New lumber load question

[BraselC5048]

I have a question about a new set of lumber loads I'm making. For the plank loads, which currently look like this:

should I keep them the way they are, make them taller, or make them as high as the car's stakes and load limit will allow? Such as the beam load:

Thanks.

(Extra question - this load (general goods in barrels, derived from Pencil42's general goods) have enough interest to make it worth uploading? Fits Pencil's general goods attachment points for a single level on flatcars and such, but is shorter and boxcars require it's own set of attachment points.)

 

[johnwhelan]

Why not give people the choice and make both available.

Cheerio John

 

[BraselC5048]

Why not give people the choice and make both available.

Cheerio John

Can't. To give product variation, instead of a typical 1 stack equals 1 load, each mesh is actually half a car wide, and stacked 2 high for the beams, (4 beams by 4 beams), and 7 high for the planks (4 planks by 4 planks, 2" x 8", the beam mesh scaled by 25 percent vertically). So the height of the lumber stack actually depends on the number of attachment points on the car. Results in a lot of variety, but a mess in terms of attachment points. So I guess since it's currently my car, I can do what I want.

 

[johnwhelan]

Can't. To give product variation, instead of a typical 1 stack equals 1 load, each mesh is actually half a car wide, and stacked 2 high for the beams, (4 beams by 4 beams), and 7 high for the planks (4 planks by 4 planks, 2" x 8", the beam mesh scaled by 25 percent vertically). So the height of the lumber stack actually depends on the number of attachment points on the car. Results in a lot of variety, but a mess in terms of attachment points. So I guess since it's currently my car, I can do what I want

I might be tempted to make it a solid block and just use texture on the top, sides and ends. To give variation make the load a passenger set there are some log loads that manage to make variations quite nicely.

Cheerio John

 

[BraselC5048]

I might be tempted to make it a solid block and just use texture on the top, sides and ends. To give variation make the load a passenger set there are some log loads that manage to make variations quite nicely.

Cheerio John

To be honest, it's somewhat a result of laziness. A single block load would require photoshopping up something like 5 different textures that all appeared random out of a single large texture where nearly half the boards were duplicates. That's not easy. And I really didn't want to do that. Since 8x8" was common for mine timbers (where the beams are going, actually on the route), that worked to 8 wide by 8 high for the car. So I took the easy way and made different 4x4 beam "blocks" with variety by simply using different 4 board high sections of the big texture.
I also needed plank loads that would make up the majority of the lumber mill's output, and making 2x8 planks by scaling the height by 0.25 without needing to do anything else was simply too easy to resist.

 

[johnwhelan]

To be honest, it's somewhat a result of laziness. A single block load would require photoshopping up something like 5 different textures that all appeared random out of a single large texture where nearly half the boards were duplicates. That's not easy. And I really didn't want to do that. Since 8x8" was common for mine timbers (where the beams are going, actually on the route), that worked to 8 wide by 8 high for the car. So I took the easy way and made different 4x4 beam "blocks" with variety by simply using different 4 board high sections of the big texture.
I also needed plank loads that would make up the majority of the lumber mill's output, and making 2x8 planks by scaling the height by 0.25 without needing to do anything else was simply too easy to resist.

It's a trade off, more attachment points means a heavier machine impact, each separate plank means more polys but if you repeat the planks it shouldn't be too bad. Rotating the attachment points will vary the visible load.

At least you're creating something and we don't have enough content creators.

Cheerio John