Union Pacific FEF-3 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotive, by Smokebox

[mrennie]

Here's another, this time with the classification lights, which are similar to the ones on the Consolidation, but greatly enhanced to look as close as possible to the ones on UP 844.

2013-07-19_00001.jpg

2013-07-19_00002.jpg

I also made the bolts on the smokebox face smaller ... thanks Papa

[PapaXpress]

My pleasure

Out of curiosity... how many polys are you at right now?

[RAILSOHIO]

I have been wondering about the count also. To paraphrase Dr. Evil "One Million Poly's." That level of detail scares me.... I am curious to know myself.

[GLRX12]

it has been stated over and over that the game will be able to handle the model....but it will be hard on low end computers...

From the perspective of a former modeler, the idea of a poly count limit is an outdated idea. Computer power these days allow people to use a lot more then we could years ago when I got into modeling, even on the most basic of games. Anymore, texture detail and resolution can be far harder on a user then a high poly count

[Bananarama]

Well here's the next picture.

You now owe me a new monitor - mine just exploded from sensory overload!

[bpetit]

Hack, its just going to BSOD further down the road when he gets all that foamy detail in.

[mrennie]

it has been stated over and over that the game will be able to handle the model....but it will be hard on low end computers...

From the perspective of a former modeler, the idea of a poly count limit is an outdated idea. Computer power these days allow people to use a lot more then we could years ago when I got into modeling, even on the most basic of games. Anymore, texture detail and resolution can be far harder on a user then a high poly count

GLRX12 is absolutely right about poly count. There's far too much concern about it these days. I remember when I posted the very first screenshots of the Consolidation - a driving wheel and the link (the bit joining the running gear to the valve gear) - some people immediately tried to tell me that it would fry the graphics cards (or words to that effect). Now we have the Consolidation with all the detail and more, running fine on all kinds of computers. I have never had any messages saying that the Connie caused a computer crash, or lagged - except in Woodvale yard, but everything lags there if you look towards the yard lamps, because of the way they did them. I've even seen screenshots taken on average computers (might even have been laptops) of five Consolidations standing together.

The FEF-3 will have more detail than the Connie, but it will still run fine. That's one of the reasons that I export it to RW very often, not just to check that it exports and to take screenshots, but to check that the fps are holding up in dense scenery. Next time I do a screenshot, I'll add in the fps counter.

I'm also taking care with the textures, using large ones where they're needed to bring out detail or cover large areas with sufficient resolution, and small ones for other things. I'm also limiting the use of the fancy shaders by not using TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx quite as liberally as I did with the Connie. For example, I use TrainBasicObjectDiffuse.fx on parts that are black and don't need to have any shine or bumpiness, like the dark faces that aren't on the outside of the loco and wouldn't be likely to get much sunlight. Talking of faces, I also take great care to delete all hidden faces, to merge faces that are completely on the same plane, to reduce the number of faces where the eye can't really tell the difference, etc. Then there's the use of smoothing, which I apply quite a lot in the appropriate places to give the effect of rounded surfaces while using only a few faces - for example, in certain places (where you can't view a cylinder from the ends), it's possible to get the effect of a smoothly rounded cylinder using as few as three faces. However, to get the most out of smoothing, I have to do some extra work when merging several individual parts into a single object, to make them share edges so that the smoothing can go across those edges. There are quite a few tricks that you learn through the experience of seeing what looks good and what could have looked better if you'd done it a different way.

EDIT: I took this new screenshot, with Vsync turned off in the NVidia Control Panel (normally I have it on adaptive half refresh rate, which locks the fps at 29-30):

2013-07-19_00003.jpg

That's showing 83 fps

Here are my in-game graphics settings:

TS2013GraphicalOptions.jpg

TS2013GraphicalAdvanced.jpg

My NVidia Control Panel settings:

ScreenShot001.jpg

ScreenShot002.jpg

[mrennie]

... and here are the system specs (this is a four-year old PC with what is now considered an outdated pair of graphics cards):

ScreenShot001.jpg

ScreenShot002.jpg

It runs even better on my newer laptop which has a single Nvidia 675M GPU.

During development of the Connie, I tested it on a very old HP laptop that could run TS2013 on low settings. Unfortunately, the mobo on that laptop died, so I can't do the same tests with the FEF-3, but if the fps stay above 60 on my PC, I'm confident that the FEF will run fine on cheaper computers.

[mrennie]

Well here's the next picture.

You now owe me a new monitor - mine just exploded from sensory overload!

It's hard to show it in a static screenshot, but that oil sight glass is fully 3D, even the six screws. I started with a flat picture, but it looked ugly when rotating the camera view. Then I tried bump-mapping it, but still didn't like it, so I went for the 3D instead.

[5292nate]

Kinda funny, Mike! UP had this picture of 844 on their Facebook page today!

[mrennie]

Kinda funny, Mike! UP had this picture of 844 on their Facebook page today!

I wonder if they know something

[mrennie]

Here's another, this time with the classification lights, which are similar to the ones on the Consolidation, but greatly enhanced to look as close as possible to the ones on UP 844.

2013-07-19_00001.jpg

Oh fiddlesticks! I just checked and the classification lights are exactly 25% overscaled due to an arithmetical error on my part I'll scale them down to 80% (=1/1.25) and correct the positions (they're slightly too low).

[jpetersjr]

Here's a video of UP 844 that might help you later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhbCQ85nYNM

[CSXFECRailMan]

Here's a video of UP 844 that might help you later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhbCQ85nYNM

I will be filming that tomorrow for the CFD trip.

[mrennie]

Here's a video of UP 844 that might help you later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhbCQ85nYNM

Great video! It will help, certainly.