Railworks America

The new RW3, though great,means I will have to upgrade many of my models (as suspected). Particularly the graphics. This process will start as soon as possible. I am working on a major update of the GG1 at the moment. Please be patient and watch this space

Dick, in a seprate thread Kali mentioned something that makes perfect sense but worries me given the amount of repaints we now have of your models:

Think the rain is done with a new shader, which means re-exporting every model. That is not a particularily quick job, given all the testing needed.

You really can't map a new model to be 100% like an old one, there was no realistic way old reskins are going to work properly on new models.

Is this true?

You can replace shaders for a part of the model - in this case the windscreen polys - without having to remap all ( or any ) of it; I suspect I was answering two questions in that post. The windows will already have ... the window shader, I can't remember what it's called.

So:

* Adding lights: don't need any mesh modifications.
* Just adding rain = new version of mesh, a drop-in replacement for existing paints.
* Starting from scratch ala SD-40: don't even consider trying to map it the same as the old one, so repaints need to be redone to match.

Dick, that engine script might need adjustment now that engines can all handle their own simulation - hopefully by removing chunks of script! I am still working out what's going on though, might still want to send throttle control messages. Also still not updated my working install, I'm not doing that until I'm happy about RW3 performance.

Yes I am afraid it will be a case of an old dog learning new tricks. But a start will be made on the textures at least!!!! Help with scripting will certainly be useful.
I am afraid the repainters will have to put out their own upgrades. A first suggestion though. The main body texture will have to have the mask edited to no more that 10 10 10 or the shinyness will be too shiny. Specularity I think it is called. Excuse my lack of technical jargon as a) I can't remember what the terms are and b) I probably didn't know in the first place!!!

Dick.

Before you kill your specular maps completely, turn bloom off if it's on, it ... smears is a good word, the reflections around a bit, so the surface might seem shinier than it actually is. There are some folks, me included who think it's too strong & turned it off altogether.

But yeah, need to be a bit more careful with things like that now. I need to work out how engines are talking to each other before I go chopping scripts around, might be a bit.

I started with A for Alco.
Here are some shots of the RW3 ready RS3. (not quite ready) As others are doing I am taking the opportunity to slightly upgrade the models.
Note the side doors and louvres taking advantage of the new (fantastic) shadows.

At may rate of work though we will be past Saturnalia before they are all done.

Doh! Alphabetical order? Drat!

What comes before M for Mikado and P for Prairie? Probably most of the others!

Ken

PS - those screenies are looking excellent. Nice work Dick

scl wrote:Doh! Alphabetical order? Drat!

What comes before M for Mikado and P for Prairie? Probably most of the others!

EMD :P

That's a gigantic improvement over RW2, eh.

so that means:

EMD: F > MD > N > SW

*Sigh*... I can wait for a new MD15. One of my favorites next to the SW1500 (I lash them together all the time).

Nooooooo - steam came first so it ought to be in chronological order!

That ALCO was just to tease all you diesel heads

Ken

Sorry Guys I AM doing it alphabetically!!! B & O comes next so that will be the bonus cars that come with the 2-8-8-2. With that of course I will do the 2-8-8-2. So I suppose steam will come next then the BAR sets. BUT I have got the textures more or less cracked and the new cab shader.

Any painters out there the main textures have to be uncompressed so have the _nm suffix and a little specularity goes a long long way!!!!

By road name???

So how does that work with the Alco since that is "Family Lines" clearly after B & O.

No I am going by the sub-folders in the Britkits folder. The family lines textures are really just the default one for the repainting kits. Plenty of horizontal and vertical lines to get the mapping of new textures right and to help me get the mapping right when I make the model!!!

AH... I get it. So if we really want to track you progress we should head on over and buy all your models.

Not that I don't already have most of them. I think there are a few steamers I have yet to buy.

Ah My new sales system has been rumbled!!!!!!