My Narrow Gauge Projects Thread

[mindenjohn]

It may be imaginary but it very much has the Davenport look and a Diesel engine makes more sense than a big gas engine on fuel economy alone. Gas engines are quicker to pick up but not so good on the heavy slog. I’d stick to the 750 hp. I would expect 1000 hp to be carried on trucks and be more mainline. Don’t forget the 44 tonne rule for single person crewing.

[ryan9550]

Hello everybody!

This post isn't so much an update, but it is an ask for assistance. I've been trying to get some experience animating while working on the Davenport and I'm having a couple of issues. The first one is getting the coupling rods to be animated; I've used latices to animate the wheels and coupling rods. After exporting the .igs for the entire model and the .ia for the wheels/coupling rods, they animate in the editor (they're slightly glitchy) but when I move the engine in game the wheels move but not the coupling rods. Do I need to animate them differently?

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The second issue I'm having is cab controls. Even though the cab isn't finished, I thought would try animating one of the controls. The problem is that when it moves, it goes off center, I can't select and move it with the mouse, and the 3D modeled version of it stays in place. What am I doing wrong?

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Any help is appreciated. Thanks for reading!!

[ryan9550]

I've made some more progress on the Davenport.

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The wheel animation isn't perfect and for some reason (still) even though the controls animate, the 3D modeled versions stay in place (there's basically two controls showing). But I thought it was enough to show where I'm at with getting a fully functional locomotive into the game. Just in case anybody's wondering, both the A unit and B unit have 750hp and 22,500lb/f of tractive effort each. That's why they're accelerating so quickly.

I could really use some help with figuring out why the controls are doing this.

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Any help is appreciated. Thanks for Reading!

[jpetersjr]

Looking great, can't wait to try these engines in the future.

[mikeadams2k]

Any help is appreciated. Thanks for Reading!

Your engine looks great!. Interestingly, I had a similar problem with the reverse lever in the Allegheny cab I'm working on. When I started the engine in the sim, this 'phantom' reverse lever would appear. I'd go back to Blender and it wasn't there - or so I thought. Finally when I ran the animation in Blender, I discovered I had a duplicate reverse lever, which wasn't animated. Don't know if this is your problem, but's that's all I have to offer.

[ryan9550]

After many attempts and wanting to bang my head against a wall, I think I've figured out why the controls are acting the way they are. When Blender 2.8 came out on Steam (where I'd downloaded Blender from back when it was v2.76) I made the mistake of saving the file for the Davenport in 2.8 then changing to the non-Steam v2.79. I changed versions because I had figured out the BRIAGE Exporter. I believe that going from 2.8 to 2.79 messed with something in the file.

Here's a picture of something I threw together to see if I was something I was doing wrong.

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I basically just appended the Davenport's cab controls onto an RS3 frame, and it worked first try. The controls don't have doubles staying static like on the Davenport. I also tried appending everything to a completely new Blender file, exported new .igs & .ia files but still the same results. I think at some point the whole thing is going to have to be redone, I do still have the 0-4-0 version that I can modify again (that served as the basis for the 0-8-0 version anyway). It's not much of a setback.

I do have some good news though. I'm making decent progress on this

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #1.1.jpg

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It's another one of gunslinger87's creations https://www.deviantart.com/gunslinger87 ... -171347858

I think it's about 60 percent finished. I also intend on making freight cars to go with it seeing as it's shorter in height compared to other 3 Foot Gauge rolling stock.

Thanks for reading!!

[cnwfan]

From what I've been reading about going from Blender 2.7x to 2.8, once a 2.7x file is saved in Blender 2.8... it saves in the 2.8 file format... and there is no going back. Also, you can have more than one Blender installation on a computer. I have both 2.79 and 2.80 installed, and use each one independently of each other. You just need to download the zip package from Blender.org and copy the files to a separate directory. There are instructions out on Blender.org for doing this. You can even copy your settings from one version to the other.

[ryan9550]

From what I've been reading about going from Blender 2.7x to 2.8, once a 2.7x file is saved in Blender 2.8... it saves in the 2.8 file format... and there is no going back. Also, you can have more than one Blender installation on a computer. I have both 2.79 and 2.80 installed, and use each one independently of each other. You just need to download the zip package from Blender.org and copy the files to a separate directory. There are instructions out on Blender.org for doing this. You can even copy your settings from one version to the other.

That's what I did when I realized there wasn't a 2.8 exporter. I just didn't realize how big of mistake it would be to save in 2.8 format then go back, at least I figured it out in the end.

Thanks!!

[ryan9550]

I've got a little more done

- I've added a couple more cab components. (I still need to add the injectors as one of the last major components, as well as some minor details.)
- I also extended the water tank portion of the tender a little bit to give more water capacity.

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #2.1.jpg

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #2.2.jpg

I've also been thinking about putting the air compressor on the fireman's side of the engine. Because most of the steam locomotives I've looked at pictures of, the compressor was on the fireman's side with the exception of a couple. Please let me know.

Thanks for reading!!

[jpetersjr]

Looking good.

[ryan9550]

Got a little more done

- I've added an access ladder to the tender. I made two different designs: a cylindrical type and a cube-type shape. I'm not sure which is the more realistic design, I personally like the cylindrical design more. Let me know.
- I've added the brake stand. I'm not sure of its placement yet.

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #3.1.1.jpg

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3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #3.2.jpg

This is just a picture of what the cab view could potentially look like in the game

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #3.3.jpg

Thanks for reading!!

[ryan9550]

I've gotten some progress done with modeling the injectors. They're not 100 percent finished, but I figured there's enough complete to show what they will look like and where they are in the modeling stage.

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #5.1.jpg

3 Foot Gauge 0-4-0 _Eustis_ #5.2.jpg

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Thanks for Reading!!

[jpetersjr]

Looking good, will be looking forward to trying these models out eventually.

Are you also going to build a route to go with these narrow gauge locomotives as well?

[ryan9550]

Looking good, will be looking forward to trying these models out eventually.

Are you also going to build a route to go with these narrow gauge locomotives as well?

Thanks!

I'm not sure if I'd build a route to go with this and any other narrow gauge locomotive. I've always wanted to build my own fictional routes (both standard and narrow gauge), but I'm not the most creative when it comes to route building. I'll definitely have to think about it.

[harryadkins]

There is a narrow gauge steam locomotive almost just like that preserved in Florence, SC.