Railworks America

Still in the "fiddle and fit" stage, a lower golden glow headlight to cover over that sealed beam headlight. Compared to prototype pics, it is slightly larger and does stick out a little further on the door than normal, but I had size it to cover the other headlight. I think once it's textured, it will blend in. Besides CB&Q, the only other FT units, that I could find photos of, that had this golden glow lower headlight were Santa Fe passenger (red and silver warbonnet scheme), CNW and DRGW. Interestingly, the DRGW units were rebuilt with the NP style number boards, so this version of the FT would work for the Tennessee Pass route. Also found a few photos of this NP style FT for the Sonora-Baja California railroad.

Awesome job Howard... Can't wait to see that FT in CNW Colors.. Take Care, Stefan

. Check your messages.

GogebicChief wrote:Awesome job Howard... Can't wait to see that FT in CNW Colors.. Take Care, Stefan

Do you have a picture or two?

Howard.....
That's absolutely brilliant....Can you shrink it a fraction so it's slightly smaller than the main light, but covers the existing light, move it in as much as you can so the light rim is closer to the door.
Like I said...great work, will cater for more different styles. Looks like Buzz is on a mission, look out folks....

Here's some pics of the CNW units. Haven't found any pics of the CNW FTB's yet, but the last pic is from an HO scale Intermountain Railway run some years back, and they tend to be fairly accurate on their paint schemes.

qrfan3 wrote:Can you shrink it a fraction so it's slightly smaller than the main light, but covers the existing light, move it in as much as you can so the light rim is closer to the door.

It's already a tight fit. I tried moving the housing back every so slightly last night, and the bottom of the twin sealed beam casing started to poke through. I'll see if I can move my housing down, but it's going to be a fractional amount.

I don't have this model yet so I may have overstepped my mark in the positioning of the original lower light...my apologies!!!!

buzz456 wrote:

GogebicChief wrote:Awesome job Howard... Can't wait to see that FT in CNW Colors.. Take Care, Stefan

Do you have a picture or two?

Buzz:
Here You Go:
1948 A & B


Pre-Release News Art


Original OEM Nose Logo


The Red & more colorful Nose Herald came about after the F3's went into service. Since You know I did the DTM F3's in that scheme I will send You the TGPCDX files if they will make it easier for You..
Hope this Helps, Stefan

Getting closer. I thought I would see what it looks like with paint and a lens texture (thank you Buzz). It does blend in when viewed as part of the whole locomotive. Still have one issue left to resolve, that being the light glow when the front headlight is activated from the cab. The flares and the light illumination on the track are working. It's just getting the lens to glow. There's some trick to making it work. I'm pretty sure it involves an additional texture, but where the texture goes and it's embedded in the headlight model is still a mystery.

Here's the latest on the lower headlight. Basically, the darn thing will not respond to the headlight controls. I've fiddled with child objects in Blender, node naming conventions, and different texture shaders. But no matter what I try, the headlight lens either has a glow or doesn't. I have consulted with Great Northerner and DTM, and the consensus is that a child headlight object does not recognize headlight messages from the base model. Apparently DTM struggled with this also, and never could get it to work.

So here's what I'm proposing. I'll create two child headlight objects... one with the headlight lens having a glow and the other with an "off" lens texture. The glow version would be added to the driver units, and the off version added to the non-driver units. I've included some side-by-side screen shots for comparison. The headlight still has flares and casts light down the track. It's just that the lens is always on. I think it's a workable compromise and it does capture the look and feels of a golden glow headlight.

It will take a good week or so to get the development files cleaned up and organized for release. I'll also include the set of NP FT's with the lower headlight as a starting point. Buzz and any repainters out there... I'll include the texture psd files which will also include a UV layout layer.

Awesome work Howard... It makes that unit look good.. Take Care Stefan

Playing around with this gift from Howard.....