1937-1938 EMC E1

[5292nate]

Looks good! Like Marc said. It looks a little distorted, width wise. Coming along great!

[jpetersjr]

Still working on the width, I'll get it correct once I join the right side with the left, but I must say that it's coming out great, learning a lot about shaping in 3d Crafter.



....Edit...


Adjusted the width, how does this look now?

EMC E1 Progress 6.jpg

Adjusted the width size from 3 to 5 for the left side. Later I'll mirror the right side on.

EMC E1 Progress 6 B.jpg

[PapaXpress]

It looks like you need to adjust the windows. Also it looks like there are some fractured faces.

Work slowly and don't be afraid to go back a few steps in the history to attack the problem differently. It took me a month (combined) to get the curves right on the nose and rear the right shape on my Train Master.

[jpetersjr]

Re-adjusted the front window and fixed the faces, now everything is as smooth as it can be.

How does it look?

EMC E1 Progress 7.jpg

[PapaXpress]

Apply Crease and see how smooth it gets.

[jpetersjr]

Found crease and gave it a full smoothing, how does it look now.

To me it doesn't look much different then how it did before.

EMC E1 Progress 7B.jpg

[mrennie]

Looking good so far.

To see the effect of the crease, you have to draw the part as a Smooth instead of Solid Outline. It's often useful to apply smoothing to faces that are meant to be flat but are composed of several triangles, to avoid the ridges that sometimes form.

What you will need to correct are the fractured edges. That's where you have a "T-Junction" along what's supposed to be a straight edge, or at a point where the face on the other side is going to have to bend but doesn't have an edge to bend along. Sometimes you can even end up with three overlaid edges - two either side of the T-junction and one opposite it belonging to the triangle (polygon) on the other side of the T-junction, or worse still, edges that come apart. This can easily lead to a tiny gap appearing between those edges, i.e. there won't be a proper join between the polygons. In the game, you'll see it as a flickering point of light (a nasty visual artefact). It's easy to fix. Just select the edge of the triangle opposite the junction, divide it, make a new line between it and the point opposite it on the same polygon, then select the point on the T-junction, hold down CTRL and select the new point you just made, and finally, click on weld points.

Generally, T-junctions are bad news and to be avoided.

it's not at all easy to explain when you need to put in edges and when you can safely merge faces. Eventually it becomes intuitive, with experience.

I marked some places where you would need to make new edges and lines, in the picture you sent me earlier:

EMC E1 Progress 5 E.jpg

[mrennie]

Something that might help you to know if a face with four or more edges (i.e. anything other than a triangle) needs to be split or not is to look at the face and ask yourself, "is this face really completely flat all over or is meant to bend somewhere, along a line between two of its points" If the it is supposed to bend, but that line isn't there, it's usually a good idea to add it in,

[Giuseppe]

That's a solid start. Here's what you might try to help clean up your wireframe:

Wireframe.jpg

That should clear up any triangulated faces, and the added edges will help smooth your model. I look forward to seeing more progress!

Cheers,
Eliot

[mrennie]

That's excellent advice Giuseppe.

There are some more lines that ought to be added to make it clear to 3DC where a creased face should crease ... I've marked some in blue. Unless you're absolutely sure that a polygon with more than 4 sides is meant to be completely flat, it's best to split them up into more polygons of 3 or 4 sides (and 4 sides only when you're sure it's flat).

Also, as I think Giuseppe is pointing out with the lines he's drawn, you always need to think about the natural "flow" lines of the object and make these lines yourself in the model. A good mesh tends to be characterized by lines that cross each other at roughly 90 degrees instead of very acute angles.

[jpetersjr]

Some more progress on the engine.

Now starting to mirror the other side on and then after I place the interior of the cab I'm going to do the rest of the body.

I ended up having to go back to an earlier save and redo the side windows because of a problem with the manual face cutting not cutting out the door and back window without destroying the other window. So I had to divide the face into 3 sections and redo the windows, finally with success.

Also I cleaned up the faces and got rid of the fractured faces.

How does it look now.

EMC E1 Progress 8 A.jpg

EMC E1 Progress 8 B.jpg

EMC E1 Progress 8 C.jpg

EMC E1 Progress 8 D.jpg

Also, here's a picture of how it looks with the wireframe clicked off. Here you can really see how sleek and smooth I've managed to get it.

EMC E1 Progress 8 E.jpg

After I finish the basic shape of the body I'm going to then start building the wheels and trucks and then attempt to get a simple version of the engine into the sim and running on the tracks before I do all the ladders, glass and fuel tanks and extra detail such as nuts and bolts.

[5292nate]

SAWEEEET!!!!

[mrennie]

You've still got a lot of T-junctions that need to be corrected, otherwise they'll give you a lot of pain when it comes to texturing and getting a proper smooth look when it's in the game. I've marked some of them in this picture:

EMC E1 Progress 8 A.jpg

Do you have a front or top view of the loco? It's going to be difficult to make an accurate model without one, because you'd have to guess at the widths.

[jpetersjr]

Don't have a front top view, but did find out from Hack that the width of one of these was about 10 feet. I know from Hack because he built the default F7 that's in the sim.

I'll try to fix the T juntions as soon as possible.

[slick204]

This is fascinating to watch! It help me to appreciate the incredible amount of work that goes into creating a locomotive.

Thanks for sharing.