Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench

[Annie]

Easiest way is just to duplicate the locomotive, open it for editing and open the file folder through the DLS menu and edit just the bits on the texture files needed to get the intended result in Photoshop.

 

These are horrifically useful for helping with that.

http://trainz.shaneturner.co.uk/tutorials/index.php/home/utilities/pevsoft-trainz-tools

Those tools are brilliant and I use them all the time.  Absolutely essential if you're wanting to mod Trainz models.

 

I don't have Photoshop, I use Paint.NET for all my texture work with occasional assistance from GIMP.

[RedGemAlchemist]

I don't have Photoshop, I use Paint.NET for all my texture work with occasional assistance from GIMP.

Fair enough. Use what you prefer. I just use Photoshop because it's what I have.

[Skinnylinny]

Thanks Linny. 

 

If it's the GWR reskin kit I'm thinking of that thing is full of evil errors with the way the texture fits onto the body mesh as well as having a twist through the centre of the mesh below the waist panels.  I have used it and I have made a couple of nice coaches with it, but as you say it's a fight all the way.

 

Now that is a really cunning idea and one that I never thought of, - a transparent texture, - brilliant!

That's the one - I put in a nice, square texture, and suddenly all my door markings were all over the place - it looked like a badly-done Mollweide projection of a globe. I'll keep at it, I think, but I'll get there eventually. 

 

Transparent textures are a great way of removing all sorts of extraneous details - I remember using them back in MSTS days to remove various bits and pieces - I think there were some loco models which had multiple domes etc, and by renaming the texture files you could make bits appear and disappear.

[Annie]

What I did with the door markings on one of my coaches Linny was shape them in the opposite direction to the twist and they then turned out straight when the coach was loaded into the simulator.  It was a right fiddle to do though and did involve a certain amount of unladylike language.

[Martin S-C]

Oh, how I wish it were that easy in 00 gauge

(I need an emoji for tearing your hair out)

[Skinnylinny]

That's alright, Annie - I'm not very ladylike either! I would imagine it would need a lot of trial-and-error to get the doors to look right. I'll probably focus on just getting the basic colours on first!

[Annie]

How I did it Linny was I set the coach with the wonky door lines up in the Railyard viewer nice and square and I then took a screen capture and used that image reversed as a guide to making new door lines that would defeat the mesh twist.

 

Unfortunately John Whelan who was responsible for the original mesh is a bit careless and his work is often full of errors.  He won't talk to me anymore since I pointed out some of the faults in his work.  The meshes for my NER clerestory coaches are fine since Ed Heaps (edh6) did a lot of work on them for me, but they are a lower height than the GWR reskin kit coaches since they are made for the NER loading gauge.  Strangely the GWR reskin kit, - which is actually slightly too tall for most GWR clerestories, - is fine for the GCR which had a more generous loading gauge.

[Skinnylinny]

That's an excellent idea - thank you! I'll have to play around with that when my brain's in the right space for that. Maybe I should have started with a PO wagon instead! I think I've got a couple of bits from John - the name's familiar. I mainly got the GWR reskin kit as the model coaches that I want to replicate are also GWR clerestories (albeit Triang ones!)

[Regularity]

Oh, how I wish it were that easy in 00 gauge

(I need an emoji for tearing your hair out)

[Annie]

I'm presently working on the coastline, properly sculpting the beaches and generally trying to make it all look like an East Anglia coastline.  A forum member on NGRMO has explained to me a great deal about the coastal geology as well as all manner of other important details unique to East Anglia so this is definitely moving on from plonking down some sand ground texture and calling it a beach.

 

WIP snap of Winkle Bay.  Of which the Windweather Tramway had great hopes as a Summer destination to rival Hopewood on Sea, but unfortunately it all came to nothing.

[Annie]

I am learning a great deal about the process of erosion on the East Anglian coastline and how eroded debris is carried by the tide to other locations.  Plainly railway modelling is good for furthering one's education.  I want the coastline to be unmistakably an East Anglian coastline even if it is not exactly stated just whereabouts it might be.

 

The harbour station near the swing bridge.  The village is still very much a WIP.

 

 

I ended up having to make my own textures for the headland.

 

 

Winkle Bay now has some groynes.  They're a terrible old digital model with low resolution textures from TS2006/TC3 days, but they look Ok from a distance.

