Well, well, well...

[Gumboots]

So this beast is off to a good start. Needs some more detailing around the ends to make it more convincing, but is largely sorted. It's brought to mind a couple of points.

The problem with well cars in RT3 is the limit of 8 units. Their shape cuts the train up visually, with large gaps between big boxes. This makes it more obvious that there are only 8 of them. IMO, with long boxcars and similar units the whole thing sort of blends together visually and gives the impression of a longer and more interesting consist. TBH I'm thinking COFC would probably give better-looking trains for RT3 purposes (and is also more widely applicable in terms of routes and countries) but it's worth doing well cars as an experiment. They will probably work best, in visual terms, if several cars of other types are in the consist with them.

The other point is the styling of the containers themselves. Having white ones with very distinct vertical ribbing only adds to the chopped-up effect IMO. They will probably look better if they are done so the vertical ribbing doesn't stand out so much at a distance, and if a colour is chosen that sort of lets them trail off into the distance rather than smacking you upside the head. IOW, grey ones would probably work better than orange ones. Styling (logos, etc) that accentuates horizontal lines would probably help too.

[Gumboots]

Just for comparison, here's an 8 car consist running Astrarail Sggmrss 90's with standard European rail 45' pallet-wide high-cube containers.

This is basically the standard high techy consist you'd see in Europe, as opposed to the US which is big on 53' well cars. Much wider route availability. Will handle tighter curves too, due to the shorter wheelbase of the articulated units. OTOH, you need a longer train overall to get the same carrying capacity. Swings and roundabouts.

For RT3 purposes I think that if consists were going to be one or the other, the Euro consist would make for better-looking trains. The scale wheelbase of the Sggmrss 90 is just short enough to get away with it (works out at 102 RT3 units) but would be a bit jumpier than the well cars. There's also an Sggrss 80, which is built for standard ISO 40 foot containers. That obviously has a shorter wheelbase, so would be totally fine for behaviour in-game.

[Gumboots]

And just for the heck of it...

IMO this is the sort of thing that well cars need to start making decent consists in RT3. That would look good. That catch is that, due to the required wheelbase of each unit, it would only look good on flat terrain.

On a map like AoS V, which is basically as flat as a pancake everywhere, cars like this could work well. On maps like Eastern China they would be either hilarious or horrible, depending on your frame of mind at the time. On average maps somewhere between those two extremes, cars like this might be acceptable for some people and unacceptable for others.

Just for the record, these are 40' high-cube containers in double articulated well cars. That's not a unit anyone actually makes AFAIK. There are triple and quintuple articulated well cars (ie: various Gunderson Maxi's) but I haven't heard of any double units. Using 40' double articulated, just for game purposes, would be the best compromise between making the consist look interesting, and keeping the wheelbase somewhere this side of Timbuktu (said wheelbase is about 12% longer than the AD60 Garratt test model I made).

[Cash on Wheels]

There are some stand alone 40' & 53' well cars running amuck in the USA. These were old stand alone 48' well cars yhat have been cut down to 40'. The remaining 8' were used to extend them to 53'. IM0 I would like to also see 40' (13.39m) shipping containers. More i'tnl appeal

( dont wanna hijack the thread but were are the coal bauxite and iron fixes for the hopper car!?)

You had a ship container before right? Another thing that looks good 40' and 20' containers both on the same flat car!

[Gumboots]

There are some stand alone 40' & 53' well cars running amuck in the USA. These were old stand alone 48' well cars yhat have been cut down to 40'. The remaining 8' were used to extend them to 53'.

Yes I know. The one in the first post is a 53' rebuilt Husky-Stack. They're one of the more elegant of the well cars, bearing in mind that well cars in general are about as elegant as a box of squashed frogs. I like them as an individual unit. I'm just not impressed with them as a whole RT3 consist. Even worse if you use a caboose. Seven well cars just looks wrong. IMO it really needs a dozen of them to look the part.

IM0 I would like to also see 40' (13.39m) shipping containers. More i'tnl appeal

( dont wanna hijack the thread but were are the coal bauxite and iron fixes for the hopper car!?)

You had a ship container before right? Another thing that looks good 40' and 20' containers both on the same flat car!

TBH I've just about talked myself into using COFC as the default intermodal unit for RT3. It would look plausible in any scenario from the early 1990's onwards. The 40/20 thing is just skinning. My is just mesh up for 80', and then you can throw any skin combo on that. 2x40, 4x20, 2x20+1x40, pile of Tricons plus a 40, anything goes.

The hopper fixes are coming soon.

[Gumboots]

Ok, just on a whim, because it's only a few bytes and whatever and it's only a game and what have you got to lose by trying something...

