Picardi Homes - Refresh

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

I know - I know - - - - I know - - - yet another project.
😉


This one is like eating a candy bar - sugar rush - in an evening or two I can make a big impact on a route.

I've been working on improving Rich's LHR for years. One of the things I've wanted to fix was the excessive use of blue houses. Living in the area - I'd say 50 to 60 percent of the homes should be white - I don't think any are white on the route.

With that said - I took a close look at Ron's models - they are really VERY GOOD. Obviously - Ron didn't have the massive amount of good quality seamless textures we have available today but his shapes were ahead of their time. The textures on the models could use a refresh. I remapped and retextured a couple of his models for testing, and they look pretty darn good. Even with a couple models - with several textures each - it greatly boosts the realism where used.

I'm using all seamless textures - so no baking or AO - and simple/easy mapping.

One observation - not sure if it's the DDS I am using or improvements to ORTS - but items like the brick texture don't have ANY Moire in the sim. Last time I messed with buildings - bricks would give me fits - even with MipMaps - on ACE files. I used to have to reduce the contrast substantially to eliminate Moire. I'll have to test this on a full brick building at some point.




















Regards,
Scott

[eric]

For the day, Ron's models were a little too detailed.

I put around 300 of them on a tile once, and it brought msts to its knees.

I haven't retried that with orts. Maybe with this facelift, it's worth a try?

[R. Steele]

Geeeze, those are beautiful, when can I move in?

[scottb613]

Hi Eric,

Yeah - the LHR has a lot of sparsely populated areas where these would look good - I haven't tried a full replacement of one of the larger villages/towns yet. My textures are obviously larger than Ron's but I did save them all as DXT1. Many are 1024 - I could make them 512 if it becomes an issue - I think I would have to rescale the mappings - no biggie. I think LOD's should be easy but I want to try a LOD in Blender - if I do a LOD - it's easy to use them for lower poly models that are more distant from the tracks.

Regards,
Scott

[scottb613]

Hi Gerry,

Most of the credit belongs to Ron. I'm partial to the stone foundation with green trim.

We sorely need better homes.

Hah - it takes me longer to render the picture than it does to actually do the texture work.

The model itself takes a bit of work - maybe an hour or so - to get settled in Blender.

Regards,
Scott

[CSRX]

I've used a lot of these on my own routes, mixed in with those from TS.
this would be a great addition if you release these updates. Fine work Scott!

[MMSS]

Scott, They are fantastic! I do agree with you that 40 to 60 percent of the homes in that area of Southern NYS and NW New Jersey are white. And put it back in the 1968 era of the LHR V4.0 route and you can put that in the 75% of the homes that color. I have a summer place in Sussex County in NJ and the homes are like that to this day. Very "Stepford Wife-ish" 😉. Afterall it was farm and dairy country up there for the most part back then.

I have to say I really love the ones with the cedar shake siding on them. Working on the redo of the BCL route and you most likely know. 75% of the homes close to the bay or ocean on the Jersey Shore back in the mid 1960's to mid 1970's (The era I am Doing.) were sided with that or wood batten board then stained or clear coated. Those look incredible. Keep up the outstanding work as always.

[scottb613]

I've used a lot of these on my own routes, mixed in with those from TS.
this would be a great addition if you release these updates. Fine work Scott!

Hi Shawn,

Thanks a bunch - yeah - we'll see how it goes.

Scott, They are fantastic! I do agree with you that 40 to 60 percent of the homes in that area of Southern NYS and NW New Jersey are white. And put it back in the 1968 era of the LHR V4.0 route and you can put that in the 75% of the homes that color. I have a summer place in Sussex County in NJ and the homes are like that to this day. Very "Stepford Wife-ish" 😉. Afterall it was farm and dairy country up there for the most part back then.

I have to say I really love the ones with the cedar shake siding on them. Working on the redo of the BCL route and you most likely know. 75% of the homes close to the bay or ocean on the Jersey Shore back in the mid 1960's to mid 1970's (The era I am Doing.) were sided with that or wood batten board then stained or clear coated. Those look incredible. Keep up the outstanding work as always.

Hi Mark,

Thanks as well. It was still big time dairy and horse farms when I grew up there and I think we are of the same age. Stepford Wives - LOL. I've got a ton of seamless textures - perhaps I should try board and batten?

Regards,
Scott

[Darkhorse427]

🤩 Wow.... just wow. those look incredible

[scottb613]

Hi...

Why - thank you kindly - not too shabby for a model made in 2004.

Yeah - it's fun - I always liked gable dormers instead of the ones on the previous images - a new texture - 30 minutes work - I have gabled dormers and an external fireplace - on a new house - LOL - it's addicting. When you build a locomotive - it takes many months to get to completion - this - the results are practically instantaneous.

I've noted the fine-looking Santa Fe stock you've uploaded - it's on my list to try - but - when I'm modeling - it's hard to pull me away. Thanks for uploading - I'll get to it eventually - really.
😉

[superheatedsteam]

Amazing work as always Scott. Having other projects is a good thing as it lets you move onto something different when the current project is about to burn you out.

To help ease the load of 300 houses on a tile I would suggest using trim sheets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUJShalzWy8

If each house uses a 1k texture you could get more than 4 different house combinations on a 2k texture if you used trim sheets.

Also combining individual houses into 'blocks' so that instead of 10 houses with 300 triangles each you have single 'block' of houses with 3000 triangles.

This way less individual shapes and textures are loaded per tile coupled with OR ability to share the same texture over multiple models results in less draw calls for improved performance.

[Darkhorse427]

Hi...

Why - thank you kindly - not too shabby for a model made in 2004.

Yeah - it's fun - I always liked gable dormers instead of the ones on the previous images - a new texture - 30 minutes work - I have gabled dormers and an external fireplace - on a new house - LOL - it's addicting. When you build a locomotive - it takes many months to get to completion - this - the results are practically instantaneous.

I've noted the fine-looking Santa Fe stock you've uploaded - it's on my list to try - but - when I'm modeling - it's hard to pull me away. Thanks for uploading - I'll get to it eventually - really.
😉

Take your time. I am currently busy working on the Full bucket line project. Both updating the route and rollingstock for it.

as a matter of fact I started working on reskinning your Rutland 2-8-2 into an FBL unit.
FBL_2-8-2-1225.jpg

[scottb613]

Amazing work as always Scott. Having other projects is a good thing as it lets you move onto something different when the current project is about to burn you out.

To help ease the load of 300 houses on a tile I would suggest using trim sheets.

Hi Marek,

Thanks - I learn something new on every post you make - much appreciated.

Regards,
Scott

[scottb613]

Take your time. I am currently busy working on the Full bucket line project. Both updating the route and rollingstock for it.

Hi...

Thanks - looks good. I could have given you a blanked template to make your life easier.

Regards,
Scott

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Oh - for the record - I did contact Ron before posting this thread - he's doing well and gave his blessing - so I can share this work when I have a pack together.

Since he left the virtual world - he's been doing HO Scale Trains - he's still modeling but now Printing 3D - he sent me a picture of some recent work and of course it's a big bridge. LOL - one of his specialties around here.

Regards,
Scott