Smokebox: Central Pacific Railroad #60 "Jupiter" 4-4-0

[trainboi1]

I've been mostly gone from the forums here since my last post on this thread, but I've a couple things to say. First of all, although I've already posted as much on Facebook I bought the 119 and am absolutely blown away. Well done again.

They look very similar to Jupiter. I wonder if a simple reskin would suffice? Do you have any information on the liveries used?

The only notable difference between the Jupiter and her sisters and the Omaha/Idaho are that the latter two have a different headlight bracket, so I have considered simply reskinning them, yes. The liveries (at least, early on) would have been largely the same, since Schenectady painted them itself. I am probably going to skin all the closest approximations to Jupiter I can find from comparing specifications, or as shown in the Appleman report http://cprr.org/Museum/Books/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/Jupiter-119_Appleman_NPS.pdf which in the appendices show a great number of locomotives more or less identical in original specification to the Jupiter and 119. There are no "clones" of the latter that could effectively be made without some degree of mesh modification (the shown locomotive, Seminole, was wood fired and had drivers six inches smaller than 119, as well as cylinders two inches shorter), but Jupiter was very much a "typical" Schenectady locomotive, and without being unreasonable, she could pretty easily be reskinned to represent UP nos. 7 and 8, and CP nos. 85, 148-152, 158-163, and 166-167, as well as the Adirondack Company's locomotive Geo. Leavitt, and the Rensaeller & Saratoga locomotive James M. Marvin. Other "clones" include UP 22-27 and 121-125, as well as the R&S locomotives Geo. H Cramer and E. Thompson Gale, but they were cosmetically different enough to require mesh modification if they are to be replicated. 7 and 8 had headlight brackets similar to the V&T "Lyon":

but that was the only difference between them and the Jupiter's class.

[mrennie]

I've been mostly gone from the forums here since my last post on this thread, but I've a couple things to say. First of all, although I've already posted as much on Facebook I bought the 119 and am absolutely blown away. Well done again.

They look very similar to Jupiter. I wonder if a simple reskin would suffice? Do you have any information on the liveries used?

The only notable difference between the Jupiter and her sisters and the Omaha/Idaho are that the latter two have a different headlight bracket, so I have considered simply reskinning them, yes. The liveries (at least, early on) would have been largely the same, since Schenectady painted them itself. I am probably going to skin all the closest approximations to Jupiter I can find from comparing specifications, or as shown in the Appleman report http://cprr.org/Museum/Books/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/Jupiter-119_Appleman_NPS.pdf which in the appendices show a great number of locomotives more or less identical in original specification to the Jupiter and 119. There are no "clones" of the latter that could effectively be made without some degree of mesh modification (the shown locomotive, Seminole, was wood fired and had drivers six inches smaller than 119, as well as cylinders two inches shorter), but Jupiter was very much a "typical" Schenectady locomotive, and without being unreasonable, she could pretty easily be reskinned to represent UP nos. 7 and 8, and CP nos. 85, 148-152, 158-163, and 166-167, as well as the Adirondack Company's locomotive Geo. Leavitt, and the Rensaeller & Saratoga locomotive James M. Marvin. Other "clones" include UP 22-27 and 121-125, as well as the R&S locomotives Geo. H Cramer and E. Thompson Gale, but they were cosmetically different enough to require mesh modification if they are to be replicated. 7 and 8 had headlight brackets similar to the V&T "Lyon":

but that was the only difference between them and the Jupiter's class.

It would be fantastic if you could make some reskins, especially the UP locomotives (to avoid the historical inaccuracy of running CPRR locos on the Cheyenne route). I'd do it myself but I'm a bit busy right now with the Promontory Summit route and a couple of small jobs I'm doing for other developers.

[trainboi1]

Yeah, that's completely fair. Last time I talked with Jim Wilke he discussed new information suggesting the Schenectady engines may have had varnished wood cabs, so I am also going to try adding that, and possibly darkening the blue as well (just to match my personal preference more than anything).

[mrennie]

Yeah, that's completely fair. Last time I talked with Jim Wilke he discussed new information suggesting the Schenectady engines may have had varnished wood cabs, so I am also going to try adding that, and possibly darkening the blue as well (just to match my personal preference more than anything).