I made those mutant double-articulated 40' well cars. Because hey, I already had so many trucks and wheels hanging around in Blender, and I could get a good idea of the required geometry from the old bauxite C era doubles, and there are umpteen candidates for making bits of skins in various folders so what the heck. It's only one simple body, two simple trucks, a dozen bogies, length and track points, and a few images. Skinning for a test version can be fairly quick and dirty (and is). Might as well try it and then I'll know for sure whether they're utterly stupid or maybe (just maybe) a usable unit.

So now I know.

And the answer is...

...They're not that bad, really. In fact overall, as long as you have a bit of a sense of humour sometimes, they're actually pretty good. They track perfectly around corners. No problem there. Skinning them to a higher standard isn't going to be hard. It's only lumps and bumps which cause them to buck, as we all knew would be the case. There are some situations when they look kinda like an old Malibu rider hanging ten, but when just generally trundling around behind a locomotive they pretty much do the business.

So they're an option. Well cars, and enough of them to make a decent looking consist, even with a caboose taking up one slot. Pics follow. All of these are running 7 cars + caboose. The shot with the Mogul hauling them is just for laughs, because when I started the sandbox I was pretty sure these mutant well cars would be only good for laughs.

The distance view of Sydney to Newcastle shows how long these things are on a smallish PopTop map. They could definitely be a problem with closely spaced towns. A dozen of these trains might gridlock your system if you weren't careful. It may be necessary to run multiple lines into a city just to keep things flowing.

Anyway here they are. Test version available if anyone wants to play with them.

There is one bug with these. They are set to have a CargoIcon.3dp on each container. These aren't displaying in the game. My best guess is that for some daft reason they hard-coded things so that only car body files can have a cargo icon, and trucks can't. That rather borks things for multiple cars, since the multiple cars have to be done as trucks. I didn't notice this when testing earlier multiples like the bauxite cars, because they were custom skinned for their cargo so didn't rely on a cargo icon.

So what to do about it if wanting to use multiples for generic cars that will have to carry a range of cargoes? The only solution I can see is to put the cargo icon on the body, such as it is, and call that good enough. It's a bit tricky in the case of these cars since the "body" is only the central bogie. Not much room for a cargo icon, and not exactly a prominent place to display one, but there's nothing else that can be done AFAICT. Offhand I'm thinking have a small sign that is part of the body (but sitting higher than the bogie, obviously) but won't look too stupid pretending to be part of the truck (ie: the well car itself). Which shouldn't be too hard to arrange.

[Gumboots]

Got a solution for the cargo icons. I've made up a handrail/footplate combo that has the cargo icon on the side of it. Works well and looks plausible. A bit small for easy visibility at a distance but fine if you're fairly close to the train.

Also did a bit of measuring. The Maxi-1 that these are based on can carry up to 48' containers on top. According to Blender, there would also be room for a 53' container up top, but only on one of the units. Possible top container combos are 53+45 or 48+48, and obviously anything shorter is fine too. So this isn't a bad unit for either US or Euro. US could have a 53 and a 40 up top. Euro could have a pair of their standard 45's.

[Cash on Wheels]

Looking good. IIRC i recommended to u earlier insead of cargo Icons just use different color containers for each cargo. 40' blue on 40' blue for toys. 45' green on 40' yellow for furniture etc

[Gumboots]

Yeah but that means more coding. And people would have to memorise the colour schemes. Cargo icons are simpler and less strain on the brain.

We can have more colours later, but at this stage I don't want to get into doing different coding for every cargo if I can avoid it. And even with different colours I still think cargo icons would make sense.

[Gumboots]

I knocking these into shape some more, so they can be usable units that I can stand looking at for long periods. I have most of the boxcar pack sorted, and these are the main hold-up at the moment.

After a bit more research I've managed to make them both more accurate and more compact. The latter will be handy for in-game behaviour, even though the difference is not a huge amount, since these units really are pushing the limits.
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As part of this I've replaced the PopTop truck skinning with a proper Barber S2. The end (70 ton) trucks have 33" wheels and a 68" wheelbase, and the middle (125 ton) truck have 38" wheels and a 72" wheelbase, which is what articulated well cars use IRL. Not that you'll notice most of the time, but it was just as easy as making them all the same and I like throwing in details like this.

I'm setting the skin up so that it will be possible to do a range of container combinations without major changes. Obviously it will only be 40 ft, or 2 x 20 ft, on the bottom. The top ones will be able to be meshed and skinned at either 40, 45, 48 or 53 ft. Due to space limitations on the texture there will only be options for two different-coloured containers. IOW, I'll be able to have a blue one up top and a white one down the bottom, or the other way around, in either well car, but won't be able to have a blue one and a white one and a red one and a green one all in a double-car unit. That just won't fit on the texture at a decent resolution, so it aint happening.

