LNER Class V2 Green Arrow

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

With the awesome Class A1 model in railroad tycoon 3, I think we have the potential for easy conversion to a class V2 2-6-2. In fact, they look almost exactly the same save the leading truck. Compare these two photos: http://images.wikia.com/locomotive/imag ... r_1989.jpg (class A1)
http://images.wikia.com/locomotive/imag ... nArrow.jpg (class V2)
I think the V2 would be good for branchline service and commuter operations, something the European scenarios seem to be lacking. I would like to do it myself, if but I still don't know how to edit the files. Where do I start? What would I need to do?

[Gumboots]

It's not all that awesome, IMHO, but you can have a go if you like. The boiler shape is wrong, for one thing.

Do you have profile drawings of both locos? I know about this one for the A1: http://www.elegantsteam.com/a1_centenary.html

This guy has some good stuff in his bucket: http://s405.photobucket.com/user/dirty_ ... t=3&page=0

V2 drawing:

A3 (pre-war Gresley verson, which is basically an A1):

More info about the two classes here: http://www.lner.info/locos/V/v2.shtml and here: http://www.lner.info/locos/A/a1a3a10.shtml

The V2 has a different steam dome and cab shape, as well as the front of the loco being shortened. The running boards are a different height, with no wheel arches. Also the drivers are not at equal spacings on the V2.

To get a good job of a V2 out of the A1 model (and personally I'm not interested in any other sort of job) you'd have to edit classa1l_Body.3dp quite a bit. The cab shape will be problematic because the framework simply doesn't have the vertices you'd need to get an accurate V2 cab. They could be added, if you're keen.

The boiler/firebox does have enough vertices to get the right shape, and looking at it I'm not sure why they didn't use them in the A1 model. They got a bit slack there. Really the A1 should be revamped.

The V2 has a very different steam dome. You could edit the vertices for the existing A1 dome, or add some more if you wanted a better result.

Shortening the front would require moving the cylinders and a fair bit of other stuff towards the rear. That's not that difficult, although a bit tedious.

Moving the wheels to the correct spacing would require editing the driver and bogie files, which is not hard. You'd also need to change the connecting rod and coupling rod files, or they just flail around in mid air (check the Ye Decapod and Mastodon for that) which looks dumb.

Fortunately, these last ones are simple files. If anyone wants to fix the Decapod and Mastodon too, it wouldn't be hard (I don't have any interest in them myself).

Would also need to edit the front truck file. Probably pistons, lights, and a couple of other minor files. Those ones aren't complex.

Should also change the front length point but could probably get away with ignoring that. Could probably also ignore track attachment points. Those could easily be tweaked later if it looks funny in the game.

Then you'd need to do the actual skinning. That's about all. If you're serious about doing it I can catalogue the vertices for you.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Thank you very much for the info, Gumboots! It does seem a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Since I probably won't be doing very much in Europe, I don't think I will go through with this. However, I would like to fix up visually the whole line of custom engines based off the boiler of the Atlantic. It may not be worth it, though, because that puts Belpaire boilers on engines that didn't use them. I'd love to fix that if it were possible. Or, another thought I've had on my mind would be turning the Class Ye into an I1sa PRR decapod. It would be too short, obviously, and if its a problem I may be able to use the Pacific's boiler. I've got a lot of ideas, and I sure wish I knew how to do any of them. So, if I were to seriously look into fixing the driving rods on the Atlantic boilered engines, what kind of things would I need to do?

[Gumboots]

Changing the Belpaire boxes to a round top isn't hard to arrange. The Belpaires have enough vertices and faces that you can simply move them around a bit to get them to match up with the boiler shape. So, if you want to do that it's certainly possible. I already have every vertex for the Atlantic catalogued, as well as the uses of them in the gfx triangles/faces. The Atlantic is one of the cleanest default models to work with.

Driving rods are just a couple of points in each file. You just have to edit those to line up with the piston points.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Thanks again. However, I don't think you realize that I don't know anything about hex editing. I've never done any coding in my life outside a few words in HTML. Do you know what I would look up for a tutorial on hex editing in a similar situation? If I could just find a video tutorial, I should be able to quit bugging you...

[Gumboots]

AFAIK there are no video tutorials for RRT3 hex files. I had never done any hex editing myself until several weeks ago. All the files contain are a variety of co-ordinates on x,y and z axes, like any graph you drew in school. The only difference is that the values are tabulated in hexadecimal form. As long as you have access to a base converter (free ones are available) getting the co-ordinates into a form that makes sense isn't hard.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Cool, cool. How about that map of the Atlantic's points, if it wouldn't be a problem to put together?

