1.06 Mogul deborkification und skinz (Final)

[Gumboots]

Ok, this thing is about ready to roll. It's taken a little longer than I expected (always happens) because once I started deborking I kept finding new borked bits. Some of these were inherited from the default Connie but I figured I might as well do them. The modelling could still be improved, but I had to decide where to draw the line otherwise it'd end up a complete rebuild and remap and reskin from scratch. Which aint happening this time.

So the problems with the 1.06 mutant are:

1/ The drivetrain components are a pig's breakfast. Piston, connecting rod and coupling bar graphics are all over the place.
2/ The wheels are too large in diameter, so poke up past the running boards and cab floor.
3/ The frame plate graphics are too far out, so interfere with the wheel graphics.

Stuff inherited from the default Connie, which has always bugged me, includes:

4/ There's a gap between the cab front and its roof.
5/ The bell totally sucks.
6/ The lens surround on the headlight is very prominent and very blocky.
7/ Ditto for the smokestack.
8/ Default Connie wheels are set so wide they are off the track. This is due to 3/ above. They modelled the frame side plates as part of the running boards, and the running boards are wider than the track, so they pushed the wheels out sideways.
9/ I don't like the way the front truck and tender bogies are fixed graphics. I can always tell they are just skidding along the track.
10/ All wheels are just one layer, which looks a bit insubstantial.
11/ No backhead detail.
12/ The coal in the tender looks a bit crappier than it needs to.

So I've fixed all of that. Drivetrain is all in shape now. Wheels are back to the right diameter and spacing for a Mogul. Body length has been shortened slightly to suit. Frame plates have been split off from the running boards, and set to the correct spacing. Running boards have been given an edging too, just because I could. Cab front now fits the roof. I imported the bell from the Atlantic (much better) and remapped and reskinned it to suit the Mogul. The headlight lens surround and the smokestack are now 12 sided instead of 6, which looks a lot better and didn't cost any extra tris (coz I got cunning). All wheels are now actual wheels, with some thickness to them. Also have backhead detail. Along with several other minor tweaks to work with all of this. For instance, the cylinders and drivetrain components went closer to the centreline, to match the new position of the wheels.

I still have a couple of things to fix, due to bugs I introduced myself. Since the skins for this new Mogul are so close to the default Connie skin, I figure I should make them so they can be dropped onto either loco. Extra Connie skins for no more work sounds good to me. The catch at the moment is I added the new backhead details to the cab front, keeping it within the boiler so you can't see it from outside, but the default Connie mesh uses that area for the cab floor. Result is that the crew would be firewalking.

Also, when I added backhead detail I remapped the cab floor (originallly part of the cab front graphics) to another part of the skin. Then I recoloured it to make a better cab floor. Unfortunately I forgot that bit was being used for the smokebox support, so that now looks a bit off, as seen in the next shot.

Fortunately there's a spare bit of space which isn't being used for anything at all, so I'm going to use space that to make a new backhead for the Mogul. This will require a couple of extra tris, but only a couple and only on the highest LOD anyway. The cab floor can then go back to being mapped to the lower central section cab front, so it will work with the default Connie, and the area for the smokebox support can then go back to its normal colour, which will work with everything.

So where am I at? I've done all the LODs for loco and tender. The only thing left to do on the mesh is remap the cab floor and backhead, which I'll do tonight. The whole lot can then be exported to .3dp's and it should all work. Since I've made three new skins for this beastie I figure I might as well release the whole lot at once, so that's what will happen: deborked Mogul, with three choices of skin, for Christmas.

The railroad company names are mythical, so they aren't tied to any one area. Each skin has different road numbers. Since the PSD layers for all of this are set up ready to go, doing extra colours/company names/road numbers is a piece of cake, for either the new Mogul or the default Connie. I'll make the PSD available too, in case anyone wants to play with it.

Edit: See this post for the final version.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Excellent work as always, Gumboots. Bravo!

[Gumboots]

Thanks. I've been having fun with it. I'm even tempted to invent more rail companies with genuine American names.

Anyway, I have been thinking that some of the RT3 locomotives give the impression that they were done by people who had never modelled trains before. The mesh and UV mapping often has a sort of "feel your way in the dark" atmosphere about it. Not in all cases, but definitely in some. The Connie is a prime example.

So having thought this already, I just realised something that should have been obvious a long time ago. Whoever made it put quite a lot of detailing into the tender, but completely forgot that the tender should have a whopping big water tank.

There is no water tank. At all. Plenty of coal. No water. None. Not a drop.

