Railworks America

Britkit's updated FTs and...



...to a download area near you!

Those look fantastic as usual, Mike!

Great job!!

~mouse

Moar...



Most railroads used the FTs as they shipped from the factory, in fixed A-B sets, with two Winton 1350 HP diesels, basically a single 2700 HP locomotive in two carbodies. some companies ordered A-B-B-A sets and called them a single loco, the NP set is configured that way. EMC, Winton Electric's successor and EMDs predecessor originally just called them an F.

ATSF saw the utility and flexibility of having the B units have regular couplers instead of permanent drawbars, and ordered them that way. Once the F series were in service, the Engineer and Fireman unions tried to negotiate an agreement that any loco with a cab required a crew. ATSF countered by buying A-B-B-B sets, thus working around the requirement.

Props to Pete Willard http://www.railsimstuff.com/ for the cigar band logo in his ATSF font set. It made the nose a lot easier to do.

Those are great repaints!

I have 3 comments about the Britkits units but I don't know if they apply to your repaints or the original model.

1- shouldn't these locos have specularity?
I've never seen a prototypical loco in brand-new flat paint.
They are either brand-new and very glossy, or weathered with decreasing level of glossiness.

2- would it be possible to add baked-in shadows?
Surface details are difficult to make out on those flat surfaces.
Also the undercarriage is very bright.

3- trucks are very bright. I understand they use a photographic tecture, but I wonder if it could be darkened.

I guess these comments apply to the model itself, because the same could be said of all Britkits models, including the E7s in the PRR pack that I just bought.

Hope this helps.

Chacal wrote:Those are great repaints!

I have 3 comments about the Britkits units but I don't know if they apply to your repaints or the original model.

1- shouldn't these locos have specularity?
I've never seen a prototypical loco in brand-new flat paint.
They are either brand-new and very glossy, or weathered with decreasing level of glossiness.

They do, its just not evident from the picture. They are new. You may dirty them up as you please

Chacal wrote:2- would it be possible to add baked-in shadows?
Surface details are difficult to make out on those flat surfaces.
Also the undercarriage is very bright.

Nope. 3DC does not have a way to do this. MadMike would need to paint on fake shadows and its truly a pain.

Chacal wrote:3- trucks are very bright. I understand they use a photographic tecture, but I wonder if it could be darkened.

Yup, that is because they are DXT1 with no alpha and have the ambient turned up (look at them when its night time...). I already brought this up with Mr Cowen. We will need to wait to see if he fixes it.

Actually, there's something awry with the reflectivity. If I add any alpha mask at all it does go flat. I'll look at it a bit more.

Oh I wish you or DIck can fix that.

To be honest, I have recently purchased the Britkits PRR passenger pack and this texture/shader/effect issue is a huge disappointment.
The E7s are exactly like the FTs pictured here and the E8/E9s in another thread: completely flat, to the point that it is very difficult to see any surface detail.
Same goes for the cab textures.

I don't know what effect or shader RSC applied to the HSC F7s, but clearly that is the way to go!

The difference is in the tools. 3DMax ($3000) can bake in shadows, 3DCrafter ($80) cannot.

I'd just like to point out that Blender 3D ($0) can perform all of the aforementioned functions as well as Normal baking, and is, in my opinion, a far more professional and easy to use package than 3d Crafter. Of course, Blender has its own quirks and issues (an unreliable Railworks exporter, to name one,) and I guess a lot of it comes down to personal opinion.

As to the question posed above, I believe that Mr. Cowen uses bump maps for his engines, while RSC uses normal maps, which shade a flat surface based on the position of the sun and other light sources and the 'direction' of each pixel, creating a far more realistic effect. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that bump maps basically appear the same in all lighting conditions--that is, the surface does not respond to the direction of the lighting, which might have something to do with the "flat" looking surfaces.

Cheers,
Eliot

No, 3DC uses normal maps, and thus so does Britkits and Golden Age or Railroading models.

This is what RSC does using 3D max:
http://the-art-of-rws.blogspot.com/2012 ... cmask.html

PapaXpress wrote:No, 3DC uses normal maps, and thus so does Britkits and Golden Age or Railroading models.

This is what RSC does using 3D max:
http://the-art-of-rws.blogspot.com/2012 ... cmask.html

so then why do GN's stuff have that "textured" look and Britkits stuff don't?

Simple. Greatnortherner adds that to his normal mask. Take a look.



Yes, the same can be done for Britkit models, perhaps MadMike and I can conjure something that works.

That, and corrected specularity, would make great models even greater!

I recall someone wanting this roadname. Mr. Henderson was it? the M&St.L only had 4 FT A units and two FT B units, 445A,445B, and 445C were an A-B-A set, and 545A, 545B, and 545C were an A-B-A set. I plan on doing the 445 trio as a fixed number set.

I added a bit of normal map to the model, and though it doesn't show in this picture, it does make a difference.

Also, PapaXpress is going to do his magic on these and the Cotton Belt set.

Yep, that was me. Looking great!

Trevor