Rolling Stock skinning ideas

[Gumboots]

Hey I had another idea for livery. IMO this one works. The old one was in the right ballpark, but the lining was a bit heavy and a bit off for proportions. Might as well get it right. That way it won't annoy me.

So back in the pre-1850 era railways tried all sorts of liveries. If you can think of it, no matter what medication you're on, someone probably tried it. I've be looking around and I've seen things you wouldn't believe, some of which are seriously scary. This means there is a fair bit of scope. It just needs to have the general feel of the period, as well as being able to keep its act together when hit by DDS compression. I could go TGA for the A skins and DDS for B and down from there, but I don't think it's necessary in this case. DDS seems to be ok and is a lot lighter on the gfx card.

Anyway, what I came up with after playing around with my brain in neutral and just trying stuff is a livery based on Tuscan red and cream. Both of these were readily available and durable colours back then, so would be practical choices. Two tone liveries on pax coaches were quite common in real life. I've kept the general lining fairly simple too. The first class section is a bit more extravagant, but they always were.

It's not detailed to the nth degree yet. Some of the gold lining is still in separate bits, so shadows and gradients are a bit choppy at the intersections, and I haven't added things like shadowing for door edges, etc. Overall though I think it's right for general balance and feel.

Edit: Works if you change the palette to green too.

[Gumboots]

Here ya go. Second class car, and mail van.

[Gumboots]

Got the third class car sorted (albeit not completely detailed yet).

So that's ok, but the mail car was looking too much like the third class car at a glance. I thought a different look would be better for the mail car, so I played around using the same "pots of paint" that were used on the pax cars. This worked out well. The mail cars now look more mail-car-ish. They look good on their own and still fit well with the pax cars.

Should look fine with any freight cars too.

[Gumboots]

Had another idea. I was looking at the mail vans and thought the rounded sides didn't really suit them. Slab sided makes more sense. It uses the same skinning, with only minor mesh and UV changes, so they're pretty much interchangeable.

This could also apply to the third class pax car, since depending on exactly when and where you were in that period the rounded sides may or may not have been reserved for first and second class cars due to increased construction costs. Bavarians tended to use rounded sides for everything. Belgians and the English tended to use slab sides for the cheaper stuff. The Yanks were probably off on their own little planet but we won't worry about them.

Ok, maybe we will. Poor things. I'm getting the impression that teh Yanquis around here are not overly thrilled with groovy new pax cars that don't look like what they think real Murrican ones should look like goldurnnit ('n' ornery 'n' hornswoggle) so had an idea. With the way the PSD's are set up it's a piece of cake to make all these variations, so there's no reason why the pax cars couldn't also have the option to share the same general livery as the mail vans. That's probably more like what the average Murrican is likely to think a pax car should be painted with. If the second class car is used as the default the different number of windows will make it easily distinguishable from the mail van, both on the tracks and in the train list.

So the Euros and other weirdos like Australians could have their fancypants stagecoachy stuff with lining and colours that God never meant railway cars to have, and Murricans could have basic flat-sided pax cars in a basic-but-still-nice green or red livery. Which should keep everyone happy.

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The other cool thing is that, after much messing around with all sorts of attempts, I finally hit on a combination of layer styles that makes the louvre vents look good. They were horrible muddy things before, that only looked good at a distance around midnight on a new moon in the fog. They now look like real louvre vents even at pretty close range, which I'm quite chuffed about. This will no doubt come in handy for future skinning of other cars, and locos too.

[Gumboots]

Played around with express cars a bit, just for a little break from serious H3 stuff*.

Never liked the default ones, and they only have four eras anyway. I need eight eras for my cunning plan, and preferably they'd be quick and easy while still looking good. So far I've got a good start on A, B, C, D and F. These were all done with basic tweaks to default skins and mesh.

I ditched the default express B model as it's so ugly and badly proportioned. I started with the default pax C and altered it to get new B, C and D eras (for 1850-1874, 1875-1899, and 1900-1924). The idea for the new B is based on US cars of the period, which usually had a basic arc roof with no clerestory. Overall length is about 38 feet to scale, which is about right.

The idea for the new C is again US cars of the period, which were starting to have a clerestory, but often a low one that merged into the rest of the roof at the ends. This one is a 54 footer.

Then by the D era you have the full-on Pullman-style monsters with three axle trucks and a fully developed clerestory roof. This is modelled from a drawing of the real thing, which was about 72 feet overall.

After that you start getting to the limits of real life pax car length. They can increase in length a bit past the D era, but not a lot, so past then the distinctions will be mainly done with style rather than size.