So now that I've just noticed this (after having the game for years ) I can bet that it'll be in my face every time I use a Connie or Mogul from now on. Even worse, now that I've mentioned it publicly you can bet everyone else will be onto it too. Fortunately the tender DDS is amenable to this minor fix, so it's not a big deal to do it. Which means I should fix it, yes? That way we can all happily use the thing, and I don't have to worry about some smartass coming back to me with "Hey you know you forgot the water in the tender?"

[Just Crazy Jim]

I know what you mean by that "feel your way in the dark" comment.

The American 4-4-0 is weird too. I guess PopTop felt it was necessary to have the American 4-4-0 in RT3 since both locomotives present at the Golden Spike Ceremony celebrating the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad were 4-4-0s, but then proceeded to do every disservice possible to the type. Ostensibly, the American 4-4-0 is based on the Central Pacific Railroad No. 60, a.k.a. "Jupiter", which at time-of-construction was a wood-burner, but in-game it has coal in the tender. In the photographs of the ceremony, you can even see the wood piled in the tender. The real-world unit didn't burn coal until 1893 and by that time it was obsolete and only a few years away from being scrapped. The crazy color scheme of the in-game model was never used during the life of the locomotive, but rather a fanciful thing slapped on a reconstruction long years after the original was scrapped. Another thing is that at the time the Jupiter was fitted with a ploughshare pilot, rather than the ribbed version we see in-game. (see image) The final injustice is fake trucks and bogies on the tender and the locomotive.

The diesels and electrics don't fare much better for treatment than the steam units. All told, there are too many fake bogies, anachronisms and generally iffy models. I'm not expecting surgical precision. I even allow for artistic license and variations in the types. But some of these models leave me wondering if the PopTop modeller had ever seen so much as a photo of the unit they were modelling.

[Gumboots]

Yup. This is why I love having proper works drawings for things, or at least railway recognition/specification diagrams, even if they aren't comprehensive. It saves an awful lot of guesswork in getting things right. If you have actual drawings it basically becomes a case of join the dots. Joining dots I can do.

And good point about the wood burners. The default Connie has a wood-burning stack on it, but coal in the tender. The Erie Mogul I used as a guide also has a wood-burning stack on it (albeit of a different design). So really (since I'm revamping the tender a bit more anyway ) I should swap the coal load for wood.

[Gumboots]

Ok, so it has water and wood in the tender now, and the backhead is sorted.

Naturally while doing this I found the verts for the tender were all over the place, so fixed those too. It's actually centred on the tracks now, and doesn't have gaps and lumps. Not that anyone had noticed that it wasn't before, but evening things up just made it easier to work on.

And of course, this means doing the LODs again. After which I will deliberately avoid looking for other things to do to it, and just get the thing running.

[Hawk]

Welldang & Hornswoggle? Darntootin & Ornery? Love it!!!!!

[Gumboots]

Fine old companies, they were.

[Gumboots]

I know what you mean by that "feel your way in the dark" comment.

Back to this. I have to wonder what the devs were thinking. Take the way the Connie is done. It has to call 2 separate 512x512 images to skin loco and tender. They could have done it by merging the skins into one image of 1024x512, which would have saved on processing without increasing the total number of image bytes.

But then they went and pieced the tender together out of all sorts of bits, in an attempt to get better resolution within the limits of a 512. This, of course, involved far more verts and tris and separate meshes than if they'd used a bigger skin, thereby increasing the amount of processing required, as well as presumably increasing the up-front cost for modeller's wages.

None of which seems to make the slightest bit of sense. Seems to me to would be far more logical to just use a 1024x1024 and accept the extra bytes there, and get the bonus of simpler mesh and UV's along with easier modelling and skinning. I can't see it being any worse for game performance, and it would give better results in terms of aesthetics and customisation.

And yes, I have been sorely tempted to do just that. The only thing stopping me is that this started with the concept of minimal tweaks to the default setup, so I've tried to stick with that, but it's already at the point where I'm seriously thinking it would have been no more work to have just done it in the first place.

[Just Crazy Jim]

As I sit here with a high-poly model I made 9 years ago open in the editor pondering how to get 46k polys reduced to something that will work in RT3, believe me, I very much understand your dilemma. Sitting here, there is that a part of me that keeps asking "did you really need to make every bolt and rivet as part of the model?"

I can already predict it would be easier to redo the work than to use the reduction wizard and spend 4 days correcting all the errors.

[Gumboots]

Ok, since Hawk liked the last two railway companies so much, I've decided they can go in the Christmas pack. This is my excuse. The real reason is they crack me up too.

