- New_boiler_for_Gunter_1.jpg (100.38 KiB) Viewed 4290 times
- New_boiler_for_Gunter_2.jpg (103.86 KiB) Viewed 4290 times
DRG class 39 2-8-2 (cancelled)
Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Ok, that worked. I still have to move a few things into place and do a bit of tweaking, but the 16-sided boiler nicked from the Stirling does the job nicely. This is a good trick and I may well use it to improve other models. Pix attached.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Got some more stuff into place, and am thinking it's about time for some gfx revamping. The way the current faces are set up doesn't really suit what I want to do. The front landing/platform/whatever you call it on the P 10/BR 39 wasn't the same as on the BR 01. Originally they didn't have the full-width sloping face from the running boards down to the platform. That was added on later when the smoke deflectors were fitted.
The original platform was narrower. The running lights are too far apart at the moment. The centre of the lenses ought to be where the inner bar of the handrail loop is. The buffers should move inwards to about the same position too. The platform will end up just fractionally wider than the running lights. That all means I want to get rid of the full-width sloping face so I can play with the platform independently of the running boards. Once the platform/running lights/buffers are sorted I'll get onto repositioning the cylinders/pistons, etc.
So this has got me thinking about other stuff. I'll split the tender skin out to its own image. This wont need to be a full 1024. 640 square or so should be adequate. The game doesn't mind what size A skins are as long as they are square and aren't larger than 1024. The only trick you have to watch is that the B skin must always be half the size of the A skin or it wont render. Same down through C, D etc. So going 720 > 360 > 180 > 90 > 45 will work. Going 720 > 512 will mean your skin disappears when you zoom out a bit.
Once the tender is out on its own I'll have more breathing room for fun and games with the loco itself. One thing I want to do is totally change the mapping for the front of the smokebox. At the moment it calls 19 faces and 10 vertices to do a job which could be done better with 4 faces and 8 vertices. This will mean simpler coding without any sacrifice of looks, and will give me some extra vertices to play with. You can see in the following shot how the smokebox front face is currently laid out.
*ETA: Just thought some more. I'll do it with one square, which means only 4 vertices and 2 faces, and use a bit more alpha trickery. Even better.
This is another odd example of a PopTop model having some components being coded in a more complex and processer-intensive fashion than necessary, while skimping on other stuff that would have made a real difference to looks (ie: boiler faces).
The inner vertices and faces for the smokebox door will stay, but the surrounding flat face is all in one plane anyway so can be done in a much simpler fashion. Doing it as a basic square and relying on the alpha channel to fit the visible perimeter to the smokebox is how some other locos do it (Big Boy, Challenger, etc) and it works well. It's also a lot easier to modify if you want to change something later on, because you're just changing a basic square in the mesh and a circle in the gfx. I need to change it a bit in size and location anyway, so I want to do it the easy way.
The changes from the BR 01 model to this one should mean I'll end up with a few simple bits left over (I currently have quite a few things stashed below track level while testing) so I should be able to get away with putting back some stuff for the later DRG configuration of these locos (ie: with black paint job, Witte smoke deflectors, full width sloping face and front platform add-ons). The idea is that these can be in the skin and alpha'd out. That should allow a second skin for DRG configuration to be done with simple alpha tweaks. Getting wheels to change colours with skins is a bit of a nuisance, but fortunately the Prussian railway and the DRG both used red wheels. The DRG red was more in your face when new, but when faded and dirtied up a bit was close enough to the duller Prussian red, so one set of wheels should work for both looks.
The original platform was narrower. The running lights are too far apart at the moment. The centre of the lenses ought to be where the inner bar of the handrail loop is. The buffers should move inwards to about the same position too. The platform will end up just fractionally wider than the running lights. That all means I want to get rid of the full-width sloping face so I can play with the platform independently of the running boards. Once the platform/running lights/buffers are sorted I'll get onto repositioning the cylinders/pistons, etc.