*Yes, little break. H3 is still a priority.

[Gumboots]

Righty, so carrying on with a new post so I can attach more shots the end of the D era in 1924 roughly corresponds with when everyone was ditching the old heavyweights, and building new and lighter cars in a totally different style. So the E era will be a generic 75 footer of the 1930's, of which there were several variants on the same basic theme. I have drawings for some of them but haven't had a go at this one yet. Would probably do it with a round tail dining car just because it's fun and it's easy and it suits the Art Deco period.

Have made a start on the F era: 1950-1975. Dome cars weren't used everywhere, but they're cool and nothing says the Fifties like dome cars. Might as well have one. Could be the pax car, but would probably be better as the dining car, with the pax cars having the same general style but no dome.

G and H eras would be generic modern stuff, with at least one of them being a double decker. Maybe both. Australia has been using heaps of double deckers for decades, so I'm used to them. These should be easy to skin and model. It's still a basic mesh, but with an extra row of windows.

Anyway here's a couple of overview shots of what I have so far.

[Gumboots]

Y'know just to get this on the tracks and usable, I reckon I might just use the same model for the F, G and H eras but with different skins. I just did some quick tweaks for G and H livery, and they look quite tidy if I do say so myself. Could get this running without much drama, which sounds good at this stage.

[Gumboots]

Just tried something as a quick kitbash before knocking off for the night. Proof of concept for H era (post-2000) double-deck pax cars. The actual model is the Bombardier M6 class that was recently built for the Belgian network, simply because I had a PDF with dimensions and cross sections available. The current test skin is just nicked off something vaguely similar. Anyway they'd be easy to skin and get running, since the mesh is already done for the first LOD.

[LV628]

Holy Cow Man........You have been busy haven't you :P

[Gumboots]

Ok, I actually got something running in the game, instead of just sitting in Blender.

Exported and tested the A era pax cars that had been sitting around for ages. Ended up going for a brown and cream paint job on pax and dining, with plain brown on mail cars. Mail cars are also flat-sided, unlike the rounded sides on pax and dining cars.

I quite like these. They look the part for that era. Everything works. Don't glow in the dark, except for windows, and they have the full 5 LOD's on the body .3dp's.
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The zip contains files which are a straight drop-in for use with a default installation of RT3. They are just used loose, in either PopTopExtraContent or UserExtraContent (will work in either). Profile icons are still default because these are only test pieces, so I haven't done some of the fiddly stuff yet.

That's the bad news. The good news is that these don't require any file editing, so are usable with saved games. I'll get onto the full custom pack (with nasty file edits) later. These are just a bit of fun for now.

Edit: Zip deleted. Express pack update over in the infamous Cargo Weight Revamping thread.

[bombardiere]

Yup, I have downloaded this. Thank. I have not yet used, but I like the preview. Very British looking coaches.

The doubledeckers look good too. So many European countries are using similar coaches.

[Gumboots]

The paint job is sorta British. The livery is basically 19th century GWR, slightly adapted. The cars themselves were modelled on Bavarian cars of the period, simply because that's what I had plans for and they were close enough to a generic car of the 1840's.

[Gumboots]

Have finalised the mesh for the new 1900-1925 express cars. Mail and Troops share the same mesh (no clerestory). Pax and Dining also share the same mesh, but with a different (clerestory) roof and a few more roof vents. This means skinning is easy, with minor tweaks for the different car types on the same basic PSD.

Gave the Mail cars a test run. Everything works. Skin is a little bit dark for my liking at the moment, so I'll lighten it up just a touch. Will also give the striping and lettering a bit more contrast. Shouldn't take long to get all four types done.

Anyway they look like this.
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For comparison, the car body (not counting roof overhang) is about 5% longer than the default D era pax cars. Roof height (without clerestory) is slightly less than a default D era pax car.

Edit: Got the troop cars done too. Pax and dining cars next.
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[Gumboots]

Ok, so I un-finalised the mesh again.

Wasn't quite happy with the look of the troop and mail cars. The low arc roof left them looking a bit "underfed weasel" with the 65 foot car body length. So I gave them a bit more camber in the roof, and curved the roof ends down too. This meant a bit of tweaking but they look a lot better now, like a real car of the period. Basic roof mesh ended up the same for all four cars, except that pax and dining have the centre section replaced with the clerestory. Have also tweaked skins for better balance, which helps looks too. Took a bit of messing around to get it sorted for RT3 game lighting, but they're good to go now.

