This week I have mostly completed Big Bertha's tender. The texture still needs to be done and currently it just has a simple crimson body and some black bits. It also needs some shed/build plates and the coupling attachments are not working.
In real life Bertha's tender apparently came from another locomotive and was adapted to suit Bertha's needs. This included a matching cab to protect the crew on the descent down Lickey Bank after assisting trains. I understand the coal load was deliberately small since it didn't need to travel long distances.
This is my first model tender build so this was a new experience. I have added a water filler lid which is animated and a shovel for the fireman's use. Maybe I'll add a hammer and other bits later. The water lid animation requires some script work which will come later.
Here is a sequence of shots from Blender. The first is showing the left side from the right with parts unmirrored.
And this is much the same shot with mirroring turned on.
For those unfamiliar with mirroring, it is a technique for replicating identical parts along an axis. In this case the mirror is turned on for the X axis since mostly everything on one side will be identical on the other. This is really useful for saving mesh development time and particularly for applying textures. For example if you create a brake shoe like the following picture, you only need to texture the original brake shoe rather than the six required by Big Bertha's tender.
In the following example I created the front left wheel brake shoe. Because there is an identical brake shoe on the right hand side, I can use a mirror modifier to create the same shoe on the right side but with the mesh reversed. The bit most obviously reversed is the connecting rod that connects the two brake shoes. The Blender mirror modifier details are shown on the right of the picture.
Note that the mirrored mesh is hidden in this view so I could show you the original brake shoe.
Another useful mesh modifier is the array modifier where you can, for example, have a row of identical mesh objects. Since Bertha's wheels and brakes are spaced the same, I could use an array of three plus the mirror to create all six brake shoes as shown in the following picture.
Nifty isn't it! You do, however, need to "apply" all the modifiers, including the mirror and array in this case, before finalising the mesh for Trainz. It would be very wise to retain a copy of the Blender file prior to applying all modifiers. You can still use an "unapplied" mesh in Trainz but only the original mesh will be seen.
I'm about to send Bertha to my beta tester so he can play with sounds, smoke and steam effects. Currently, it only has a simple cab interior which uses the original body mesh. Next I'll move on to the cab interior.
Paul
Edit:
Oops! I forgot to include a picture of the tender with Big Bertha. Here it is:
In real life Bertha's tender apparently came from another locomotive and was adapted to suit Bertha's needs. This included a matching cab to protect the crew on the descent down Lickey Bank after assisting trains. I understand the coal load was deliberately small since it didn't need to travel long distances.
This is my first model tender build so this was a new experience. I have added a water filler lid which is animated and a shovel for the fireman's use. Maybe I'll add a hammer and other bits later. The water lid animation requires some script work which will come later.
Here is a sequence of shots from Blender. The first is showing the left side from the right with parts unmirrored.
And this is much the same shot with mirroring turned on.
For those unfamiliar with mirroring, it is a technique for replicating identical parts along an axis. In this case the mirror is turned on for the X axis since mostly everything on one side will be identical on the other. This is really useful for saving mesh development time and particularly for applying textures. For example if you create a brake shoe like the following picture, you only need to texture the original brake shoe rather than the six required by Big Bertha's tender.
In the following example I created the front left wheel brake shoe. Because there is an identical brake shoe on the right hand side, I can use a mirror modifier to create the same shoe on the right side but with the mesh reversed. The bit most obviously reversed is the connecting rod that connects the two brake shoes. The Blender mirror modifier details are shown on the right of the picture.
Note that the mirrored mesh is hidden in this view so I could show you the original brake shoe.
Another useful mesh modifier is the array modifier where you can, for example, have a row of identical mesh objects. Since Bertha's wheels and brakes are spaced the same, I could use an array of three plus the mirror to create all six brake shoes as shown in the following picture.
Nifty isn't it! You do, however, need to "apply" all the modifiers, including the mirror and array in this case, before finalising the mesh for Trainz. It would be very wise to retain a copy of the Blender file prior to applying all modifiers. You can still use an "unapplied" mesh in Trainz but only the original mesh will be seen.
I'm about to send Bertha to my beta tester so he can play with sounds, smoke and steam effects. Currently, it only has a simple cab interior which uses the original body mesh. Next I'll move on to the cab interior.
Paul
Edit:
Oops! I forgot to include a picture of the tender with Big Bertha. Here it is:
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