GMax and 3DSMax (And any other modeling program) screenies/renders
- Thread starter Mr.Kamikaze
- Start date
Milwaukeeroad261
STL Railfan
Something smells like kanawaha in this thread.
mehrsystemlok
New member
Working on an Amfleet coach to get my feet wet at trainz modeling before I go to work on the Acela trainset. Seemed like a faster project than the organically shaped Acela, but here I am many hours in and wondering what I was thinking. It's difficult trying to find reference materials. 7700 polys, not sure where I should be expecting to end up once I've done the undercarriage, bogies, and interior. Anyone know what a good point to say "you went wrong somewhere" is? 
Working on an Amfleet coach to get my feet wet at trainz modeling before I go to work on the Acela trainset. Seemed like a faster project than the organically shaped Acela, but here I am many hours in and wondering what I was thinking. It's difficult trying to find reference materials. 7700 polys, not sure where I should be expecting to end up once I've done the undercarriage, bogies, and interior. Anyone know what a good point to say "you went wrong somewhere" is?
Epic! If you finish this up it would go great along with this. When you finished the all of the modelling aspects it is very important to learn how to map and texture well. Trust me, it pays off in the end a lot more than you'd think. If you get the textures and mapping right the first time you will save hours of your time.
Working on an Amfleet coach to get my feet wet at trainz modeling before I go to work on the Acela trainset. Seemed like a faster project than the organically shaped Acela, but here I am many hours in and wondering what I was thinking. It's difficult trying to find reference materials. 7700 polys, not sure where I should be expecting to end up once I've done the undercarriage, bogies, and interior. Anyone know what a good point to say "you went wrong somewhere" is?
While I've never managed to make anything of real substance yet, I know the basics of the output from several of the models I have reskinned. All of those ridges add a lot to the poly count, but when you export to Trainz, you can tweak the texturing and export with a normals map so that the ridges aren't actually on the mesh.
Between you and Conrail123 and the NEC route being made by PBY357, we're really going to have something here!
nathanmallard
Well-known member
Looking excellent, conrail123! A AEM-7, I presume?
Yes, they should match nicely
I certainly plan on finishing it, though I've never texture mapped a model before so that will be something I'll have to learn. I'm currently plotting in my head how to turn the same model I've got done up to this point into Amfleet Is and IIs.I'm going to sound like a complete train newbie with this question, but I honestly never worried about this fact enough to find out. If I know that the wheel diameter of a car/loco is 36 inches (throwing out a number) would that be the diameter that sits on top of the rail or the diameter to the very outside of the flange that keeps it on the tracks? Also, any suggestions on how long/wide/whaever your typical flange is?
I've been following your work Conrail... or should I say ATSF?
Very impressive stuff. Still wondering what that mysterious project that was going to be announced on Jul 20th was.
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nathanmallard
Well-known member
His E44, perhaps?
Normals map for ridges... got a tut you could send me to? I might cry after finding out how to do it because I spent a considerable amount of time getting those ridges as close to the prototype as possible (like 15 reference images counting the number of ribs lol) along with the differing ribs around the stripe location. Sadly, as cool as it looks, you are of course right that the car needs to be usable and I am sure that some people's computers might scream at 7000 polys.
A normals map isn't just a texture with ribs on it right? Cause I definitely want 3D ribs...
Its possible I suppose. Not to knock the E44 but from the way the other guy who was apparently involved was going on over at the Amtrak Trainz Group forums I kinda thought it would be something more prominent in Amtrak history than a third-hand electric they used to switch for only a few years, but I am happy to be mistaken if that's the case.
Normals map for ridges... got a tut you could send me to? I might cry after finding out how to do it because I spent a considerable amount of time getting those ridges as close to the prototype as possible (like 15 reference images counting the number of ribs lol) along with the differing ribs around the stripe location. Sadly, as cool as it looks, you are of course right that the car needs to be usable and I am sure that some people's computers might scream at 7000 polys.
A normals map isn't just a texture with ribs on it right? Cause I definitely want 3D ribs...
Can't help you on the tut because I'm still trying to figure the programs out myself.... You didn't waste your time because you still need to model it all. There is something in the exporting process that creates a normals map- I think the Blender and 3DS exporters do it and PEV's new gMax exporter does.
The normals map is a texture map the same size as the regular texture map, it is predominantly a light lavender color, and has varying shades towards pink and purple to indicate height.
So I got ahold of a new resource today.
I had some emails out to a few people about reference pieces and one of them got back to me today, I now have a digital copy of Amtrak publication NRPC CMO-117 which has some pretty terrific resources in it. I've contacted the guy to see if I can share a mirror of it with you guys, but here's an example of the pages I needed for my amcoach (its 718 pages long, all diagrams pretty much)
Be warned, these were scanned at 300DPI so the images are VERY LARGE
I had some emails out to a few people about reference pieces and one of them got back to me today, I now have a digital copy of Amtrak publication NRPC CMO-117 which has some pretty terrific resources in it. I've contacted the guy to see if I can share a mirror of it with you guys, but here's an example of the pages I needed for my amcoach (its 718 pages long, all diagrams pretty much)
Be warned, these were scanned at 300DPI so the images are VERY LARGE
socalwb909
Photo Creator
^Wish you had one of those for superliners.
-Joe
-Joe