"Reflectorized" texture

[mjolnir]

The cars in this picture http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1645199 and in this one http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1097039 both have a safety device mandated on new cars--the reflectorized yellow strips along the side-sills of the car. Additionally, many car numbers and reporting marks are made from the similar reflectorized material. I'm wondering if anyone has yet figured out how to create the reflectorized effect in TRS yet. There are many applications where this effect is used in real lif. Besides the safety strips on cars and locomotives, truck trailers in the US all are required to have safety strips applies, and the material is also used on many street and highway road signs in the US.

ns

 

[PEV]

The difficulty I see here is where is the light source to cause the reflection..

You can use a night mesh to light up the strips but then they would be illuminated all night. It may be possble to scatter a few triggers points around to turn the night mesh on and off.

 

[bnsf50]

The same way that you add reflection to the wheel tread. Just substitute yellow or red in the diffuse slot and use a reflection in the reflection slot at 80 to 90%. There's plenty of light at night to show the reflection.

 

[bnsf50]

Here's a picture of a car that I put yellow reflector stripes on.

Here's with and without reflection stripes.

 

[mjolnir]

Here's a picture of a car that I put yellow reflector stripes on.

Might you be willing to share the texture, or techniques on how you made it?

ns

 

[cjlear]

As Auran lettering is constant-lit, the container flat warning panels were simply an attachment point and the white text "--" in a suitably large font applied. You can see the same effect on the yellow reflectorised wagon numbers. You can make bigger panels using a capital I. Rotate the attachment point if needed to point in a certain direction.

For reflectorised roadsigns, track signs etc, put "light 1" in the config.

The station sign uses nightmode to "switch on" the sign texture at night. There are a couple of switches for nightmode to determine if they turn off late or stay on all night.

Or, you could do it properly and do it in the textures within Max...

 

[bnsf50]

Might you be willing to share the texture, or techniques on how you made it?

ns

Make a yellow texture and put it in the diffuse slot. Take the wheel reflection texture and add a yellow layer to it set at 60% and put this texture, I named it yellow reflection, in the reflection slot set at 80%. If you want red stripes then use red instead of yellow of course.
Make a stripe with a plane for as many stripes as you need and apply the texture. Set the plane a few inches from the side of the car so that you don't have any flicker.
If you don't have the reflection texture you can get it here you want the texture zip for the wheel tutorial that Phil offers.