- Front_landing.jpg (47.84 KiB) Viewed 4275 times
Once the tender is out on its own I'll have more breathing room for fun and games with the loco itself. One thing I want to do is totally change the mapping for the front of the smokebox. At the moment it calls 19 faces and 10 vertices to do a job which could be done better with 4 faces and 8 vertices. This will mean simpler coding without any sacrifice of looks, and will give me some extra vertices to play with. You can see in the following shot how the smokebox front face is currently laid out.
*ETA: Just thought some more. I'll do it with one square, which means only 4 vertices and 2 faces, and use a bit more alpha trickery. Even better.
- Simple_smokebox.png (7.39 KiB) Viewed 4263 times
The inner vertices and faces for the smokebox door will stay, but the surrounding flat face is all in one plane anyway so can be done in a much simpler fashion. Doing it as a basic square and relying on the alpha channel to fit the visible perimeter to the smokebox is how some other locos do it (Big Boy, Challenger, etc) and it works well. It's also a lot easier to modify if you want to change something later on, because you're just changing a basic square in the mesh and a circle in the gfx. I need to change it a bit in size and location anyway, so I want to do it the easy way.
The changes from the BR 01 model to this one should mean I'll end up with a few simple bits left over (I currently have quite a few things stashed below track level while testing) so I should be able to get away with putting back some stuff for the later DRG configuration of these locos (ie: with black paint job, Witte smoke deflectors, full width sloping face and front platform add-ons). The idea is that these can be in the skin and alpha'd out. That should allow a second skin for DRG configuration to be done with simple alpha tweaks. Getting wheels to change colours with skins is a bit of a nuisance, but fortunately the Prussian railway and the DRG both used red wheels. The DRG red was more in your face when new, but when faded and dirtied up a bit was close enough to the duller Prussian red, so one set of wheels should work for both looks.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Been playing around with Gunter a bit more, in between doing other things. Got most of the .3dp stuff sorted now. There's still more to do but most of it's fairly straightforward. Got the front platfrom and running boards right as far as geometry goes (gfx need revamping). Sorting all the piston/valve/cylinder/etc stuff was a bit messy simply because of the number of pieces, but that's done too. The stuff that's left to do is mostly big and simple bits.
- Gunter_latest.jpg (52.36 KiB) Viewed 4243 times
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Looks excellent. Keep up the great work!
Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
I've got myself to the stage where I have so many unused bits stashed below track level that it's time to start rationalising it all and making them do something useful. Fun and games. 
1/ The old smoke deflectors have four triangular support brackets each. That's 12 vertices each side, and I don't need them to do their old job. You can do all sorts of things with 12 vertices. Some of these German locos used a slightly odd sort of Belpaire firebox. Instead of being a completely separate box like the English ones, it sort of morphed out of the cylindrical boiler slightly below the highest point, and then sorta morphed back in again, before doing a bit more morphing out slightly lower down and then dropping vertically to the ashpan.
You can see how it works here:
So, the cunning plan here is to take those 12 vertices and re-arrange them to make the protruding top sections of the Belpaire firebox. These will have faces at 22.5 degrees, just like the boiler but on a smaller radius, so should match in quite well. I figure it's worth trying this because it's the sort of modular component that could be re-used on several locos. I can't think of anything else useful to do with those vertices at the moment, so this will do.
2/ The old smoke deflectors themselves will be left stashed below track level for the moment. Later on I'll look at re-shaping them slightly so they can form the style of smoke deflector that was actually used on the early P10/BR39. if I get cheesed off with the fancy shenanigans I might fit that one in as an easy break from the trickier stuff. It's always good to have an easy job on the to-do list.
3/ The lower section of the firebox that drops to the ashpan will be made from the firebox faces that were left over when I deleted the old boiler sides. These will carry into the cab to form the lower sections of the backhead. IOW, they'll be doing much the same job as they used to, just re-shaped a bit.
