Australian steam locos

[Gumboots]

Back to Garratts.

Been playing with the CAD model a bit more and I think I've come up with some good rules of thumb. I'm going with my gut, and putting in quite a few more faces than the old default models. My reasoning is that the game engine was always capable of a lot more than RRT3 required of it, and the simple models were due to limits on CPU and RAM at the time (first gen Pentium and 256 meg RAM). These days even older XP boxes will probably have a 1.66 gig dual core CPU and 3 gig of RAM, which is about ten times more grunt. Doubling face counts in locomotives only shouldn't cause any dramas (I hope) and if I'm going to put a stack of work into I want something that will look like it was worth the trouble.

I'm finding that with all edges set to hard crease in the CAD, and pretty harsh lighting, smaller components/curves like cylinders and headlights look really good with 16 faces (IOW, faces at 22.5 degrees). Not so good on the boiler IMO. The faces just get too wide on something that large, so I'm going to remodel that with 32 faces. That should be good enough. The chimney (smokestack to you Murricans) is fine with 16, but the steam dome is large enough and prominent enough to be better with 24 in this case, so I'll remodel that too.

Short version: the number of faces that will look good depends on face width, so the larger the component the more faces it should have. The overall number of faces and points is still reasonable, so I'm not that worried about it. I'm planning on making all the bits modular as much as possible, so once they are coded it should be fairly easy to chop and change things, or to rip a chunk of code for a completely different model.

latest.jpg (37.21 KiB) Viewed 8205 times

[Gumboots]

Update: did a quick and dirty trial last night and it turns out that 32 faces aren't required for the boiler/smokebox. You could use 32, or any other number, but after trying it with 24 I'm pretty happy. I think that will be perfectly fine most of the time, although obviously it wont look exactly like a true cylinder under all circumstances. The difference is small enough though that I doubt it will ever bother anyone.

The steam dome doesn't need 24 faces around the perimeter. It looks fine with 20. However, I did add some extra faces to round over the top a bit more, and that looks a lot better. Basically, in plan view the new steam dome has 20 faces, and in profile or cross section it's based on 16. The old one was 16 in plan view and 12 in profile/section.

So at the moment my general rules of thumb appear to be: if something has a radius of around one unit, give it 16 faces. If getting towards a radius of 2 units, give it 20 faces. For 3 and over, it'll probably want 24 faces to look really good.

Small stuff like pipes should be simpler but I haven't got that far yet. Garratts usually have some quite large steam pipes running around the place, and I'm thinking I'll try doing the major ones with 8 faces and see how they look.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Great work and great info, gumboots. Thanks!

[arop]

Any progress with the Beyer-Garrath and the Berkshire. This topic has been a little silent for a while. Almost can't wait to see the finished engine. And I know I shouldn't put stress on volunteers I don't hope you have run into problems

[Gumboots]

The only problems at the moment are a/ lots of other things to do also (can't play with RRT3 coding all the time ) and b/ trial version of 3D Object Converter has run out of trial time, so I have to decide whether to blow $50 on the full version. Without that, I have no way of viewing the models other than loading them into proper game files and running the game, which is a much more tedious way of doing things.

Since the Berkshire is mostly coded and mainly just needs some graphics work, I'll probably finish that up fairly soon (once I get a few other things out of the way). Garratts will take longer.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

While you're working on rear trucks, can you do something about the rear truck of J3a Hudson? Some work really did go into that one, except the rear truck stayed a 2 wheeler. Or maybe you could post a guide on conversions like this and I can commit to doing it myself. I have been working on and off with codes, but I'm still very much in the trial and error/experimentation phase.

[Gumboots]

I've never even seen that loco model. I thought I had all the steam ones already (including user-created).

All you need to do is create two more bogie files for the two extra wheels, assuming they are real wheels that rotate. Some trucks use fake wheels that are just part of the truck image, and just skid along the track. Personally I don't like those, because they always look like fake wheels that are just skidding along the track.

Anyway, assuming it's using real wheels just duplicate the two bogie files for that truck, and have them renamed to Bogie3 and Bogie 4 instead of 1 and 2. Then just shift them backwards to wherever you want them, then mess around with the truck gfx until it doesn't look stupid (may require moving some points on the truck, but trucks usually don't have many points).

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

I'll give it a shot right now. And, can't Google's 3D CAD program view these files? I forget what it's called, but I'll try that too.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Another question: What do I open in a hex editor to change the engine shapes? I'm trying to match what I see with your Atlantic maps so I know what to do. For me, neither the .lco or .car have worked.

[Gumboots]

You have to get the Body .3dp file out of the PK4. Those are stashed in rt3_3DPF.PK4 for the pre-CtC locos, and in rt3_Expansion.PK4 for the CtC expansion locos.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Ugh, I can't crack it open. Winrar says it's damaged or broken. Can't I open the pk4 for the J1a (my mistake) from the user add content folder and get its .3dp from there?

The answer is nope. Winrar won't open any pk4 files. What did you use?

[Gumboots]

The PK4 unpack thingy. I wrote idiot-proof instructions: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1107&hilit=unpack#p32745

Idiot-proof instructions for re-packing are here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1107&hilit=unpack&start=15#p32780

[Wolverine@MSU]

The PK4 unpack thingy. I wrote idiot-proof instructions:

I write what I think are "idiot-proof" instructions for the experiments we do in the lab class, but, as my wife reminds me, each year we get a new crop of idiots who find new and innovative ways to prove that NOTHING is idiot-proof.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

I really need those... I'm getting to the point of thinking that there is no teaching hex editing, you just simply know it. I'd still like to give it a try. After school I'll download those.

[arop]

Sadly, it doesn't seem that we will ever have a Beyer-Garath or an improved Berkshire? Nothing has happened for months

[Gumboots]

Meh. I got put off when 3D Object Converter stopped working, because I was relying on that tool. There are already far too many hoops to jump through with this sort of thing, and that tool was really handy. Going backwards to Flintstone level wasn't at all appealing.

I haven't even played RT3 for months. I've been doing other things in my spare time. I might get back into it when the wet season hits, because that often stops outdoors activities for some time.

[Gumboots]

Ok, I've been looking into this, and may be able to make some more progress on it fairly soon.

[Gumboots]

Ok, I may regret saying this but I'm going to get the new Berkshire done for Christmas. If I don't seem to be getting it attached to a post by the 25th, give me a hard time about it.

(it shouldn't be that hard to finish it up now, so I should do it)

The Garratt stuff is a bit of a mission and will have to wait until I have the time and inclination.

[Sabratha]

Ok, I may regret saying this but I'm going to get the new Berkshire done for Christmas. If I don't seem to be getting it attached to a post by the 25th, give me a hard time about it.

(it shouldn't be that hard to finish it up now, so I should do it)

The Garratt stuff is a bit of a mission and will have to wait until I have the time and inclination.

Saounds like a cool thing to do, will be looking out for it.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Anything is great, Gumboots. Thanks!