VIA Rail LRC set project

[JamesCameron1]

I just noticed something... I was digging thru "Railyard" in TRS2006 and noticed that the CNR Lightweight coaches are very very very similar to the VIA Empire cars (aka VIA Yellow and Blue) Why not just resikin one of them? or maybe tinker with them in Gmax?

 

[PatrickTaylor89]

I just noticed something... I was digging thru "Railyard" in TRS2006 and noticed that the CNR Lightweight coaches are very very very similar to the VIA Empire cars (aka VIA Yellow and Blue) Why not just resikin one of them? or maybe tinker with them in Gmax?

Those are the cars Magicland created that I was referring to. As for tinkering in GMAX, you can't do that unless you have the original mesh created by the author. Most times, creators don't share their meshes. Besides, there isn't a lot of change that's required. The CN cars in question really did go on to become the blue and yellow cars, and as far as I know, VIA made few changes - except for the new paint job of course.

Patrick

 

[JamesCameron1]

It seems that the VIA cars have a couple more windows than the CN coaches... thats the only difference I can see.

 

[gisa]

Sorry guys, I've been busy lately and will continue to be so until next weekend...

I've been learning a bit about gmax and realized that there were two ways to go about this (my first project is the lrc car)

1) the first was to generally make a box shape, texture it with a real VIA lrc texture, add some attachment points to some general bogies and import it into trains. It would not be perfect but it would serve as eye candy for most.
2) the second way was to make it sort of like magiclands cn lightweight car: with individual windows that you can look through and seats that you can see (with passengers sitting in them).

The picture that I showed you before was more or less useless as those colours that you saw were just colours I assigned and not textures (which I'm still learning more and more about). I also got stuck because I didn't know how to make a sloped roof. That was making the car the second way...

So I tried the first way last night and this was what I came up with



As you can see, the car is a basic hexagon (I just estimated the actual size). I realized that the VIA car was a basic hexagon in that the sides are on slight angles and basically meet in the middle with a sloped roof...I followed a tutorial I found and did get this shape, but around the angles, I got too many polygon shapes which make texturing more than difficult and I have no idea how to texture all of them.

Conclusion? I will do a mixture of both if possible, even though the windows on the LRC are so tinted, you couldn't see through pretty much anyway. I might just extrude the angled roof (which is a pain for me at least). I will continue to read tutorials and play around with it.

If anyone can get a hold of a perpendicular or rear view of the car, it would be of immense help as I could more or less trace the exact shape of it and adjust the scale of it.

As for the cn lightweights...maybe someone could open them up in paintshed and just reskin them there, no? I don't know a lot about paintshed and I'm wondering if that would work...

 

[PatrickTaylor89]

Conclusion? I will do a mixture of both if possible, even though the windows on the LRC are so tinted, you couldn't see through pretty much anyway. I might just extrude the angled roof (which is a pain for me at least). I will continue to read tutorials and play around with it.

If anyone can get a hold of a perpendicular or rear view of the car, it would be of immense help as I could more or less trace the exact shape of it and adjust the scale of it.

As for the cn lightweights...maybe someone could open them up in paintshed and just reskin them there, no? I don't know a lot about paintshed and I'm wondering if that would work...

Looks good so far. In my experience, as helpful as many of the tutorials are, the best way to do it is to just mess around until you get something you're happy with. At the very least, you'll learn a lot in the process.

To answer your paintshed question, I've never used it myself either, but I don't think you can re-paint any random car. I believe that the car has to have a "paintshed template" first - which I'm sure Magicland's don't have. It's pretty much just the default Auran stock that does. The easiest way to do it would be to use a paint program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro (which is what I use).

Patrick

 

[PatrickTaylor89]

FYI those blue and yellow cars are called "VIA Empire" cars.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm curious as to the source of this name. I've searched around a bit and asked a few people about it and I've come up with nothing. Where did you hear this?
I did find out that in their earlier service with CN, the cars were known as "EM" coaches, but that was as close as I could get. This name was no longer in use by their VIA days.

Patrick

 

[JamesCameron1]

A search on google lead me to a page about lego model trains. On the site the guy built a bunch of via rail coaches based on pictures and information on "VIA Empire Coaches" he showed a picture of the coaches and they were the yellow and blue coaches we are talking about

The picture in question:

Maybe the source of the name is from the sleeper cars? I know the picture here is of a pullman "emperor" sleeper car.

 

[JamesCameron1]

Hows this for a side shot?

 

[PatrickTaylor89]

The picture in question:
Maybe the source of the name is from the sleeper cars? I know the picture here is of a pullman "emperor" sleeper car.

Thanks for answering that. It really had me stumped I was wondering where you had come across that name. I've seen the lego page before, but I believe that the author is wrong about the name. Several people who either work for VIA or are very familiar with it informed me that they'd never heard of it, and that the cars were known officially as "blue & yellow cars" even in the VIA shops and on official documents.

