All,

Hi...

I have a few issues that I have not been able to find a solution too...

1) The modeling phase of my locomotive is done... The problem is that the locomotive sits just a little bet too low... How do I notch the entire shape up by a small amount ? I seem unable to shift the shape when I have the entire locomotive selected... If I just "move" the entire shape - when I export - it is still in the same location... I have tried Paul's Shape Manager software - and every time I use it - it introduces a very noticable wobble in the wheels...

2) While applying textures I use the standard settings of 80 - 20 - 5 - 0 for most texture applications... When I apply some of my textures - it makes the part translucent in 3DC - yet when I view it in MSTS it is fine... Is there away to correct the view in 3DC ??? Not sure what I am doing wrong...

Regards,
Scott

Hi Scott.

1.What you need to do here is to shift the main axis of the part that defines 'main' in your engine's hierarchy as this defines the relative height of your entire model when sitting on the rails. Lock your Z, and X axis on the main toolcar to preevent unwanted movement and then go to your side tool bar and select the shift tool.Hold down control whilst right clicking on your 'main' object. This will turn the object a transparent blue and you will be able to move the object's axis up or down by holding the right mouse button down. This should allow you to fix your problem.

2.The translucency you are seeing within 3DC is mainly to do with the rendering within the program. I usually get a little bleeding and pixel distortion around the tranlucent edges, but its nothing to really worry about. Just also be aware that with .tga files that do not have an alpha channel assigned yet that 3DC will assume that the entire texture you are applying is translucent, giving the 'see-through' look.

Hope this helps.

Hi Vulcan...

Will give that a go...

Man - this texture mapping stuff seems to be a bit harder, more tedious, and much slower than the actual building phase...

I have been playing with the ACE for the boiler... I am trying to find how many pixels to devote to the boiler to provide a decent weathering effect... As is is now - I am using about half of a 1024x1024 ACE - each side of the boiler mapped separately - and as soon as I introduce weather variations the image quality goes down hill fast... I still need to play with this...

Also - if anyone happens to know - Can I have both Specular and Non Specular on the same shape ? My Boiler / Smokebox was made from an extrude... I want the front smokebox area to be dull and the rear boiler part to be shiny... I don't think I can do that - can I ??? I tried using two different shapes - but the merge between the two was not very clean...

Once again - thanks to all in the forum... Couldn't have done this without ya !

Regards,
Scott

SP32-20041122-073143.jpg (71 Kb, 533 downloads)

It's looking very nice Scott...I don't use MSTS any more but can't you just apply a gradient fill to the boiler area something like this.

Bazza

Smokebox.bmp (48 Kb, 500 downloads)

Hi Bazza...

Nice to hear from you again...

You know what - you're absolutely right... The Specular lighting in MSTS is marginal at best... I will probably be happier using your method...

Not sure if you use PSP9 for image files - but - am I the only one that finds the gradient tool included - very difficult to master ??? It's fine when using the canned gradients already built for you - but - try making a custom one of your own... Gives me all kinds of trouble... Ahh well - time to dive in and master that tool..

Regards,
Scott

Hope it works for you...maybe you could add the Specular lighting as well but it may look a bit OTT.
I use this kind of gradiant fill for all my cylindrical parts, chimneys,domes,boilers,cylinders, buffers etc..it works quite well.

It may be worth trying to get a more shiny gradiant for the boiler with a very dull gradiant for the smokebox.

I know what you mean about the Gradiant tool in PSP..it's just trial and error with me...I find the help file somewhat lacking for this tool.

Mayby someone knows how it works?

Bazza

Hello Scott,

For MSTS you won't be able to have different material settings on the same object without splitting the object or facets into a different group. Also its best to have only objects with the same material settings present in a group. Even with an extruded boiler you can make the front section separate by moving points, selecting faces and then splitting them into a new group, but this is a hard option.

As Bazza suggested the way to go is to create the effect with textures, especially the use of gradients and highlighting areas of your mapped texture file to show raised areas, curves etc.

