Modelling boxcars from photographs

[OSRFan]

Open Rails 2024-11-17 01-38-56.png Open Rails 2024-11-17 01-38-32.png Open Rails 2024-11-17 01-39-13.png Open Rails 2024-11-17 01-39-34.png Making photo realistic repaints has never been my strong suit. I recently downloaded some of Eric Cantu's R series box car kits to try my hand at it again. These kits make it surprisingly easy to do. The results are shownabove. I am very self conscious about releasing my repaints on-line, as I am hardly an artist and consider my work as below the current standards. Perhaps I'll get over that and upload these

[Curt C]

Nice job - heck of a lot better than what I could do! As for uploading, I'd certainly download them. I really enjoy running realistic (i.e. tagged) freight cars, and we've got several very talented people on this site, but we've had a slow-down in items uploaded. That's their choice, and it's fine, but I'd like to see these available. Just my $0.02...

[CSRX]

The only thing I suggest is to really research and make sure you match what you do to what they are in reality. Erick made a wonderful kit to be able to have that flexibility. For example, you may want to hold off on the ONT boxcars, as right now, I know Erick is working on a model that will better fit those cars on accuracy.

Curt, I've slowed down on my uploads, simply because of work getting in the way haha.

[OSRFan]

Plate F box cars WIP.

Shawn, sadly my knowledge of freight cars is boxcar, tank car, hopper covered hopper, etc. As to the manufacturer, I haven't a clue. I do know that ONT boxcars are from National Steel Car Company with the sloped door braces, but that is pretty much it. I wouldn't know a Greenbrier from a Pullman Standard from a whatever.


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[qballbandit]

I'd download them and add them. Feel the same as Curt; love tagged cars. Not on the premise of being disrespectful of property not belong to the artist (and a lot of taggers are true artists), but for realism in the simulation.
Thanks ahead of time if you do release your work.

[CSRX]

Plate F box cars WIP.

Shawn, sadly my knowledge of freight cars is boxcar, tank car, hopper covered hopper, etc. As to the manufacturer, I haven't a clue. I do know that ONT boxcars are from National Steel Car Company with the sloped door braces, but that is pretty much it. I wouldn't know a Greenbrier from a Pullman Standard from a whatever.

Sign up on railcarphotos dot com, that site has plenty of info on which cars are what when it comes to NSC, Sieco, PS, Greenbriar, Trinity, etc. I promise it will help greatly when making reskins or texture work in the future.

That's why I'm saying to research. While yes, we are limited, but it does help match the ends and roofs to what the real cars use. That's been the process I've been working on lately with my upgraded textures on Ericks new car models. End result will put a shame to my older work.

As for the ONT boxcars, that's why I said hold off on them, as Erick is currently working on a model that will best match them, as it is a NSC car he is working on.

[OSRFan]

Sign up on railcarphotos dot com, that site has plenty of info on which cars are what when it comes to NSC, Sieco, PS, Greenbriar, Trinity, etc. I promise it will help greatly when making reskins or texture work in the future.

Thanks for that Shawn. I'll look in to it.

[cuontv]

Nice work on these. One thing to keep in mind when selecting photos to work with is to keep an eye on how harsh or dark the shadow areas can be, like on the roof overhang or side ribs, etc. I've found that the best photos to work with are ones taken on overcast or indirect light days. Some photo reskins have used images that were taken on bright, sunny days with very distinct and harsh shadows which look good if you are running during high noon, but they start to look funny when the Sim's sun sets or at night where the stark shadows of the photoskin don't change. I've used a few photos with harsh shadows for reskins and learned how to lessen the shadows effect using the airbrush or clone tool on a paint program. I'm not artistic so it took some learning and the benefit was I learned a new skill in how to re-touch a photo for skinning. The shadows on your cars look just right. I'd definitely run them.

-Tom

[Erick_Cantu]

For example, you may want to hold off on the ONT boxcars, as right now, I know Erick is working on a model that will better fit those cars on accuracy.

Indeed, I am in the latter stages of work on a dedicated NSC model with the inset non-terminating ends:

ON 7774.jpg I am pretty sure this is from the same number series as the cars above. It should be ready soon. I'm glad people are finding these kits useful.

[OSRFan]

Indeed, I am in the latter stages of work on a dedicated NSC model with the inset non-terminating ends:

Those will come in handy. I have done a number of ONT repaints; it's one of my favourite railroads.

[geepster775]

One thing to keep in mind when selecting photos to work with is to keep an eye on how harsh or dark the shadow areas can be, like on the roof overhang or side ribs, etc. I've found that the best photos to work with are ones taken on overcast or indirect light days. .........

-Tom

Another issue is nobody knows how many times that photo was compressed before it landed in the photoskinners lap. I no longer really add photoskinned equipment to my trainset folder on that fact alone. I need that image pedigree. Any compressed, compressed again, compressed again photo that was taken by a sim repainter and applied to an ace file that was compressed again before being distributed in a library falls in the out-of-the-question bad department.