As for the picture, those were officially known as VIA "E" Series sleepers (built by Pullman). VIA had 52 of them (numbers 1110-1161). All of them had different names that start with "E". I'm hoping to build some of those as well some day! It's a shame they aren't still around.

Anyway, now that I've satisfied my curiosity, we can get back to the original purpose of this thread....

Patrick

 

[gisa]

Thanks for the shot James...I'm still here. I've been tinkering with tutorials all over the place and trying to texture the darn thing but it just wont seem to come out right. I'm trying to be patient but I am at the point where I want to give up because it just seems so overwhelming. I really only want to make about 3 or 4 things...and I miss route creation.

Plus I have to learn how to make texture files which seems like a whole other universe.

I guess I feel frustrated when I look at others and their creations. I bet they could do theirs in a quarter of the time with a 10x improvement in appearance! Still, I will keep trying and see what I can do.

I might start a post in another thread for help. The hexagonal shape of the lrc does not help me at all...grr...

Hanging in there...

 

[gisa]

Hey guys,


I'm very sorry to announce that after a long afternoon searching for/watching tutorials and goofing around, I've realized that it is going to be impossible for me to create the blue and yellow/LRC set/buddcar. I've been plugging away at this for a few weeks now and while I have a basic basic grasp of what's going on in gmax, I've realized that to produce a suitable object for trains is just beyond me...

As I said in my previous post, I enjoy routebuilding and driving. I would only have used gmax to make these 4 things anyhow and as I've always been most creative in my mind in that sense I think that's where my efforts would best be reflected.

I'm really sorry Jennifer, Patrick and James as I know you guys were really looking forward to this set. Believe me, I'd love to see it too, but simply put: I just can't do it.

I will post a new thread announcing this and seeking other's help in this project. I'm quite sure someone else could make what we are looking for and that they'd be much more efficient at it. I hope they would be freeware...

I will also try to help anyone who makes these sets even if I can't do the actual gmax such as research, pictures, etc...

Let's cross our fingers...

Again guys, I'm sorry to have let you down...


Gisa

 

[PatrickTaylor89]

I'm really sorry Jennifer, Patrick and James as I know you guys were really looking forward to this set. Believe me, I'd love to see it too, but simply put: I just can't do it.

I will also try to help anyone who makes these sets even if I can't do the actual gmax such as research, pictures, etc...

Let's cross our fingers...

Again guys, I'm sorry to have let you down...


Gisa

No worries. You got a heck of a lot farther with GMAX than I ever did. I certainly understand if content creation isn't your thing. That's the best part of Trainz - there's something for everyone

However, if it's just GMAX, have you thought about checking out 3D Canvas? The "regular" edition is free, but in order to export into Trainz, you need to pay for an upgrade. I messed around with the free version for a few weeks and I was able to build the basic shell of the GP38-2 that I'm now working on.

Anyway, I do have these cars on my list and I'll let you know if I actually ever get to them.

Also, what happened with Magicland in regards to re-skinning his cars? That might be an easier project to take on.

Patrick

 

[JamesCameron1]

I was looking forward to running those cars on the route Im building. Oh well... at least you gave it a shot! I will also help finding pictures and specs on the cars if someone else wanted to give it a try! Thanks for the attempt tho man!

 

[gisa]

Thanks for understanding guys! I hope someone will be able to make those cars someday. I think it'd be really neat to see an LRC set in trainz. The blue and yellow cars would be extras for me, but yeah I will have to cross my fingers and hope someone will dive into that someday...

As for 3D canvas? Well, I'm sure I'd get tangled in the complexity as well...plus I'm at a point in my life where I have to save up some money for the future (engagement ring, wedding, honeymoon, upgrading my computer, getting trs2006 and TC someday, and just saving up for my future) so I'm trying hard to cut corners in the short term which means I'd be highly unlikely to purchase anything in that field.

As for Magicland? Well, I never got a reply so I would assume that a reskin of those cars is out of the question until he does. I'm sure he's quite busy churning out stuff, but I have faith he'll read the thing I sent him eventually and perhaps reskin it on his own. It'd be even greater if he could reskin one of his own buddcars into the via paint scheme (mind you I never saw one but would love to drive one ).

I also started another thread (which you may have noticed) in hopes of recruiting someone who is gmax capable of creating this set...so far no replies, but I guess we'll have to wait and see...

Crossing our fingers until then...


Gisa ^^

 

[gisa]

Hi All,


I posted this in another thread, but I thought you guys might want to know. I recently got the itch to try to do these things again. I am not sure if I have the time or will succeed, but I do have some good news: I successfully obtained some diagrams of the engine and coaches! I'm not sure how useful they are but I think if someone can build from diagrams, then these would help a lot. They are .pdf's but they might do the job. If anyone is interested in them, pm me and I'll send them your way.

:wave:

Gisa ^^

 

[slenderman8888]

someone already made LRC coaches look on the DLS it is called via rail bombardier coach

 

[oknotsen]

Please do not kick many year old topics.

Locked.