animal assets

[cnw1970]

Are there any other animal assets besides the railworks "U.S. cows"?? They are black and white. I am looking for cattle in other colors and horses. Also I am looking for farm and ranch equipment, and wish some brilliant creator out there would create a center pivot irrigation system asset!!

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

This was discussed over at UKTS also because of the new people assets coming with TS 2014. Animals with small movements to make them look alive were wanted.
There I found a link to new Kiwi assets:

Sheep, Shaun isn't included, or is he?

Cows and bulls.

More lovely new assets here: http://www.tsnz.co.nz/, all done by Stefan van Vliet. Perhaps he takes commisions for a small donation?

COARW asset packs also have some cow, sheep, horses and carts and a sheepdog. They could be included in other asset packs as well. Check NERW out.
I believe most of the animals are originally from UK routes. So it's best to start looking there. I also noticed flocks of birds flying in some routes.

Railworks older US routes were desert routes, so one should expect coyotes, vultures and carcasses. Not, unfortunately, but perhaps some US route builders know their assets by heart.

[Bananarama]

Wow - those look terrific!

[cnw1970]

Wow, thanks!!!!

[jpetersjr]

Unfortunately I wouldn't even know where to start when doing a animal asset, so it's never going to be on my list of assets to model. I find creating buildings, houses, cars and trucks a lot easier so I will be staying with that.

An animal is an incredible complex thing to model and it's not done easily either, even an experienced 3d modeler will have a difficult time with it.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Cattle sounds from the French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=541
Cattle drinking troughs from French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=553
Country fair cattle presentation parade from the French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=526
Large irrigator from the French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=348

I believe this was requested in the first post.

There are lots of unique and distinctive French assets in this section that could be of use on US routes: cars, trucks, planes, boats, carts, a horse drawn hearse, pole lines, etc. etc.
http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showcat=13

Press Téléchargement for the download to start. I don't think registration is required.

No doubt, the British, Spanish, Italian, German, Austrian, Scandinavian, Dutch and other foreign Railworks communities all have useful agricultural assets in their catalogues.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Here are some small sheds or animal shelters:

and concrete fences/walls:

available from this web page: http://ajrailsim.free.fr/objets.htm

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

From UKTS' filestore:

http://uktrainsim.com/filelib-info.php?form_fileid=20415

This is all I have been able to find during lulls at the office.

[Chacal]

Cattle sounds from the French here:

Le moo!

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Cattle sounds from the French here:

Le moo!

There is geese, crows and gulls as well for ambient sounds in that French filestore.

MSTS also has ambient nature surround sound packs over at railsim.com.

[OldProf]

If all goes well, these animal assets and many others will be uploaded to Steam Workshop once TS2014 comes out. Then, presumably, they will be "legitimate" for use in Steam Workshop routes and scenarios.

[Acorncomputer]

Having had a go at modelling some cows myself, I can say that creating a 10 platform station complete with canopy seems less daunting.

The main problem is that animals are generally quite rounded and fluffy.

Creating a convincing cow is actually not that difficult if there is no restriction on the number of faces that you can use but for TS2013 we need to try and create models with low poly counts so that the graphics card is not overloaded when trying to render dozens of cows with hundreds (or thousands) of faces each. The challenge, therefore, is to create convincing animals using just a few faces and this has been done well by Paul Gausden (Decapod) as per the link above.

Careful study of Paul's animals shows that the skill to convincing animals is not so much in the modelling but more in the texturing to give the effect that there are curves when in fact you are looking at a flat face. I tried a few times to get this right, even down to a trip to the nearest farm to take photos of cows, but I just could not get the knack of getting the texturing right.

Many artists steer clear of depicting people and animals as this is clearly difficult to do and probably explains why there are so few freeware animals for TS2013. I think it is important to include many animals and people when creating routes and the use of scenario specific models where people and animals can be made to appear differently in each scenario and hopefully TS2014 will encourage more modellers with the necessary people and animal skills to upload models to Steam Marketplace and the freeware libraries.

-

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

And what about texturing them?

The human skins that go round the people assets look downright scary in 2D. Even foreman Dan Hernandez doesn't deserve that fate.

[cnw1970]

Cattle sounds from the French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=541
Cattle drinking troughs from French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=553
Country fair cattle presentation parade from the French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=526
Large irrigator from the French here: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=348

I believe this was requested in the first post.

There are lots of unique and distinctive French assets in this section that could be of use on US routes: cars, trucks, planes, boats, carts, a horse drawn hearse, pole lines, etc. etc.
http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showcat=13

Press Téléchargement for the download to start. I don't think registration is required.

No doubt, the British, Spanish, Italian, German, Austrian, Scandinavian, Dutch and other foreign Railworks communities all have useful agricultural assets in their catalogues.

Awesome, thanks alot!!!!!