 

[Killian keane]

Not sure if you've seen these but I found them on a discord group Im on, there are also 2-4-0s, 0-6-0s and tender engines similar to these

[Annie]

I've definitely not seen those before Killian.  They look like they might be for Dovetail's TS simulator.  Who is making them, - do you know?

[sem34090]

The name Ben Wood comes to mind - They look like they're derived from his GCR Sacre 2-4-0T, and the Dexby Railway is his creation. I know he's also worked on an SECR R1 and a Beattie Well tank, all of which I am really looking forward to seeing released.

 

He is a member on here, I seem to recall.

[Martin S-C]

Not sure if you've seen these but I found them on a discord group Im on, there are also 2-4-0s, 0-6-0s and tender engines similar to these received_778843139140999.jpeg

Cor! Luvverly. Is this the (in)famous outside framed - outside cylinder loco you mentioned on the 19thC facebook group?

[sem34090]

I believe it's a figment of the creator's imagination, derived from a GCR Sacre 2-4-0T.

[Killian keane]

Cor! Luvverly. Is this the (in)famous outside framed - outside cylinder loco you mentioned on the 19thC facebook group?

I did mention to him that it looks like macs mangle, and I've just realised who you are!

[Annie]

I do like the more conventional inside cylinder single driver engine though and I'm sure there would be considerable interest in it if it was made available.

[Annie]

Nice clean NER 6 wheelers from Paulz Trainz in LNER teak livery.  I don't hold much with these new fangled bogie coaches despite having made a few examples and uploaded them to the DLS.  For my own imaginary 'what-if' little railways it's 4 and 6 wheel coaches that I prefer.

These are nicely modelled coaches and being teak they can be readily fudged modded into becoming becoming the property of a minor railway without having to worry about a big retexture job with changing a painted livery.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2019 by Annie

[Northroader]

They look really nice, although possibly old sixwheelers would be in brown paint rather than teak finish in LNER days?? I bet they go round tight curves and stay on the track all the time, too. Ain’t virtuality marvellous??

[Annie]

It's because they are in a teak finish and not brown paint that I got them Northroader.  By the time I've finished with them they won't be lettered for the LNER anymore and they will be safely back in the pre-grouping era.

It's really hard to derail virtual models unless you forget to set the points correctly, but these six wheel coaches will look dead daft if you try running them through curves that are too tight and the flange squeal will be pretty horrible too.

 

From the left:  Midland 4 wheel first heavily disguised as a GER 1st class coach (not my work); my own 'litho' generic teak 6 wheel first; Paulz Trainz NER 6 wheel 1st in LNER teak.

 

 

My 'litho' coach still manages to look Ok next to fully 3D modelled coaches.

 

 

I have some 1880s Oldbury 4 wheelers and some mildly disguised Barry Railway 4 wheelers I use on the tramways as well.

[Martin S-C]

I think in simulators, and as regards coaches, other than guards duckets and other obvious 3D details, a flat 2D side where the relief is suggested by good texturing is preferable. It allows so much more modding potential and reduces the power needed to draw them in the game.

Edited January 13, 2019 by Martin S-C

[Annie]

Yes exactly Martin.  Those generic teak coaches of mine as well as the bogie NER coaches I've also made for Trainz are very popular simply because the memory load from a rake of them is not that much at all.  And with care a lot of detail can be represented by 'smoke and mirrors' illusion with shading and shadowing techniques.

I thought there wouldn't be a great deal of interest in the generic teak coaches, but from the comments I've received Trainz folk do like them because they are similar to various railway companies' pre-grouping teak 6 wheelers and they fill a gap where nothing else in available.

I did experiment with a positionable ducket mesh that could be used with my 'litho' coaches, but it wasn't very well made and there were some texture mapping problems with it.  The creator group member who made it for me doesn't talk to me anymore because I tried to constructively criticise some of the errors in his work, but as a method it does work Ok.  I might return to it if I can get someone else to make me a new ducket mesh.

 

One of my NER coaches.  Again these fill a gap and are popular because there is nothing outside of payware in the way of NER coaches for Trainz.

 

 

Edit: Changed coach picture because the previous one was a WIP version.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Annie

[Martin S-C]

Very nice work Annie.

[RedGemAlchemist]

Indeed. Beautiful. If its on `12 I'll definitely have to download it.