For the love of Alcos (RS-3)

[EldoradoRailroad]

That is looking better all the time....any screen grabs from the OR sim?

The "easy" part is creating the 3D cab.."in the rough"...getting all those needles and levers into place gets tougher, not to mention the animation of those same items.

Adjectives like "nice" do not begin to describe what you have done with Norton's base model. Superb might be a bit extreme, but I lean more towards that word.

Out of all the nice to haves in OR, temperature triggered animations would be nice. The fan you now have running could be cheated into some kind of on/off duty cycle, which would be more realistic. Alas, it might look a bit "wrong" when the engine is pulling a load, and the engine temperature is going up, and your animation stops the fan for awhile. The only way to do that is to hack the animation file post export. I did it a few years back as one of the "ROD" animations, so it was based on the speed of the locomotive. It could speed up/slow/down/stop etc. There were a lot of geometric calculations to mimic that in the animation section. A spreadsheet and some external programming (C/Scripting Language/etc) is needed. Those skills might come in handy with animations in the cab as well.

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I stole from the best here...apologies to our moderator R.Steele!

Steve

[scottb613]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the enthusiasm - I'll see if I can get a shot tonight - screenshots aren't my forte though.

Would you like glTF with PBR - - - or - - - just the plain old vanilla "S File"?

Just kidding - I haven't opened that can of worms yet.


It sounds like you've delved pretty deep into the shape file - I can swap textures and fix animation speed - that's about it. One of these days - I've got to humbly ask Wayne to consider adding an MSTS/ORTS switch to his Blender Exporter - making sub-objects every 2666 polys is killing me with tons of unnecessary draw calls. I believe this is done strictly to accommodate MSTS. A 32 Bit 4096 texture sheet is 64MB - I don't want to call them unnecessarily.

It's been a few posts since I've espoused my affection for Blender - hah - this project would have NEVER been started in 3DC - - - there was too much pain involved with mapping. I've always felt kind of bad - Allen spent all that time developing these great kits - shared them - and - they were seldom if ever touched. I'm happy to see this one coming along.


Does this count - LOL - my very first load into the sim - friction bearings - I forgot I even fixed that:



I'll get one later.

Regards,
Scott

[rfranzosa]

Hey Scott,

Back when I was working on my Open Rails RS3, I actually had working animated radiator shutters. It was such a pain in the rear to accomplish it in TSM, I eventually abandoned it. Can you imagine coordinating fan, shutters and sounds based on the engine temp?

That would be amazing!


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[scottb613]

Hey Scott,

Back when I was working on my Open Rails RS3, I actually had working animated radiator shutters. It was such a pain in the rear to accomplish it in TSM, I eventually abandoned it. Can you imagine coordinating fan, shutters and sounds based on the engine temp?

That would be amazing!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Hi Rick,

Sounds good to me - keep in mind - I am but a humble - steam - guy - - - this thing would probably have the default GP38 ENG file - if Gerry didn't kindly help me out.

Some good things seem to be happening with Eric spearheading both the TSRE code and a new Track System - perhaps things will get better. It's been a bit stagnant on the North American front.

Again - I'm using your soundset which is probably the best Alco I've heard in the sim - all the pieces come together to make it a pretty enjoyable experience.

Regards,
Scott

[rfranzosa]

Again - I'm using your soundset which is probably the best Alco I've heard in the sim - all the pieces come together to make it a pretty enjoyable experience.

I'd love to take credit for the sounds, but they came from a friend of Gaetan's


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[EldoradoRailroad]

Thanks for the enthusiasm - I'll see if I can get a shot tonight - screenshots aren't my forte though.

Would you like glTF with PBR - - - or - - - just the plain old vanilla "S File"?

Just kidding - I haven't opened that can of worms yet.

Scott

Reopening old wounds! And rubbing in some rock salt for good measure!

It sounds like you've delved pretty deep into the shape file - I can swap textures and fix animation speed - that's about it. One of these days - I've got to humbly ask Wayne to consider adding an MSTS/ORTS switch to his Blender Exporter - making sub-objects every 2666 polys is killing me with tons of unnecessary draw calls. I believe this is done strictly to accommodate MSTS. A 32 Bit 4096 texture sheet is 64MB - I don't want to call them unnecessarily.
Scott

A few years back, I posted on Elvas Tower the animation section of what I described about "fanimation". It did not garner much attention as I assume it was either too complex to understand or it was ahead of its time. I can try to find it for you and repost here, but I have to fire up my WinXP machine and upload it to my NAS, to upload it here. I might be able to use my VNC to do that directly. If you are patient I will find it for you. There is a hack, which is in plain sight in the python exporter that will allow you to up considerably the sub object size. As I recall it was 32K MAX. You can edit the python code with a text editor to achieve this. I am not using a Windows machine here. So I do not have that code change on hand. I can find it if you need it.

It's been a few posts since I've espoused my affection for Blender - hah - this project would have NEVER been started in 3DC - - - there was too much pain involved with mapping. I've always felt kind of bad - Allen spent all that time developing these great kits - shared them - and - they were seldom if ever touched. I'm happy to see this one coming along.
Scott

Scott, you are on the right track, IMVHO and it parallels what I have been doing for years now. If anything, you have been more courageous with actually texturing Norton's models.

Does this count - LOL - my very first load into the sim - friction bearings - I forgot I even fixed that:

I'm sorry you wasted your time, the first engine is perfect as is, why bother with all that pesky texturing and AO. The second engine behind the first is just so "old fashioned" if not "outdated"..reminds me of 2023.......................JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!

Steve

[scottb613]

Hi Steve,

Oh - sorry - I didn't know there was any drama with the new shape format - I just noticed the work that one of the developers on Elvas showcased.

Any advanced animation by shape file manipulation - is probably beyond the scope of what I'm trying to achieve here. Information is always useful though and might prove helpful to others.

Hmm - yeah - I forgot the exporter is probably a Python Script - perhaps I could feed it into Chat GPT to see what I can achieve. If not too much trouble I'd gladly try a modified exporter - 32K would be great. I know Unix shell scripting fairly well and a little C - I can usually follow along in Python.

All the textures are preliminary - I apply color over a dark gray metal base texture - all of which needs tweaking - also my striping isn't perfect yet - - - this was just to give me something to play with and check mappings. I'm using low specular shine on the hood and cab.


I'll send you a PM.


As Requested:




One of the most scenic vistas on Paul's beautiful CT River Route:




Regards,
Scott

[tarrant75]

That is some seriously impressive texture work!!!

[CSRX]

Agreed, that locomotive looks fantastic. I may need to "Revive" a pair for the WMRC.

[scottb613]

That is some seriously impressive texture work!!!

Agreed, that locomotive looks fantastic. I may need to "Revive" a pair for the WMRC.

Hi Chris/Shawn,

Thanks - she’s been coming along nicely - the 3D Cab will take some doing.

I stumbled across a Eoropean manufactured countertop site that had massive extremely high res textures showcasing their products - more than a dozen had the look of various metals and rusts. They make perfect metal base textures underneath whatever color I’m applying over the top. I’ve been using them for years.

The Alco’s would look good in WM working some old coal tipples in the mountains of Appalachia or MEC working some log yards in backwoods Maine - well into the 70’s.





Regards,
Scott

[CSRX]

Scott, the MEC units were exactly what I was thinking when it came to my WMRC "Heritage" fleet.

They will look fantastic doing a few scenic trips as well as moving freight from the paper mill in Westbrook.

[sburr]

Southern RR ran quite a few RS-3s way back in the day. I saw them both in the green tuxedo scheme and the black tuxedo scheme,

[scottb613]

Southern RR ran quite a few RS-3s way back in the day. I saw them both in the green tuxedo scheme and the black tuxedo scheme,

Hi Steve,

Way down deep in the bowels of the file library - one of my earliest works was a pair of RS1's for Southern on Dick Cowen's kit - I was just cutting my teeth on weathering - and for the time - I don't think they turned out half bad.

Regards,
Scott

[sburr]

Scott,

I remember those too. I think I still have them. Still would be nice to have some RS3's though in the updated scheme.

[scottb613]

Hi Steve,

Sounds good to me.


Regards,
Scott