Sounds good to me. I like the varnished wood on the 119's cab. I'm not sure if the texture area I used for Jupiter's cab will be large enough to be able to represent the wood grain, but you can probably manage something that gives the impression.

You might want to darken the reds too. It'll be interesting to see how it looks afterwards

[trainboi1]

Jupiter's cab alone is on a 2048x2048 texture, so it's honestly the highest-resolution texture I've ever worked with dedicated to a single object. No wonder these things look so good...

And here we are, at least provisionally. I still need to do the tender (obviously) and the other three members of the class, as well as finish the lining modification on the pilot, and try to figure out where Mike hid the frame and the iron pieces of the bell bracket...
Update: Still no blue on the frame and bell bracket (yet), but I got done with the pilot, and found a typo in 119's manual, stating that the drawbar is raised and lowered with P (whereas Jupiter's manual correctly identifies it as Ctrl+P).

I will have Storm and Whirlwind done by the end of the evening, and will move on to the reskins proper tomorrow.

[mrennie]

I love what you've done with Jupiter! She looks very elegant with the darker colours and the additional striping and filigree, and I do indeed like the varnished wood cab.

I'll PM you the texture map of the bell supports and yoke.

I've sent an update for the manual to DTG and that should go live next week. There's also a small texture mapping error on the ends of the clerestory coach that I've got a patch for.

[trainboi1]

Thank you kindly. The added arabesques on the steam chest aren't exactly the highest quality lining I've ever used - it was drawn from a cropped and massively enlarged version of Jon Davis's rendering of this loco - but they're good enough to look stunning in-game.
The painted sections of the bell bracket and the frame are now blue:

I've moved on now to worrying about the logistics of reskinning. Thinking that I'll duplicate the Engine folder with all it contains, hopefully allowing me to do 4 new skins per new folder. With each engine having its own name and number, there's no real "easy way" to do this, but I think that system should work.

[mrennie]

Thank you kindly. The added arabesques on the steam chest aren't exactly the highest quality lining I've ever used - it was drawn from a cropped and massively enlarged version of Jon Davis's rendering of this loco - but they're good enough to look stunning in-game.
The painted sections of the bell bracket and the frame are now blue:

Looks lovely!

I've moved on now to worrying about the logistics of reskinning. Thinking that I'll duplicate the Engine folder with all it contains, hopefully allowing me to do 4 new skins per new folder.

That's certainly the easiest way and it's how I do it.

With each engine having its own name and number, there's no real "easy way" to do this, but I think that system should work.

That's right, the fact that each loco has its own unique lettering and numbering is what made it impossible to use auto-numbering. There are some textures that have to be unique to each loco in order to depict the name and number properly.

[trainboi1]

Okay, first test skin is CP No. 85 "Gazelle."

[mrennie]

Okay, first test skin is CP No. 85 "Gazelle."

Beautiful work!

[trainboi1]

And UP's (approximated) 1868-69 roster in Railworks just doubled...


And Mike was kind enough to point out that I made an error on Gazelle's number, which is now fixed.

[mrennie]

And UP's (approximated) 1868-69 roster in Railworks just doubled...
And Mike was kind enough to point out that I made an error on Gazelle's number, which is now fixed.

Superb!

[trainboi1]

I only just realized that all my extra work on the Schenectady locos means I need to worry a lot about winter textures. I've taken care of a couple so far, but that's going to take a while. In the mean time, I decided to expand the ol' UP range by three engines more:

I cannot improve on this perfection, so all I'm changing is the number - much less work! I've yet to do the tenders, but numbers 117, 118 and 120 are more or less ready for service.

[mrennie]

I'll send you the necessary winter layers to drop into your modded texture files.

It"s great to have the missing siblings. I didn't do them myself partly to save time but also to reduce the size of the download. I'm glad you're filling in the gaps in the roster :)

[trainboi1]

119's sisters now have tenders complete:


I am going to do Utah Division caboose skin or two, but other than that these are ready for release.
Also, the first of the Schenectady locos to be completely winterized: