Railworks America

Hey all,
i am not a hugely skilled modeler, but here is a project i am working on, the Prototype was at Port Tampa, FL
have some questions too,

The Prototype - only pic i could find


Comments, Suggestions, criticism welcomed

i am having an issue baking the shadows, never done it before but each texture is an individual file was trying to render to texture to combine all the textures into 1 map , any hints on that?

Hi Scaline:

A few bits of advice: Check the proportions of your office building. The windows, as with most railroad buildings, should be much higher, the tops above the top of the door. Also, I'd suggest making the porch a bit thicker- it should be twice the thickness of the bottom board- eight inches maybe? I'd also suggest playing with the roof- maybe model the overhang, rather than just a flat bottom, and add the braces?

Anyway, sorry for the rant- I realize this is still WIP. Wish I could help with the shadow baking, but... your modeling looks great so far; nice textures too. Hopefully someone else here can help out with that.

Cheers,
Giuseppe

Thanks, and your not ranting, the model has an interior as well, so right now at 4K poly's i will make other buildings less poly intense but i am experimenting with alot of things so i can learn to model better
i plan on adding the braces, and the overhang but i will leave it a little less detailed

as for the windows, hmmmm i will try to expand them but they are boolean cut out and will have transparent windows

Studying your reference picture further, I realize it's not only the windows but the overall height of the building too- it's actually a pretty tall building, not quite as "squat," so to speak, as your current model. I think you'll come to see that modeling buildings bye eye can be a lot harder than it would seem at first. Railroad buildings, especially older ones, can be surprisingly tall, and for some reaon that doesn't always look right while you're modeling. Reference pics and measurements- even just basic measurements- are always a big help!

Your interior model looks real good as well- it'll be neat to see 2012's new lighting system at work with this model!

Cheers,
Giuseppe

P.S. You might be able to shave some poly's off of that lampshade- I can't tell exactly, but it looks like you're using 24 edges on it? 12 or even 8 would probably be sufficient seeing as it's an interior model.

i use a program called I-Photo Measure - you pick a point of reference and take measurements from there. so i used the standard door height as a reference
keep the hints coming

i created the textures with a program i bought called genetica - its a node based seamless texture creator

Giuseppe wrote:Studying your reference picture further, I realize it's not only the windows but the overall height of the building too- it's actually a pretty tall building, not quite as "squat," so to speak, as your current model. I think you'll come to see that modeling buildings bye eye can be a lot harder than it would seem at first. Railroad buildings, especially older ones, can be surprisingly tall, and for some reaon that doesn't always look right while you're modeling. Reference pics and measurements- even just basic measurements- are always a big help!

Your interior model looks real good as well- it'll be neat to see 2012's new lighting system at work with this model!

Cheers,
Giuseppe

P.S. You might be able to shave some poly's off of that lampshade- I can't tell exactly, but it looks like you're using 24 edges on it? 12 or even 8 would probably be sufficient seeing as it's an interior model.

thats actually a stove chimney, most building in Florida in the 40's and 50's used oil burning stoves, even had one at one time in this house at one point

as far as poly cutting once i get all the details worked out i will go back and trim polygons, from the underside

and i tested it in 2012 and it is freakin awesome, i put some florescent light colors in the interior and it looked great

SCLALINE wrote:i am having an issue baking the shadows, never done it before but each texture is an individual file was trying to render to texture to combine all the textures into 1 map , any hints on that?

you need to add all the little textures to a single sheet and then map your model , care is needed to maximize your use of space , if you have you have seperate objects you'll need to attach the components into 1 mesh for best results .

read this from Derek >> http://the-art-of-rws.blogspot.com/2010 ... aders.html <<

and this tut that I posted for another user has invaluable info .. watch it all >> http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autode ... n-3ds-max/ <<

.

Looking nice! If you can help me put my standard SCL style brick station ingame, you're more than welcome to use it in your route, I assume this building is for your fabulous A line route?

Csxgp38-2 wrote:Looking nice! If you can help me put my standard SCL style brick station ingame, you're more than welcome to use it in your route, I assume this building is for your fabulous A line route?

have you built it? is so i can get it in game for you no problemo

im frustrated with the following Shaders, TrainLightBumpSpecMask.fx (New TS2012 Shader) or Train_Light_map _with_Diffuse. Fx (Older Shader)
i combined all the textures into 1 1024x1024 texture, flattened the UVW's but there really are not that many tutorials out there to do much

Ok did a little more work, still not understanding those shaders but im closer

here are some more shots still need to add some details but it exports

Sweet! Each rendition gets a little closer, and you learn techniques that you will never forget. This type of structure is what brings the sim life, and brings historical context

Keep sluggin'
Dave