4/ The main frame side plates are just a nuisance at the moment, because they have more vertices than they need and in the wrong positions. This means I need to move and re-map some of them anyway, so I'm going to whip them out of the main frame side plates and use them for something else. They'll make up the lower sections of the firebox/ashpan. This will give a nice, simple mesh and mapping for the main frame side plates themselves.
5/ BR39's didn't have a front throttle, which means I don't need the one from the BR01 base model. What BR39's did have was a second tank under the left side of the cab, to match the current one on the right, and funnily enough the mesh for this is basically the same mesh as for the old throttle casing. This means I can turn the old throttle casing into the second tank by just copy/pasting the hex for the left tank and then tweaking it a bit to flip it to the left side of the loco (which is just changing + to - in a few places).
6/ With the P10/BR39 having four sets of drivers instead of three, I need an extra set of brake blocks, etc. I can make this out of the funny business that used to be the gfx between the last drivers and the rear truck. It has the same mesh as the others, so is easy to adapt by copy/paste and a bit of y axis tweaking. It's already grouped with the others in the code, so that keeps things tidy. I also need to scale the existing brake blocks gfx and move them so they fit the new, smaller diameter drivers. I should be able to do this by just scaling the mesh a bit, without doing any remapping of gfx.
Ok, so that's a whole pile of stuff, of varying trickiness, which should use up about half of the currently stashed bits.
1/ The old smoke deflectors have four triangular support brackets each. That's 12 vertices each side, and I don't need them to do their old job. You can do all sorts of things with 12 vertices. Some of these German locos used a slightly odd sort of Belpaire firebox. Instead of being a completely separate box like the English ones, it sort of morphed out of the cylindrical boiler slightly below the highest point, and then sorta morphed back in again, before doing a bit more morphing out slightly lower down and then dropping vertically to the ashpan.
You can see how it works here:
- Das_firebox.jpg (74.71 KiB) Viewed 4225 times
2/ The old smoke deflectors themselves will be left stashed below track level for the moment. Later on I'll look at re-shaping them slightly so they can form the style of smoke deflector that was actually used on the early P10/BR39. if I get cheesed off with the fancy shenanigans I might fit that one in as an easy break from the trickier stuff. It's always good to have an easy job on the to-do list.
3/ The lower section of the firebox that drops to the ashpan will be made from the firebox faces that were left over when I deleted the old boiler sides. These will carry into the cab to form the lower sections of the backhead. IOW, they'll be doing much the same job as they used to, just re-shaped a bit.
4/ The main frame side plates are just a nuisance at the moment, because they have more vertices than they need and in the wrong positions. This means I need to move and re-map some of them anyway, so I'm going to whip them out of the main frame side plates and use them for something else. They'll make up the lower sections of the firebox/ashpan. This will give a nice, simple mesh and mapping for the main frame side plates themselves.
5/ BR39's didn't have a front throttle, which means I don't need the one from the BR01 base model. What BR39's did have was a second tank under the left side of the cab, to match the current one on the right, and funnily enough the mesh for this is basically the same mesh as for the old throttle casing. This means I can turn the old throttle casing into the second tank by just copy/pasting the hex for the left tank and then tweaking it a bit to flip it to the left side of the loco (which is just changing + to - in a few places).
6/ With the P10/BR39 having four sets of drivers instead of three, I need an extra set of brake blocks, etc. I can make this out of the funny business that used to be the gfx between the last drivers and the rear truck. It has the same mesh as the others, so is easy to adapt by copy/paste and a bit of y axis tweaking. It's already grouped with the others in the code, so that keeps things tidy. I also need to scale the existing brake blocks gfx and move them so they fit the new, smaller diameter drivers. I should be able to do this by just scaling the mesh a bit, without doing any remapping of gfx.
Ok, so that's a whole pile of stuff, of varying trickiness, which should use up about half of the currently stashed bits.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Done some more messing around. I realise I'm turning this into a bit of a mission, but I'm finding the possibilities interesting and it's good experience. The end result should still be very close in vertex and face count to the original Class 01 PopTop model. It'll be slightly higher, but not much (5-10% range) which will still make it less complex than some of the other PopTop models.
