BR Standard Wagons

Hello, all.

It's been a while since I've been engaged in these forums, the last time I spent some serious time on these forums was mid-July. As many of you don't know, since summer, I've been trying to model the entire BR Wagon fleet. It sounds daunting, but I hope to work some things out with Jack about his new wagon underframes. In the near future, I *plan* to introduce a new set of couplers, but I have 0 Trainz scripting knowledge, only Java. In the long run, I hope to release a count of diesels, one of which is the NBL Type 1. This isn't a confirmed-release thread, but I'd say that there's a high chance of me finishing the Conflat, and containers, for release.



This is my WIP Conflat, I've yet to mirror the remaining halves, but I like how it's come out so far.



I have to redo the exhausts, horns, couplers, and much more, so please be patient.

These are technically my first official creations, so please be kind. A question I have for the graphics gurus, should I leave the 3D vents (small ones) on the model? I was originally planning to normal-map them on, but after seeing detail in others' creations, I decided to have at it. These will be removed at the 2nd LOD level, so no worries there .

Looking wonderful there

PM me via the forum for anything you need.

For couplers I would recommend LieLestoSbrats ACS library. The contents are varied and are all high quality. Few assets are presently using the library but I would like to see it used more frequently for performance benefits.

As for the vents, leave them on, and cull them at the next LOD stage, or replace them with textured 2 poly planes, that have the same appearance to the user at range.

Jack

Looking fantastic!

Re vents, on my LNER P2 the top LOD has 3D rivets that are quickly culled on the next LOD. This performed fine in TS12 even on my old laptop with integrated graphics, therefore it should be fine to leave the vents 3D if you're using LOD.

Ron

Both look great. They would be excellent additions to the BR stock in Trainz. I may PM you later today.

I hope we're kind to everyone, but especially to content creators. The models look great!

Thanks for your appreciative comments.

bobsanders said:

Ron

Both look great. They would be excellent additions to the BR stock in Trainz. I may PM you later today.

Click to expand...

Please do feel free to do so.

Ron
I have pmd you.

Bob

I have got new Lowfit models working in-game (somewhat). Still need to get the ACS script working, though.

Well done Ron. They look great.

If you're using Jack's bogies then seriously think about cloning either Jack's wagon or my new GWR conflate and just switching the top mesh. Both come with JAG which handles the ACS for you. ACS was never finished as such and there are a number of implementations floating around. In earlier versions of Trainz one script could change the values inadvertently with another script which is one reason although I have a lot of programming experience I don't touch the scripts but recycle someone else's scripts, the fewer there are around the less likely it is they will clash and Andrea did a nice defensive job with JAG.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

Andrea did a nice defensive job with JAG.

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I've contacted Andrea, hope to use the JAG system on my wagons.

On another note, do you guys want me to create animated doors on the standard vans, or are they too much of a performance drag? I'm asking this because I don't want to accidentally end up creating an inefficient body, or do the opposite, by creating an un-interactive wagon by not making animated doors.

What do you guys prefer? Is it worth animating the doors?

EverTrainz said:

I've contacted Andrea, hope to use the JAG system on my wagons.

On another note, do you guys want me to create animated doors on the standard vans, or are they too much of a performance drag? I'm asking this because I don't want to accidentally end up creating an inefficient body, or do the opposite, by creating an un-interactive wagon by not making animated doors.

What do you guys prefer? Is it worth animating the doors?

Click to expand...

The extra meshes add a 200 poly equivalent overhead, important in TS2009, but since you need a liquid nitrogen cooled system to run TANE its not so important. You don't really need Andrea to implement JAG just clone and edit an existing config.txt file unless you want some more features.

Cheerio John

johnwhelan said:

The extra meshes add a 200 poly equivalent overhead, important in TS2009, but since you need a liquid nitrogen cooled system to run TANE its not so important. You don't really need Andrea to implement JAG just clone and edit an existing config.txt file unless you want some more features.

Cheerio John

Click to expand...

The doors will not be attached as separate, animated objects. Rather, the body mesh will be animated as a whole. Is there any potential downside to this, or shall I go ahead and animate the doors as separate objects? These doors will not be animated per-side, but one animation for both sides' doors.

EverTrainz said:

What do you guys prefer? Is it worth animating the doors?

Click to expand...

Whatever you do will be wrong for someone, Ron.....

In a perfect world, the solution would be to have both, but thinking about the performance hit for a minute, the typical lengthy goods/freight train of the period would tend to have quite a variety of vans, rather than a rake of identicals (obvious exceptions to this are fish specials and the like). Potentially quite a big hit if every different type of van is animated, especially if the animated doors are rarely (if ever) used.

Perhaps an animated version of the commonest couple of types, as a trial, but for the most part I'd personally be quite happy with sealed doors, especially if that allows you more time to make a wider variety.

m

EverTrainz said:

The doors will not be attached as separate, animated objects. Rather, the body mesh will be animated as a whole. Is there any potential downside to this, or shall I go ahead and animate the doors as separate objects? These doors will not be animated per-side, but one animation for both sides' doors.

Click to expand...

In theory you could use a script to swap between kin files to open one side, the other side, or both sides. Or just use separate animations. It's not too bad on performance to do so, especially in TANE SP1. And if your lowest LOD drops the extra meshes (and just goes to something like a simple box), then the performance impact is even less when looking at the whole scene. And it gives that bit of control that can help make it look more realistic.

I would recommend setting up the vehicle with a script that will open just one side or the other (or both) depending on the industry. I had several wagons setup to open both sides no matter what, and just found it to look stupid when sitting at a goods shed. You can also script it with manual control in addition to this as well. The down side is you might find some industries are setup to open the doors on the wrong side in some cases. If the industry isn't setup to open any doors, then you can make the script just open both doors.

Have a look at the script on my VR M T4 wagon that is included in TANE, as that includes the script I've used to control the left and right hand doors in a way similar to the above.

Regards

I remember you mentioning using script to control the frames that played for your coupler attachments. I wonder if it can be applied to the doors, where one phase opens left doors, next phase opens right doors, and 3rd phase opens both. The script could maybe control the frames which play, allowing doors to open independent of side. I'm not sure if this will actually work, though.

I'm still alive. Yes.

I'm extremely sorry I haven't been keeping things in the loop this year, the studies crashed down harder than a rock, and I've had to spend most of my effort on school, nothing too overwhelming.

Over the past 2 months, I've found what I think is the optimal shade of steel/brown for the underframes, and I've seen that Rumour3 has used a similar shade on his 31, which looks really nice in TANE. Do you have any suggestions for the texturing and normal maps? For the Brakevan?

I've also made progress on my 12T Van, but nothing that warrants a picture.

Very nice looking wagons there!

Quick update:



Have just about finished up on the hoses and couplers.