Edit: Basic trial of the skinning concept. Seems to work ok. Taking this one as an example, you could have all blue ones, or all grey ones, or three blue and one grey, or the other way around, or any combination of pairs that you like, all on the same skin and all usable in 40 ft top or bottom, and 45, 48 or 53 on top. This should be enough variety to keep us amused.
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The only caveats are:

1/if you want to use 45 or 48 on top, the texture has to be specifically set up for them. A 40 just crops the ends off anything longer, since the central 40 feet are the same anyway, but the ends have to be set for any longer containers. This texture is set up with two 53's - one blue and one grey. Having a 45 and 53 up top would be possible, but if you wanted them the same colour that would mean all containers would have to be the same colour, because there are only two to play with on the texture and you'd be using both to get the different ends of each longer container.

2/ Obviously any generic cars will all have the same colour scheme regardless of what cargo they carry. Getting different ones for different cargoes is easy enough if anyone ever wants to do it, but since it's more work for me and more code for the game to run I won't bother for now.

[Gumboots]

Test with a 45 and 48 on top, just to see how it goes. I've got the system figured out now. The PSD and DDS will handle any combo of colours and sizes.
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Edit: By the way, all the containers shown in these shots are high-cube. IOW, 9 ft 6 inches overall height. It's just as easy to do them as standard (8 ft 6 in high) containers, or as a mixture of the two. So a double stack of standard 40's in front, with a high-cube 40 and 53 in the second unit, or any other variation, can be done if anyone wants it.

After playing around with several options I've decided to make the default cars have 2x high-cube 40's in front, and a high-cube 40 and 53 at the rear, as shown in this shot on the previous page. This seems to look the best, IMHO.

[AT41B]

I think you have done a great job on the skinning. I just have one question. The carriers end to end, the lettering/numbering is reversed on the second car. Is this something overlooked or is it just something everyone has to accept? JMTCW

[Gumboots]

The reversed text was just because it's WIP and I hadn't got around to doing the second car's sides correctly. The finished item will have the text the right way around on all car and container sides, in all views. I've already corrected that in my test model and skin.
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[Gumboots]

Had to re-think this a bit while whipping it all into shape.

I tried a mocked up consist with the two different-coloured containers, and it doesn't look so good. If there was enough texture to do them all random colours that would look realistic, but with only two options in the same pattern it tends to look like a row of kid's building blocks. Also, I forgot that if someone wants logos on the side of the containers they won't want them on the top as well. That'd look wrong.

The upshot of this is that all containers for a given cargo will have to be the same colour, to get another free panel to do the roof. Which isn't a big deal. Different sizes will still be possible, with the caveat that if the both of the top containers are longer than 40 feet they will have to be the same. So a 53 and a 40 will still work, and two 45's or two 48's will still work. A 45 and a 48 won't work, but nobody is likely to want that combo anyway.

This also frees up a bit of extra texture to do the top faces of the car sides, which I really wanted, so it all works out in the end.

The mesh is pretty much sorted now, apart from a bit of trivia, and I'm still messing with skinning. So almost there, but not quite finished yet.

[Gumboots]

Finally got the mesh done. Ended up messing around with it some more to get the ends looking right. All sorted now, including LOD's, and ready for export. Skinning is mostly there, but could still do with a bit more detailing. Am going to run it live to see how it looks, then decide what tweaks it needs.
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Then I just have to remember where I was up to with the other seven eras of boxcar. Those are mostly done, and should come together pretty quickly.

[Gumboots]

Gave it a quick test. So they work. Doubles are pretty easy. I've figured out that setting the TrackPoint values to 55% of the wheelbase works pretty consistently. It sounds weird, but a value around there gives the best tracking for double cargo cars. Note that this doesn't work for single locomotives or tenders or single cargo cars. It's specifically for doubles.

Skinning looks pretty good. Could be improved a bit, but I knew that anyway. I just wanted to check overall colour balance and details before getting into tweaking.
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[Hawk]

I'm liking those.

[Gumboots]

These are still on the way. I've been getting the rest of the boxcar set together* so I can release the whole lot in one go. Four eras have been exported and live tested. Four more to go, but that won't take long. I can knock off the rest of the exporting tomorrow night. The complete set should be done by Wednesday, even allowing for a bit of skin tweaking time.

These are done to my custom weight scale, but for the boxcar series the weights are near enough to default PopTop freight weights**. If anyone wants to use the boxcars by themselves with standard locomotive stats, they should be fine.

*Had to fix a few things, and of course I would delete one of the skins while doing a clean-up of my desktop. You get that.

**Basically: a bit heavier before 1850, a bit heavier after 1990. More or less the same between 1850 and 1990, but with easier transitions between eras.

Edit: These are done now. Click the custom boxcars link in my sig to get them.