Steams up at last

I think that scene looks great. Good stuff!!

Richard T.

I,ve just spent a full day trying to get some realistic looking steam/smoke effects.
I tried various animations in 3DC but couldn’t get things to look right, so while all the models in this scene are built with 3DC, the smoke is 100% Blitz3D.

I used JFK’s CSP particle engine which I think is available at the Blitz site. It took me a while to understand the code and how it all worked but the results are fantastic. I had to change some of the code to get the effect, but very little. The smoke leaves the chimney and then tumbles and expands before fading away. Great!! <!– s:D –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!– s:D –>
I’ve just got to sort out a way to get the smoke to react with the speed of the engine. In this shot the engine is doing about 20mph and I think it looks just about right. Maybe a bit of work on the smoke texture as well.

The rest of the scene is my Port Daniel station, still very much WIP, I must put a skybox in, and I’ve just noticed my engine is running around crewless. <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Bazza

Looks great Bazza. Does the smoke emulator have the ability to change the colour and smoke texture based on the engines regulator setting, air intake etc. ?
I’m going to have to have a really good look at Blitz when I get some time. The realistic shadows make the scene all the more realistic with the added depth.<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

V_F
Thanks. This is my first attempt with the Blitz particle feature so I’m really only a beginner on this subject.
With the particle system I’m using at the moment I can set options for each effect I require ie. position. lifespan, texture, speed, scale etc.
So I can set up fx1 for whistle steam, fx2 for engine idle steam, fx3 for thick black smokey steam etc.

Re Blitz, it may be worth downloading the demo version, I don’t think the save is disabled, only the size of the file you can write is restricted. If you do, and you want to load a .b3d file lightmapped in Gile you will have to change the Texture blend in Gile from Mod2x to Multiply. You can do this in Prefsandgt;Lightmapandgt;Texture Blend.
The demo version of Blitz doesn’t support Mod2x which is the default for Gile.

I would really like to be able to load a lightmapped scene/model into MSTS but don’t know if the MSTS file format supports this. The lightmap is applied to the model a bit like a texture and then exported from Gile so maybe it is possible.

Bazza

holy smoke!!

That’s fantastic!

have to look into that one if I ever get out of hock again

Thanks gmani.
Remember the Bliz demo is FREE.

Bazza