I'm not familiar with the gradient tools in PSP 9 as I still use 7.1. In 7.1 to make a gradeint you select your background, foreground colours and the click the fly out tab to select the style of gradient fill, but I guess this has now changed with PSP9. I've never really liked the gradient tool in any Paint Shop Pro version as the Photoshop gradient fill tool is far more versatile and has better control over the effects.

I really like the model. Excellent work !

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vulcan_Foundry,

to get the most number of colours in your texture (important for gradients or weathering) use a .bmp rather than a .tga for those bits, and make sure you select the correct options when converting it to an ace. Put translucent bits, and transparent bits into their own texture files.

MSTS will still turn the gradient into stripes, so add a little noise after creating the gradient, and then blur it, and it does not look so bad in MSTS.

My advice is to look at other peoples texture files to see how they've done it

As Ian say, keep transparencies and translucencies in separate files.

MSTS uses only 16 bit colors so you may see odd effects in the sim - the model will look better in the shape viewer, though there is a low quality menu option that will duplicate MSTS.

In a way, black locos are sometimes the simplest to "weather" as everything is just shades of grey.
Also, never actually use black, use a dark grey as the base color.

Hi All,

Thanks for the great tips and taking the time to respond...

This may save me hours of trial and error...



Regards,
Scott

FYI...

Just a WIP shot...

SP32-20041203-164242.jpg (77 Kb, 347 downloads)

Lovely stuff Scott.

I think you were partly responsible for getting me to look at some US stuff - watching "The Great Locomotive chase" (1950's Disney) yesterday may have tipped me over to starting a model...

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the complement... Actually - without all your great tools and friendly support - this would never have happend... Greatly appreciated - sir...

These small US steam engines are addicting... I was really interested in the much bigger US stuff - but Andre Mings "North Arkansas" and some screen shots by Tim Muir - got me interested... These older - smaller engines seem to have much more character...

It took me a bit to get the hang of this texture mapping... Hated it when I started - but - now I am getting the hang of it and I can see the results of my work... Kinda hit my stride with it...

While this model seems to be coming along - I am really afraid I kinda blew it - as far as LOD's are concerned... I read through some of the tutorials and there seems to be sonme rules your need to follow to have them work... Here is what I gathered...

1) A part should only be mapped to one ACE...

2) Parts should be grouped in the model hiarchey - as to what ACE the fall on...

3) You should not mix Specular and Transparency on the same ACE...

Am I MISSING any ???

This model violates some of the above rules - so I do not think LOD's will work...

Anyways - just another progress picture...

Thanks to all...
Regards,
Scott

SP32-20041206-074033.jpg (79 Kb, 320 downloads)

Really nice work Scott. I think black loco's are the hardest to map but your doing a fine job with this one.
I find it takes me as long, if not longer, trying to get the artworok to look right as it did to build the model.

Sorry can't help with the LOD's

Bazza

Hi Bazza...

Yep - I agree... Black is tuff... While this is my first 3D Model I have created - I have painted a few other black locomotives - the awesome kit's produced by Dick Cowen... This is the first time - however - that I am using specular lighting... I usually attempt to provide pretty heavy realistic weathering... I think the specular may interfere with that... Also - I saw a tip on some forum - about introducing "blue" to make a realistic black... It seems to work pretty well... May have to tweak it a bit yet...

Anyways- have a good day !

Regards,
Scott

Oddly I find black the simplest

LOD's are really not as important with locos as they are for trucks or scenery, the loco is rarely at a distance from the camera, except as AI.

Though with the custom LOD's, you just need to be careful - export after each deletion and check it with the shape viewer to make sure it still works.

If I were you, I'd just make one custom LOD for AI locos for above 300m or thereabouts.

Hi Paul...

Sounds good on the LOD's - the POLY's are - what I feel - still very reasonable... AND - more importatntly - it probably saves me many hours of work ! :P I think they are around 6500... I still need to add a few small items - but given the small loco size - I will not be pulling a 50 car freight train... The polys should work fine...

