL will be in our pre-import Shared folder. Be sure and select the common.ovl file. Navigate to your pre-import folder and locate the common OVL from inside your Shared folder.

And now with our textures and texture OVL added, this is what your display should look like:

Drag the above toggle

by its edges to a

convenient place on your screen.