Railworks America

It would be awesome if we could get some of our 3D craftsmen to create some new flatcar loads (see examples).

Day 1. Next step is to test fit on a bulk head flat car. Will probably use Great Northerner's BN car. Based on the measurements I could glean from the photos and looking up car dimensions, it should fit. Keep the fingers crossed!

cnwfan wrote:Day 1. Next step is to test fit on a bulk head flat car. Will probably use Great Northerner's BN car. Based on the measurements I could glean from the photos and looking up car dimensions, it should fit. Keep the fingers crossed!

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Could also work on Searchlight Simulations car

Good work, Howard.

Day 2 - Decided to test fit a simple cylinder on a bulk head flat car instead of a sample ring. Much less hassle with unwrapping the UV's and it gave me a chance to try out Briage's latest exporter for in Blender 3.0. Success on both fronts, although I have some size adjustments to make. The cylinders are 10 ft in diameter and 4 ft in width. After comparing Harry's supplied photos against the mocked up load on the flat car, it looks like I can easier increase the diameter 13 ft. The first photo is with Searchlight Sim's 60 ft bulk head flat car (thank you for the suggestion) and the second one is with Great Northerner's car.

On a side note, getting an exporter to work in Blender 3.0 is a huge win for me. One of the things I've been battling is trying to model Train Simulator content in Blender 2.79 while doing the rest of my modeling and rendering in 3.0. I was struggling switching back and forth between the 2 interfaces. As a result, there has been a lengthy pause in building content. Yea... I know the Briage exporter has been available for Blender 2.83, but I just could never get it to work. That is behind me now, and this load project will be a good test for my modeling / texturing workflow.

mindenjohn wrote:Good work, Howard.

Thank you!!

Looks great

Thank you Harry!

For a quick update, I've been spending the past number of days working through a test ring just to make sure my workflow... works. The below screen shots are from test 5. The prior tests either didn't clear the launchpad or suffered an epic fail once imported into Train Simulator. You'd think that a ring with a bunch of holes would be simple. It's turned out to be anything but that.


So other than some texturing changes, the above ring is going to be the pattern for the rest of the rings on the load. From looking at the pics Harry provided, just about each set of rings is slightly different, whether it be in diameter, width, or number of holes. So, I'm trying to keep the vertex count down by keeping the number of holes down and by not making them completely round (only 6 sided). Texturing is being done in Substance Painter using the PBR metallic workflow. It is times like this that I wish Train Simulator supported PBR materials. The below screen capture is out of Substance's iray rendering engine, and you can see the difference. Still, this is the closest I've come to getting Train Simulator version matched up against a PBR rendered version.


That's all for now. Next update should be in a couple of weeks with screenies of the final models before going into UV unwrapping / texturing phase.

Looks real, great job.

It can /kind of/ handle PBR work flows. Drop me a PM with your email and I'll hook you up with my export preset to make Ubershader work.

Here's the first load before heading off to unwrapping and texturing. The dunnage is in place, but I'm going to leave out all the tie down cabling that is in the prototype photos. It seems like it would be a daunting task to get the tie downs to line up exactly with the stake pockets on the car. I do feel the look of the load has been captured as is. But Harry... this load is for you. So if you want the tie down cabling, I'll figure out a way of making it work.

Good work...

I'm with Harry. Well done Howard.

Thank you!

cnwfan wrote:Here's the first load before heading off to unwrapping and texturing. The dunnage is in place, but I'm going to leave out all the tie down cabling that is in the prototype photos. It seems like it would be a daunting task to get the tie downs to line up exactly with the stake pockets on the car. I do feel the look of the load has been captured as is. But Harry... this load is for you. So if you want the tie down cabling, I'll figure out a way of making it work.

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HI CNWfan, been a while.

I have a possible solution for the tie down cabling. I would provide an option with the cables and do not worry about the line up problem - in simulation the multiple cables will be the dominant visual items and will minimize the line up (so much for rivet counters).

Now, if you really want to line up the ties with the stake pockets, here is my second proposal. Place the load on a flat car bed WHERE THE WIDTH is slightly wider than the actual flat bed having both - cables lined up with stake pockets; then, as a child object one has only to teak it and adjust it on the original flat bed thus hidding the original flat car bed. This option will have a limited use as this new flat bed is for a specific flat car dimension. It is as having a unique cap for a specific jar !!!!

There is always a way to trick the eyes.

Have fun, Bernard