The smoke deflectors are sorted now, and I've re-mapped the front of the smokebox to use the simpler structure. I may still simplify that a little more, which wouldn't save any vertices but could save a couple of faces. The left over vertices from the old mapping will be used to provide the full width sloping front for the later DRG configuration on this loco (ie: with smoke deflectors fitted). This works out rather well. The new structure for the backhead is in place too, although some faces are still to be added.
I also set up the new faces for the firebox/ashpan lower sections, but after doing it for one side of the loco I realised that I could do it more economically and save four vertices and faces. I would have to think of this after getting one side done. Couldn't think of it before. No fun in that.
Anyway, I'll pull it apart and revamp it again to use the better mapping. It's not that much work. Apart from being more economical with vertices and faces it'll also give better geometry for looks and less code overall, so it's worth doing.
The smoke deflectors are sorted now, and I've re-mapped the front of the smokebox to use the simpler structure. I may still simplify that a little more, which wouldn't save any vertices but could save a couple of faces. The left over vertices from the old mapping will be used to provide the full width sloping front for the later DRG configuration on this loco (ie: with smoke deflectors fitted). This works out rather well. The new structure for the backhead is in place too, although some faces are still to be added.
I also set up the new faces for the firebox/ashpan lower sections, but after doing it for one side of the loco I realised that I could do it more economically and save four vertices and faces. I would have to think of this after getting one side done. Couldn't think of it before. No fun in that.
Anyway, I'll pull it apart and revamp it again to use the better mapping. It's not that much work. Apart from being more economical with vertices and faces it'll also give better geometry for looks and less code overall, so it's worth doing.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Got the top lumps each side for the firebox set up. Vertices are good to go. Just need to fill in some gaps with a couple of extra faces.
I've made a start on the tender too. It needed to be scaled down a bit from the default Class 01 tender. Also, the one the P10's used was a simpler shape. I've taken a look through all the tender body coding already. Since it's a lot simpler than a loco body, and since some of the less important points are in handy bunches towards the end of the declarations, I should be able to fairly easily remove some unnecessary points without landing myself in a pile of trouble with the declarations for gfx faces. This means I should be able to drop some vertices and faces from the tender model, which would be good given that I've added a few to the loco model.
I've been thinking about the layout for the DDS too. There's actually a fair amount of wasted space with the default Class 01 layout. I can see several easy options for compacting some things without loss of quality. I was planning on splitting the tender out to it's own smaller image, but this may not be necessary. OTOH, even if it's not strictly necessary for this one I might do it anyway, just because it could be handy to have a separate tender ready to go if it's wanted for any other purpose. People seem to like doing mix and match with tenders.
I've made a start on the tender too. It needed to be scaled down a bit from the default Class 01 tender. Also, the one the P10's used was a simpler shape. I've taken a look through all the tender body coding already. Since it's a lot simpler than a loco body, and since some of the less important points are in handy bunches towards the end of the declarations, I should be able to fairly easily remove some unnecessary points without landing myself in a pile of trouble with the declarations for gfx faces. This means I should be able to drop some vertices and faces from the tender model, which would be good given that I've added a few to the loco model.
I've been thinking about the layout for the DDS too. There's actually a fair amount of wasted space with the default Class 01 layout. I can see several easy options for compacting some things without loss of quality. I was planning on splitting the tender out to it's own smaller image, but this may not be necessary. OTOH, even if it's not strictly necessary for this one I might do it anyway, just because it could be handy to have a separate tender ready to go if it's wanted for any other purpose. People seem to like doing mix and match with tenders.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Got the faces in those firebox top lumps, and rebuilt the ashpan mesh so it makes more sense and matches the protoype.
