Looking for an artist to do a 3D prototype

[ostlandr]

Hey, gang!

We're still going ahead with this insane real-world project. We will be looking for an artist to reskin/redetail a locomotive in a 3D format to match what our prototype will look like. For example, it might be a GP-16 with Alco trucks, repainted to our company color scheme, with our company logo and (with permission) the logos of our suppliers. It would also have a few details changed to show that it is no longer a diesel but a modern steam locomotive, such as a woodchip hopper on the upper rear section. If possible, we would like to get a short movie clip of it "in action" using the artist's favorite train simulator.
This is something we would be willing to pay for out of our marketing budget (once we have one.)

If anybody is interested, please drop me an email at

email.jpg (1.78 KiB) Viewed 3853 times

[Hawk]

I would strongly recommend not posting a live email link in a forum post. Email harvesters love to see that kind of thing. That's how they get your email address to sell to spammers.
A better idea would be to ask folks to send you a PM, or type your email address in Notepad, grab a screen-shot of it and paste that into a post, as I did for you above. Not as pretty or convienient, but a lot more secure for you.
Email harvesters haven't figured out how to read an image yet.

[WPandP]

I suspect that it isn't so much that email harvesters cannot read images; that's just optical character recognition software, which has been around for years. Rather, there is no way for the harvesting programs to discern which images contain email addresses, and thus in order to gain the email from an image like you just did, they'd have to process every image on every web page through the OCR software. It isn't done because it isn't feasible, not because it isn't possible.

One thing to be aware of, even if you use an image to display your email address, if you make that image into an active link that declares "mailto:your@email" then the harvesters will find that address, pretty much as readily as if you'd typed it in. The "mailto" tag is a bigger red flag than just typing in your address. The harvesters will look first for anything that comes after a mailto tag, then they'll look for any text in the user@domain.name format. In other words, the first thing they'll collect from this exact post is the "your@email" proxy I first typed, then they'll also discover the user@domain.name.

[WPandP]

To answer the original post, I'd love to be able to help out with this, but I'm not primarily a 3D modeler and would be overselling my skills to take this on. Plus, I really don't have the time to devote to it.

Where I might be of some value is in design input; do you already have the shape of the thing figured out? Or are you looking for this modeling process to inform the design? What about color scheme... have you settled on how it will be applied, or are you looking for graphic concepts and options? I.e. maybe you've settled on blue, orange, and maroon as your colors, but you've not determined whether you want to do one big primary color with the others as pinstripes, versus three equal fields, or something Chessie-system-ish, etc.

[nedfumpkin]

The GP-16 could be made out of the FP45 in RT3 really easily. It's the shape of the cab roof that would be the main difference, from a shape perspective. Skinning it would be relatively easy, however, lettering would be reversed on one side.

Any car in rt3 could be set up as a tender for it, and skinning cars with corporate logos could be done on most d era cars but again, you'd likely only get one side showing letters correctly. You'd just have to capture the video from the correct angle. You could set up a scenario in Rt3 and place all the buildings how you want, and even use a heightmap for making the actual area that you would be running the RR.

[SRV Ron]

A lot depends how the model is constructed and textured to how easily that model can be reskinned.

Examples are my trucks available on this forum. The eight trucking lines are all based on the same series of stock shapes and are mapped off the same texture. Change the texture and all of the series changes to form a new trucking line. It takes some careful planning and mapping on the models to get this to work right. Truck lights work without no night textures involved. Because trailers are also independent of the trucks, they did not get the same consideration as it would look strange to see them lit with no tractors connected to them.

The design allows anyone to use the generic template, a cutout mask, Paint Shop Pro, and TSModeler to create their own trucking company based on the generic trucks and trailers.

[Hawk]

I suspect that it isn't so much that email harvesters cannot read images; that's just optical character recognition software, which has been around for years. Rather, there is no way for the harvesting programs to discern which images contain email addresses, and thus in order to gain the email from an image like you just did, they'd have to process every image on every web page through the OCR software. It isn't done because it isn't feasible, not because it isn't possible.

Good point WP.

One thing to be aware of, even if you use an image to display your email address, if you make that image into an active link that declares "mailto:your@email" then the harvesters will find that address, pretty much as readily as if you'd typed it in. The "mailto" tag is a bigger red flag than just typing in your address. The harvesters will look first for anything that comes after a mailto tag, then they'll look for any text in the user@domain.name format. In other words, the first thing they'll collect from this exact post is the "your@email" proxy I first typed, then they'll also discover the user@domain.name.

That's one of the downsides of using an image. Whoever wants to send an email can not click on a link to open their email program, unless, as you say, it's made into a live link, which kind of defeats the purpose of the image.
Nope! They would actually have to type the email address into their email program. That's why I said it wasn't as convenient as a live link, but a lot more secure.

[ostlandr]

Thanks, Hawk. D'oh! I should know better. I have been getting a bit frazzled, as we just found out about a major funding opportunity- but we need to have our business plan and draft design document done by MAY 20th!!! Did I mention that our COO, the Chief Engineer, and myself are all working full time at our "day jobs"? Yes, an insane deadline, but we're talking about some serious money (over half a Billion-with-a-B) specifically targeted to businesses like ours in our state.

[ostlandr]

Thanks anyway. Color scheme for the factory (tenatively) is safety orange over black, with the current FRA standard lighting and Scotch-Lite striping. The actual unit we're looking at for the prototype is this GP30: http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/soogp30715.htm Model will need AAR type B ("Alco") trucks, and a hopper full of woodchips where the dynamic brake fans currently are (will take up that entire end of the locomotive internally.) And a short round stack, also, about where the current stack is.

Working on the logo for the locomotive works at the moment- my rough draft is this:

not an artist

To answer the original post, I'd love to be able to help out with this, but I'm not primarily a 3D modeler and would be overselling my skills to take this on. Plus, I really don't have the time to devote to it.

Where I might be of some value is in design input; do you already have the shape of the thing figured out? Or are you looking for this modeling process to inform the design? What about color scheme... have you settled on how it will be applied, or are you looking for graphic concepts and options? I.e. maybe you've settled on blue, orange, and maroon as your colors, but you've not determined whether you want to do one big primary color with the others as pinstripes, versus three equal fields, or something Chessie-system-ish, etc.