I also found I could cut the number of LOD's. RT3 does a weird thing with LOD's. Locomotives drop down to the lowest (fifth) LOD while cargo cars are still on the second or third LOD, depending on viewing angle. This means the default cargo cars waste a lot of code, because there's no need for cargo cars to have 5 LOD's. By the time they get to the fifth one, cargo cars will look miniscule and the locomotive will have been on the lowest LOD for ages.

So I cut these cars down to 3 LOD's, dropping a stack of mesh really fast. They look fine in the game, and it means less code to run so it has to be better for performance. It's also easier for me, which I like.

They ended up looking like the shots. I reckon they're classy units, and I'm very happy with them.

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[RulerofRails]

Just to let you know that I have run the A era cars about a bit. Good work. I like how you decided to put the "fancy" car type as the Diner.

[Gumboots]

Yup, back in those days dining cars didn't exist, and often any salon car would be privately owned by some rich person. They'd just pay to have it hauled wherever they wanted to go. So I went with that vibe.

I still think the A era cars need a bit of tweaking. They're almost right, but not quite there. Skin balance is a bit off, and they could do with a little bit of detailing (handles on doors of standard pax cars, for example). Will play around with them and see what happens.

Have had a crack at the rest of the early pax, mail, dining and troop cars. These should be running in the game soon. They use the same PSD as the D era cars I've just done, and share quite a bit of mesh too. Troops starts later than the other express cargoes, so the four troop cars shown are 1848-1864, 1865-1889, 1890-1914 and 1915-1939.
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The last one is the same model as the 1900-1925 pax car. IOW, the same model as the 1890-1914 troop car, but with the pax car's clerestory roof added. 1940 to 1964 will be a Pullman troop sleeper (boxcar conversion). These were actually based on a 50 foot car, but I'll be doing them as 60 foot just to fit better with the rest of the models.

Pax and mail cars shown are B to D eras inclusive: 1850-1874, 1875-1899 and 1900-1924. From 1925 they'll go to a more modern style (basic 75 footer, with rounded tail on dining car).
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[Gumboots]

Ran a quick test of the E era cars, just to check out if my plan for 1925-1949 livery would work under RT3 game lighting. It works.
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This is a basic job, done by cropping and resizing a profile shot of a model B&O pax car of the period, pasting that over the right sections of the default D era pax car skin, and dropping the result into UserExtraContent for a trial run. Took about ten minutes. Running on default D era mesh at the moment.

So it's good to go, but I'll give it a few tweaks. I'll ditch B&O text, so it doesn't shout "Baltimore!" when the train is running around some place on the other side of the world, because that sort of thing bugs me. Also have to make a round tail dining/observation car to complete the set, which will be easy and fun.

Anyway the short version is the pre-WW2 express roster should be fully sorted this week, barring Armageddon.

[bombardiere]

I like. Me happy.

. I'll ditch B&O text, so it doesn't shout "Baltimore!" when the train is running around some place on the other side of the world, because that sort of thing bugs me.

If you have finalised B&O version then can I have it as an option. Pretty please. Ok, I agreed it would look odd in Africa, but I like when it has a real life livery.

Is that your D version, three axle bogie, based on some real life prototype?

[Gumboots]

It's not finalised yet, just roughed out. I'll do it in combination with the F era car, since both will use the same mesh and UV mapping. The main differences will be that the E cars will be modelled as 75 footers, while F era and later will be 85 feet (IOW, stretch the mesh by 13%) and the F era dining car will have an observation dome on top (there is plenty of room for mapping that on the skin).

The D era car is based on a Pullman unit from the beginning of the 20th century, but there were so many minor variations of them that I felt free to just take the main dimensions and use those to develop my own model. I didn't get obsessive about it.

Edit: Got the B and C era pax, dining and mail cars running this morning. They look the business, IMO.
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Will do the troops A, B and D cars tonight.

Edit: Got them done. Pack is over here - Gumboots' Dungeon of Evil thread.

[Gumboots]

Hey just for fun, as a no-brainer break from doing express cars, I tried throwing a rough skin on that model of the Milwaukee Class A Atlantic that I made a while back. I had been thinking it would be tricky to skin, but after giving it a bit of thought it turns out to be quite easy. This was all done by taking a profile illustration of the loco, and projecting the UV mapping onto the illustration via a straight orthographic profile view. That accounts for where it's a bit rough, like towards the centreline at the front where the illustration gets stretched around the mesh, but overall the results are surprisingly good. It's certainly a useful starting point for something better, and has given me some more ideas for how to tackle skinning.