KIND

TrainzOnline General Reference

 

KIND data types

The main article for this topic is: KIND TrainzBaseSpec, which details required tags, containers and place in the Trainz Data Heirarchy.

The KIND data type defined in an assets config.txt files explicitly defines which other (data type) entries are needed in that particular assets config.txt file to the various Trainz game engine software modules. The config.txt and it's associated (independent*) files together define the self-defining software describing the asset and it's functionality to the game engine.

Certain KINDs are dependent upon other KIND assets, others are stand-alone. Asset KINDs are thus the entry which technologically defines the asset or sub-asset's type, scope, and needs.

KIND definitions further tell TRAINZ how to process and render the specific asset item correctly, and render it into 3D graphics models.

See also: data types listed in category:Asset KIND and category:Config Container

Notes

* Data files in the assets root folder such as textures, texture.txt, etc. are technically independent of use constraints, they can be copied to and used in several or many differing assets' root folders. A particular asset, as defined by a config.txt file and the placement of the independent file in a path accessible to the game software then creates a dependent relationship by requiring the asset in one of the entries within said (config.txt) initialization file. At that point, it becomes an dependent asset and the asset being created can be said to have an asset dependency upon it.