Hmm - looked up that movie - looks good - never saw it before though.... I'll have to check it out... Yep - be real interested to see what you create...

Regards,
Scott

Hi Scott,

I'm impressed with the results! Lookin' real good!

Looking forward to seeing more. How about the Union Pacific?? Like the one's in the 'Golden Spike' pics you see..

Richard

Scott,

While no "expert" by any means, i have learned some tricks to make things work when it comes to LODs.

If your model violates some of those "rules" you listed, then AUTOMATIC LOD generation may well result in MSTS crashing. That does NOT mean CUSTOM LOD's won't work however! And, i highly recommend doing custom LODs - you get a whole lot more control over what the different distance levels are, and they really are not that difficult. I did 5 LODs for my new F40, and it only took a couple of hours. The end result is WELL worth the time.

Assuming you are doing custom LODs:
> 1) A part should only be mapped to one ACE...

If you are creating CUSTOM LODs, that is not true. What you can't easily do though is use the "reduce points and faces" operation. That may result in MSTS crashing. Instead, for each distance level, manually delete faces as much as possible. If it is a large object, like a locomotive body, you probably won't reduce too terribly much that way, so at some level where you can no longer see the detail, replace that object with a MUCH simpler one that has roughly the same shape.

Here is where it gets a bit "tricky"...

If you do end up replacing that object with another, simpler one, it MUST use ALL the textures as the original object, and they need to be mapped in the same order. In other words, if tex-a.ace was mapped before tex-b.ace on the original object, you must do the same order on the replacement. If you don't get the order right, it WILL still work, but it will look really strange!

> 2) Parts should be grouped in the model hierarchy - as to what ACE the fall on...

That is good advice to get the most polygon reduction, but it is not a requirement for doing Custom LODs.

However, all the textures used in the group MUST still be present in the final distance level. For example, if you have 9 objects using tex-a.ace and 4 objects using tex-b.ace in the original, that same group in the final distance level must have at least two objects in it - one that is mapped with tex-a.ace, and one that is mapped with tex-b.ace.

> 3) You should not mix Specular and Transparency on the same ACE...

Unfortunately, i'm not exactly sure exactly what you are referring to there... However, i have not personally run into any issues with needing transparencies/translucencies separate or anything.

One thing you did miss though - the final LOD MUST contain the same groups as the original, and there must be at least one object (or more than one, based on the above "rules") in each group (which is kind of a given, cause if there weren't any objects in it, the group would be gone!).

Now that may seem a bit overwhelming at first, but really, it isn't. Just make sure that all textures present in one group remain in the final distance level of that group, make sure all the original groups are still there, and try to avoid the "reduce" operation on objects with more than one texture mapped to it.

One final word of advice (that i think i found here actually!) - use Paul's Shape File Viewer to check the model after each export. Click on each distance. If you get to a distance level where the model seems to "explode", there is a problem. USUALLY, if all the distance levels look ok in Shape File Viewer, they'll work fine in MSTS.

Hope that helps!!

------ BUZZ

Hey Richard...

Yeah - the model I did was actually based on plans from an 1899 CB&Q Prairie... Took some liberty with the name as I did not have a suitable route for that road... I will probably mark it up with CB&Q for the purists and release that as well...

Already starting to think about what is next... Not something you want to rush into because it is such a huge investment of time...

One thing I need to motivate me is an appropriate route to run it on... VSCALE plans on doing the Colorado Midland at some point in the future for more turn of the century modeling... Count me in on doing a model of a more western flavor for that...

Also - 3DTrainstuff has Donner Pass... Actually thinking that may need a Santa Fe 2-10-2... Hmmm...

Marc from 3D-Trains has some transition error route with a few vague details in the wings...

Definately has to be steam - as it seems diesels have more than enough folks working them...

Actually have my eye on a set of plans for a Mastadon... We'll see...

Once again - thanks for all your help on the logo...

Regards,
Scott