J3A Hudson 20th Century Limited (Empire State Express)

[mrennie]

Actually, this particular locomotive had rounded window corners. I can redo the window if I have to though.

Ah, OK. It's not very clear how they were from any of the photos I've seen anyway.

By the way, I just realised that it's a 4-6-4, so you won't need to worry about making invisible axles for the trucks.

[jpetersjr]

I'm going to first make the other four wheels and then I'll prepare it to try to put it into the game as a simple engine.

Would it be fine to merge everything of the body without messing up anything? The windows won't be animated so those will also be merged, as of right now there aren't any window panes, so I don't think it could cause a problem by merging them to the body, would it?



......Good news, I just found ,me a whistle for the engine that comes from the real locomotive from real life itself. Ripped it out of a rare youtube video, so now the Empire State Express will have the whistle from the actual locomotive.

[mrennie]

I'm going to first make the other four wheels and then I'll prepare it to try to put it into the game as a simple engine.

Would it be fine to merge everything of the body without messing up anything? The windows won't be animated so those will also be merged, as of right now there aren't any window panes, so I don't think it could cause a problem by merging them to the body, would it?

It's definitely better not to merge anything, even if you end up with a lot of objects (just make sure to give them all meaningful names so that you can recognise them easily in the list). The reason is that if you merge things, it often makes in much more difficult to texture them. If the objects are kept separate, you can do things like hiding all the rest from view, or locking the rest, so that you can easilt see all the faces of the one object you're trying to texture.


......Good news, I just found ,me a whistle for the engine that comes from the real locomotive from real life itself. Ripped it out of a rare youtube video, so now the Empire State Express will have the whistle from the actual locomotive.

Excellent. I added a whistle sound I ripped from another video, so I can show you how to add it to the model. You'll also need to make a particle emitter, which isn't all that hard. I can explain how (or maybe it's already covered in SMM's tutorial).

[jpetersjr]

Some new progress on the engine, been putting on the paint and shining it up.

Empire State Express Progress 16 A.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 16 B.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 16 C.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 16 D.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 16 E.jpg

[jpetersjr]

Finally got the engine into Railworks as a simple scenery item, it's looking good. But my question still is is how did were you able to get your Consolidation shiny like it is.

The textures appear plain, but still they look good enough to convince you that it's real metal, just looks like it's aged.

Empire State Express Progress 17 A.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 17 B.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 17 C.jpg

I can't wait until I can finish it and get it running in the game.

[mrennie]

Finally got the engine into Railworks as a simple scenery item, it's looking good. But my question still is is how did were you able to get your Consolidation shiny like it is.

The textures appear plain, but still they look good enough to convince you that it's real metal, just looks like it's aged.

Empire State Express Progress 17 A.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 17 B.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 17 C.jpg

I can't wait until I can finish it and get it running in the game.

The way I get shine is this:

First, you have to use a texture that's got an Alpha channel. I create my textures in Photoshop, and save them first as a .tga file, and then as an .ace file (same name, just a different extension). That alpha channel can be filled with the same shade of grey if you want an overall shine, or you can pick out different parts of the texture file to give certain things more or less shine.

Back in 3DC, you set up the material as follows:

Primary texture: bring in that .tga file.
Secondary texture: forget about it.
Transluceny map: leave it alone.
Bump map: leave it alone, unless you've got a normal map prepared (I use the same one for everything ... I made it a long time ago, and it gives really good results, so that surfaces don't look too smooth).
Specular map: you can leave it alone, or do as I do and put in there the same .tga file you put into the primary texture.
Environment map: really this can be anything, because it's just a placeholder. I made a little 64x64 .bmp file (env.bmp) that just has a silly black to white gradient in it.
Custom Fields: In the Rail Sim field, write TrainSpecEnvMask.fx (if you had a normal map, it would be TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx). You have to write it exactly the way I've written it, with the correct upper and lowercase lettes.
In Advanced Options, Primary Tex. Alpha Ch., I always select "ignore".

Now paint with that material and it should work (it might look weird in 3DC though).

Experiment with filling the Alpa channel with white (255,255,255). The paintwork should shine like it's been waxed and polished.

[jpetersjr]

Unfortunately I don't have photoshop, but I do have paintshop pro, can this be done in that. If you want I'll send you the textures I'm using for the engine, but I wouldn't expect you to make the textures for me.

[mrennie]

Unfortunately I don't have photoshop, but I do have paintshop pro, can this be done in that. If you want I'll send you the textures I'm using for the engine, but I wouldn't expect you to make the textures for me.

Sure, email me the .ace files you generated, so that I can have a look at the alpha channel.

I haven't used PSP myself, but from what I've read, it can certainly handle alpha channels.

[Hawk]

I haven't used PSP myself, but from what I've read, it can certainly handle alpha channels.

It sure can. I have PSP 7, 8, and 10.
7 and 10 do alpha channels fine but there was a problem in 8 when saving alpha channels in tga format.

[jpetersjr]

Do you know how to make an alpha channel in PSP Hawk by the way.

I never was able to figure it out, so I haven't the slightest clue at how to do it.

[jpetersjr]

Got the other four wheels made.

Empire State Express Progress 18 A.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 18 B.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 18 C.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 18 D.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 18 E.jpg

Next I'm going to try the frame again and then start on the trucks.

[mrennie]

Very good

Doing the frame and trucks is going to be a little bit tricky, because it's hard to see them in the blueprint. You should try to find as many photos as possible, and study them carefully to form a clear idea in your mind of how to do them, before making a start. It might be easier to make the sides of the frame solid (without any cutouts) at this stage.

[jpetersjr]

I've actually designed a frame to fit with it, from looking at other pictures, this one is designed to fit under the train perfectly.

[jpetersjr]

Some more progress, finally made the correct frame for the engine.

I actually had to draw a picture of a frame by hand and use that as reference since I couldn't find any reference for what the frame would had actually looked like. Here's how it came out, I must say that after I merged some faces I was able to cut my holes out in the frame and it's looking great.

Empire State Express Progress 19 A.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 19 E.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 19 B.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 19 C.jpg

Empire State Express Progress 19 D.jpg

What do you think of the locomotive so far, it's going to be freeware.

Thanks SMM for the locomotive tutorial, it's helping a ton for building this.


Next I'll build the trucks, or at least attempt to build them.

[mrennie]

Well done!

Did you get any further with PSP?