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

P.S. I've decided to ease myself back into the editing world slowly. Starting off with some skins I've wanted to do forever, I'm going to get use to GMP again and fiddle around. Once I've made some sort of contribution you guys can use, I'll move forward with the ensuing flood of self-confidence Now I have yet another reason to wish I had joined the Career and Technology center through my high school. Of course, the main one is you literally get free computers... Anyway, I've never been able to do much because I always want to do the most difficult possible thing in the subject. I'm going to go slow, get use to computer programming and code, and then I should finally successful.

[Gumboots]

Cool, cool. How about that map of the Atlantic's points, if it wouldn't be a problem to put together?

Yup, I can do it as a bunch of screenshots. That's the best way. The bookmarking is done in Hex Editor Neo's proprietary format, which wont export to other formats AFAIK.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Well, I better own up to this now...
There's already a V2 in game.
Yeah.
In my defense, it appears pretty late, and it doesn't have any of the changes you mentioned...

[Gumboots]

I've never seen it. If it's a 1.06 loco, I don't have 1.06 installed. TBH I wouldn't want a lot of the 1.06 locos anyway.

And yeah, most of the user-created locos don't really represent what they claim to represent, simply because making them accurate is a lot of work. What seems to happen is that the name and the coding for pulling power etc get changed, but not much else (the Ye Decapod still sounds like an express loco ). If you want to, there's a lot of scope for revamping some of the existing ones.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

That sounds like the right place to start. What sucks is that school started again, so my time is pretty limited. I really want to help out, though, so a lot of my time will be put towards figuring this out. In all honesty. My reason for this is also a lot like yours: more so just being annoyed that I don't know what any of those seemingly random numbers mean!

[Gumboots]

Yeah tell me about it. Once you get into it, it's not really that complicated apart from the sheer amount of co-ordinates.

This stuff takes a fair bit of time to do a really good job. My 2c is just pick a project you're really keen on and just work on it whnever you have time and motivation. We aint getting paid for this.

[Gumboots]

Hey thought: if you want to do a V2, it may actually be better to start with the Chapelon 242 A1 from the CtC expansion locos, not the English 4-6-2 A1. The advantages are:

1/ the 242 A1 is a really clean model that would be easy (comparatively) to work with.
2/ it has suitable vertices and faces in the cab, to get the shape of a V2 cab without much drama.
3/ it already has the raised running boards above the wheels.
4/ it has a steam dome with suitable vertices to get a good V2 shape.
5/ it would be possible to get the tapered boiler as well, with a bit of cunning.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Thanks very much for the insight! This has me curious about how things are generally built in RT3: Are the various shapes solid or hollow? I don't know why, but I just assumed they were hollow, hence my hesitation to do anything with the belpaire fireboxes.

[Gumboots]

Hollow. They're all just points on the exterior surface, with triangular faces between points.

[Gumboots]

Having just got myself a working 1.06 installation, I've had a chance to check out the existing 1.06 V2 loco. It isn't very accurate. The cab shape is wrong, the running boards and wheel arches are wrong, the wheel spacings are wrong (both for drivers and leading truck). It's obviously just had the third and fourth front wheels hidden, and the remaining two front wheels have their gfx slightly offset from the wheel rotation centres, with the result that they appear to go round and round and up and down, a bit like as if they were egg-shaped.

Also, the skin looks a bit cartoonish because the colours are so flat. It looks a bit like a cardboard cutout and would benefit from a bit of shading and/or weathering for added realism. This is a problem that also affects a few others (Daylight 4-8-4 springs to mind).

So, if anyone wants to, there is still quite a bit of scope for making a better V2.

[Gumboots]

I was just checking out some stuff and noticed something. The most glaring problems with the V2 are actually inherited straight from the default A1. It's a really rough model. Not only are the front four wheels not centered on their axles, but the rear left one is larger in much diameter than the other three, and extends below track level. The right rear one is also a bit lower than the right front one, although at least it's the same diameter.

Also, the boiler banding and smokebox gfx on the V2 is distinctly misaligned on the underside of the boiler/smokebox, but again it's that way on the default A1. The default A1 must have been a rush job, or done early on Monday after a heavy weekend. Even the wheel guards aren't centered on the wheels properly. It's basically rough as guts in a lot of places. No wonder whoever made the V2 encountered some problems.

[Tomix]

I agree, the A1 model is pretty bad. I'm using the front bogeys as a reference when I port it to Trainz.

[Gumboots]

Why use it as a reference if it's rough as guts?