For comparison, here's the shot of that model from the OP:
The backhead came a fair way into the cab on these locos, so I figured it might as well go in the right spot instead of just being gfx on the front of the cab. Not much more effort to do it right. The backhead will just have another square to do the upper sections, with alpha to give the visible edge following the right shape. It'd be too messy to do it all with lotsa faces on that shape, so using the same trick as the front of the smokebox makes sense.
Currently the mesh has a total of 800 vertices and 721 faces, compared to 770 vertices and 698 faces for the original PopTop Class 01 model. The difference is mainly down to the new boiler, but is still only about 5% more than the original model. It may still gain an extra couple of each, but not many (if any), so still wont be any more complex than several of the PopTop models. For comparison, the PopTop P8 model has 808 vertices and 723 faces, while the U1 has 863 vertices and 753 faces.
- New_firebox_and_ashpan.jpg (94.4 KiB) Viewed 4122 times
The backhead came a fair way into the cab on these locos, so I figured it might as well go in the right spot instead of just being gfx on the front of the cab. Not much more effort to do it right. The backhead will just have another square to do the upper sections, with alpha to give the visible edge following the right shape. It'd be too messy to do it all with lotsa faces on that shape, so using the same trick as the front of the smokebox makes sense.
- New_backhead.jpg (61.22 KiB) Viewed 4122 times
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Latest is that I've re-thought the approach to the tender for Gunter. The shape I want can be seen in the shot in the previous post, except that I thought I'd model it in original form without the extra couple of planks bodgied on top of the coal bunker (I can have those alpha'd out if it comes to that). This shape is a bit of a PITA to get from the default Class 01 tender. Having had a look through the existing tender files, I've decided that the most logical basis is the 242A1 tender.
It'll still be a bit of work to get the result I want, but the process will be less messy. In practice it will be almost writing a custom tender from scratch, but using an existing file as a base is handy in terms of general formatting since it already gives you something to work with. Anyway, I will split this out to a skin of its own since that makes the most sense, all things considered. This will mean an extra tender will be available for any purpose, without having to drag a lot of extra crud with it.
It will also mean I have a lot more freedom for remapping the loco, which has become a priority after all the mutation it has been through. I can just tack the 242A1 tender and skin onto the rear of the loco to start with, and sort things out from there.
It'll still be a bit of work to get the result I want, but the process will be less messy. In practice it will be almost writing a custom tender from scratch, but using an existing file as a base is handy in terms of general formatting since it already gives you something to work with. Anyway, I will split this out to a skin of its own since that makes the most sense, all things considered. This will mean an extra tender will be available for any purpose, without having to drag a lot of extra crud with it.
It will also mean I have a lot more freedom for remapping the loco, which has become a priority after all the mutation it has been through. I can just tack the 242A1 tender and skin onto the rear of the loco to start with, and sort things out from there.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
I haven't forgotten about this. It's just that my spare time has been taken up with watching the Winter Olympics and playing low_grade's Chile scenario. Sometimes I have to actually play the game to remind myself why I want to fix locos.
Anyway, the Olympics are finished now and I've thrashed Chile to death, so I'll get back finishing to Gunter.
Anyway, the Olympics are finished now and I've thrashed Chile to death, so I'll get back finishing to Gunter.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
Is it just me or does the model have a lot of broken smoothing at the moment?
Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (or Prussian P10 if you like)
The gfx are all over the place at the moment. The normals are ok (I've checked those) but Gourad shading is limited in its accuracy and gives some odd results at times.Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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Слава Україні! Героям слава! Re: DRG class 39 2-8-2 (cancelled)
BTW, this project has been cancelled. I'm not into doing complete builds from scratch via manual hex editing any more. Far too much time involved, and too nasty a process.
As soon as I have the time and inclination to really knuckle down and learn Python, I'll sort an export script for Blender > .3dp instead.
As soon as I have the time and inclination to really knuckle down and learn Python, I'll sort an export script for Blender > .3dp instead.
Complete express car and caboose packs - Custom double tankers (Alternative F era) - Pennsy H3 Consolidation
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