And, after swearing off more mesh changes, I went and added a spark arrestor screen inside the top of the smokestack anyway. It just felt wrong not to, after changing the tender to a wood load.

This really is enough. Seriously. No more skins for now. Five is perfectly adequate, even if two of them are just in default PopTop colours because I couldn't be bothered spending yonks finding a satisfactory colour balance for another new livery. And yes, they all have different road numbers.

Hadleyville & Western is #347 (I'll make this the default)
Hooterville & Southern is #359
Midvale and Northern is #283

and...

Darntootin & Ornery is #294
Welldang & Hornswoggle is #303 (because she goes like a bullet, of course)

I'm satisfied now. Time to fix the LOD's and pack 'em up.

[Just Crazy Jim]

All that is needed is Yosemite Sam in the cab

[Gumboots]

Don't get me started. I already thought of something similar.

Foghorn Leghorn would work well too. The main thing stopping me is the lack of room on the DDS.

[Hawk]

All that is needed is Yosemite Sam in the cab

I'm the hootinest, tootinest, spitinest, bobtail Connie north, south, east, and west of the Pecos.

Foghorn Leghorn would work well too.

What's that - I say, what's that Connie painter up to now?

Two of my favorite cartoon characters.

[Gumboots]

I reckon I might just let people add their own cartoon characters to the cab, if they really want them.

I do have room left on the DDS for a large jug of moonshine though. Essential equipment for getting her up hills faster.

[Gumboots]

Here ya go. One jug of moonshine.

I'm still not sure whether I will include it or not. I'm open to persuasion, bribery or threats either way.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Since it is flammable, I like to think of it as "fire starter"... or maybe that's "fight starter"

[Gumboots]

It is tempting to include it, as an 1860's "superheater".

Anyway I was looking at the two duplicate skins in default Connie colours and thought "Hey, why not a yellow one? That'll work." So there's a yellow one now. Five company names, five liveries.

Also revamped the blue-grey one to make it more blue, which is better. It has more life now. And the green one now has a green roof.

This really is enough.

Really.

BTW, the drivetrains on left and right side are being staggered 180 degrees. You can see this in the pix back in this post. Same stunt as in the experiment thread where I used the Beuth as a trial horse.

On the Moguls you won't be able to see both sides most of the time, but from some angles (down near the ground from the side, below bridges, etc) you'll be able to see the drivetrain doing good out of synch choof choof things.

Might as well do them all this way, since it's no more difficult to code and has no impact on game performance.

[Gumboots]

Just been going over these, doing a last check to see what I missed. Found a few things.

The default UV mapping for the domes above the boiler was a bit of a mess, so that got fixed. The default alpha channel had transparency down the right side of the image. That cut off the front of the cab along one edge, leaving a slight gap to the cab side, even though there's absolutely no need for the transparency there anyway. Put the alpha back to opaque and the gap disappears. Found a couple of other minor skin glitches inherited from default, so gave those the chop as well. Also found a few normals that needed flipping (trap for young players).

Had a couple of brainwaves too. So I'd thrown seats in the cab to hide the cab side graphics. It always bugs me when I can see the numbers, etc on the inside. So that was ok, at the cost of a dozen tris. Then it occurred to me that for exactly the same number of tris I could make the cab more protoypical, and put a narrow back panel on each side while still keeping the seats. Which is great because it gets rid of the "made out of paper" look that the open cab back gives. Then I realised that by changing the UV mapping on the seats I could get both better looks and infinitesimally better performance, which has to be good. So that's done too. Which all required a bit of tweaking of LOD's as well, but not much.

So it's now at the stage where the mesh really is finalised, and the only thing left is a bit of skin detailing (mainly alpha channel on B and C skins) and a whole lot of exporting and packing. Probably won't be all done and live tested before Christmas Day, but will certainly be finished before New Year.

Oh and I decided to skip the jug of moonshine.

[Gumboots]

Ok, it works. Just gave it the first test run. Couple of minor glitches to sort out, but nothing major.

I forgot that when doing the 180 degrees stagger on the drivetrain, the connecting rod on the "up" side (which is the right side of the loco in this case) has to have its verts flipped 180 degrees around the crankpin. I'll sort that out tomorrow. The left ("down") side is fine, as you can see in the shot.

The glow lights for smokestack and firebox need to be tweaked a bit. They're currently a bit too large for my liking. The only other catch is that for some reason it's still flat shading the model. I thought I had the right version of the export script set up, but maybe not. Will have to check that again.

Anyway the important thing is that it basically all works.