GMax and 3DSMax (And any other modeling program) screenies/renders

Nice job on the materials there Ajrod!

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I have been studying how to rig the Walschaerts valve gear in Blender to animate it for my Swedish Railways class Sa project and I have finally found a way to properly rig it. From what I have seen, most people seem to take shortcuts on two certain places:

First people tend to make a simplification by locking the connection point between the radius bar and the combination lever to only allow a horizontal movement. This will make the valve stem move up and down slightly. This is usually solved by locking the horizontal movement of the valve stem, which in turn makes the connection between the stem and the combination lever break.

ciYGt2h.gif

From left to right:
1. The connection point between the radius bar and the combination lever is locked along the green line (note that the valve stem moves up and down)
2. Same as 1. but with the vertical movement of the valve stem locked to the blue axis (note that the link to the combination lever breaks slightly)
3. Correct behavior (note that the connection point between the radius bar and the combination lever moves slightly up and down as it should)

The other thing that I have seen, is that people assumes that the die has a fixed position in the expansion link for a certain cutoff. This is not true, as the radius bar is forced to move slightly up and down in the expansion link to compensate for the fact that it is connected to a fixed point in the reverse arm via the lifting link. This can be solved by driving the motion from the theoretical center of the expansion link arc.

I have, after a lot of testing and asking on the Blender forums, found a way to properly rig the entire Walschaerts valve gear on my class Sa engine to fix these two issues. In the rig it is also possible to change cutoff by simply rotating the reverse arm just as in real life, which is nice. A shame that it is not currently possible to adjust the cutoff in-game!
sneGTy2.gif

Animation for reverse drive with the die in the top of the expansion link (even though the wheels rotate forward..)

EVf6Rai.gif

Die in the bottom of the expansion link for forward drive. Note how the die moves slightly up and down in the expansion link, as it should.
 
My my, korvtiger, That is impressive! I've tried making several Walschaerts valve gears myself, but none like yours (Though I am working on one). Thank you for the tips. Also your the loco in the link is really impressive. You did a great job with the pbr textures.



Some progress on the cab:

ckjhqv4X_o.jpg



And while I usually don't do diesels, I gave it a try, and built this one in 12 hours of total work. A Ruston 88ds...

kLja5Zt8_o.jpg
 
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"My my, korvtiger, That is impressive!"

I agree. That IS impressive. So, all we need is a script writer who can script the cut off to correspond to the game setting? That would be the real icing on the cake.
 
"My my, korvtiger, That is impressive!"

I agree. That IS impressive. So, all we need is a script writer who can script the cut off to correspond to the game setting? That would be the real icing on the cake.
Yes, I believe EverTrainz mentioned something like that before. Rileyzzz also makes scripts of that nature (https://www.patreon.com/rileyzzz), so perhaps we could ask him.

I have been considering the idea of a Walschaerts valve gear with a fully functional dynamic cutoff and range of motion.

https://youtu.be/5AMmhKgi8qU

Using this tutorial, it would take some time and effort to get it working.

Someone on the Trainz discord came up with an in-game IK system.

[video]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/466716159601934358/744555506789515364/ik2.mp4[/video]
 
"My my, korvtiger, That is impressive!"

I agree. That IS impressive. So, all we need is a script writer who can script the cut off to correspond to the game setting? That would be the real icing on the cake.

This has been done to a limited degree on quite a few of my Victorian Railways locos. A little less obvious, as they're Stephenson Link locos, but hoping my next loco with Walschaerts will be setup this way as well.

That said, it is a 'stepped' arrangement that uses a few separate animations (within the one bogie animation), and attachment points, to 'switch' between 3 different positions for the valve gear. With the Walschaerts I'll likely add more (full forward, 1/2 forward, mid gear, 1/2 revert, full reverse) to make this a little less jarring.

Although if the IK system can handle it, this might be a much smoother option for variable valve gear as well :)

Regards
 
Thank you!

I have made a more detailed post about my solution here, including example .blend files: https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...-how-to-rig-Walschaerts-valve-gear-in-Blender

It would be really cool if it would be possible to implement this rig with a in-game IK solver! But it must be a quite robust solver, capable of handling armatures with multiple tips, multiple IK constraints with different targets, and bones with locked rotation for it to work with my setup. :confused: But I am curious about your solution Zec, have you described in detail somewhere? :)
 
My my, korvtiger, That is impressive! I've tried making several Walschaerts valve gears myself, but none like yours (Though I am working on one). Thank you for the tips. Also your the loco in the link is really impressive. You did a great job with the pbr textures.



Some progress on the cab:

ckjhqv4X_o.jpg



And while I usually don't do diesels, I gave it a try, and built this one in 12 hours of total work. A Ruston 88ds...

kLja5Zt8_o.jpg

Excellent design dundun! Peckett would have definitely hired you!!

And that Ruston 88DS.. I'm super excited for it! The oil refinery at Dearnby could definitely use one of those around the yard! The details are exquisite! Well Done!! :D
 
Thanks, Alex.

Thanks to korvtiger, I think I have finally perfected the Walschaerts valve gear. This demonstration video shows it running on my USRA Light 2-8-2 in both the forward and reverse position.

 
Thanks, Alex.

Thanks to korvtiger, I think I have finally perfected the Walschaerts valve gear. This demonstration video shows it running on my USRA Light 2-8-2 in both the forward and reverse position.


You're very welcome! Out of curiosity, are these industrial shunters TRS19 only or are you planning on releasing them for other versions too?

And your USRA Mikado is looking great. My Grandfather's first locomotive he drove was an Erie 2-8-2 when he got a job as a driver during WW2. Your attention to detail is perfect for this model!
 
All my models will likely be TRS19 only for now, as I have a lot to do. Modeling any other versions would be if I had any spare time (Maybe when the TRS19 ones are finished:)).
 
Hello,

due to a brake in conntent creation during quite a long time, I am not up to date anymore about the latest possibilities. Therefore please be patient with me when I ask a question, about things everybody probably already knows.

As I can see here, there must be a tool named "Quixel Mixer".

Does it mean that we can create a mesh structure in gmax, to bring it over to the Quixel Mixer, to apply textures onto it maintaining the latest texture standards - like PBR?

If yes, I would say thank you to the people who created that tool to provide a way to stay with gmax in conntent creation as I find mesh creations in blender very hard and I never could get into it as required to really work with blender.

Also I would like to ask about a link where I can get that Quixel Mixer and perhapps there are some instructions available how to use it.

In case my conclusiuons are right, it would be great as is would solve some problems to me. When I will take over my project from T:ANE to TS19, I will need to update the gound textures to PBR ground textures. Therefore I already created PBR replacements for all of my ground textures. But in addition to this I also need to update all struktures like track splines and bridges maintaining PBR textures. I guess it would look not very good if the gravel bed of a non PBR textured track would lay in a PBR gound texture.

Thanks in advance four your answers.

Your's TUME
 
A progress shot on WAGR G Class 123, with new WAGR standard boiler, boiler jacket, firebox, crown stays and in Koombana Queen colours. The whistle and safeties are just old placeholders, which will be upgraded with new mesh and rivets. Eventually, all these will be used to redo to TANE standards, my SAR Y & YX classes, which some ended up being used on WA Timber Tramways along with the 2-6-0 G class types.
WAGR-G2.jpg

Regards
Mich
 
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