Well I think I have about finished the tender for Big Bertha. These are two screenshots in game:
I've used a new technique (for me) and included an ambient occlusion layer in my image editor (Paintshop Pro X4) to create the main texture. The layer was created using the ambient occlusion render tool in Blender.
I then added the ao layer and set the opacity at 20% and used the "hard light" blend option. The hard light idea came from one of the Katsbits tutorials. The ambient occlusion renders an approximation of light shadows on the texture and looks like this:
I'm still learning the best way of doing this but I have gotten some interesting effects.
The tender has an animated load for the coal and an opening water tank filler lid. To add some realism I also added some "loose" lumps of coal both in the cab area next to the coal doors and also on top of the water tank.
This particular version of the tender has the LMS legend on the side. This is an attachment rather than a submesh in the main Blender file. This means I can change the legend to a BR loco without touching the original tender mesh.
The tender now has a new shadow mesh. The temporary shadow mesh from PEV's QuickShadows showed rather odd shadows in the centre of the water tank.
The only thing left to do for the tender is the LOD which I will leave to last after my beta tester has played with it.
I've used a new technique (for me) and included an ambient occlusion layer in my image editor (Paintshop Pro X4) to create the main texture. The layer was created using the ambient occlusion render tool in Blender.
I then added the ao layer and set the opacity at 20% and used the "hard light" blend option. The hard light idea came from one of the Katsbits tutorials. The ambient occlusion renders an approximation of light shadows on the texture and looks like this:
I'm still learning the best way of doing this but I have gotten some interesting effects.
The tender has an animated load for the coal and an opening water tank filler lid. To add some realism I also added some "loose" lumps of coal both in the cab area next to the coal doors and also on top of the water tank.
This particular version of the tender has the LMS legend on the side. This is an attachment rather than a submesh in the main Blender file. This means I can change the legend to a BR loco without touching the original tender mesh.
The tender now has a new shadow mesh. The temporary shadow mesh from PEV's QuickShadows showed rather odd shadows in the centre of the water tank.
The only thing left to do for the tender is the LOD which I will leave to last after my beta tester has played with it.