Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Moving along to chips...
So here is a new project I started this week. The model is based on a Greenville 7526 cubic foot wood chip hopper. This particular model will pose a bit of a problem since it is darn big, measuring 73'3" between the couplers. The real challenge will be the textures. The particular sim I am working on suggested no larger than 1k textures in their documents. I've seen some people mention that they have used a max of 2k. I've seen others mention that performance takes a serious hit with 2k textures. So if I stick with 1k which I've been equating to 50' square, these cars will require an additional 25', roughly. I generally don't like mirroring sides unless I have to as I like to keep everything as unique as I can. After all, its all about the trains! On the flip side, you will never see both sides at the same time, so that does indeed make it a good candidate for mirroring. Since this car is so large I may wind up doing that. At this point I'm thinking I may have to break it up across two maps. I'll definitely have to research the texture situation a little more.
The car is also pretty high in polycount, coming in at a little under 10k or half of what is allowed for locomotives. Once again I'm going to use the size to justify the extra budget. The dev docs suggest 7k for a freight car. Well, I'm figuring that to be a typical 50' car. Twenty five more feet would be another 3.5k coming in for a total of 10.5 in order to keep everything close in detail. The panels are currently modeled but I may just leave that part to the normal map depending on how good it turns out. If I do leave them in, I may have them appear at 16m. After all, they are a major spotting feature for this particular car.
I'm actually pretty excited about this particular car as I grew up seeing a LOT of them. Fast forward several years and I wound up working on them. As a side note, it seemed like all of the forest product related cars were the biggest pieces of junk. Old as hell and not in the best of shape. Also, all of the chip hoppers I worked around, that I can remember, utilized the high mounted handbrakes, roughly 15 feet up. Some of the absolute worst cars I remember working with included wood racks and ballast hoppers. There's nothing like fighting with a tight handbrake on a wood rack at 2a.m.. If you really wanted to piss someone off, set a really tight handbrake, then dump the air. This was almost a sure combination to make the handbrake tighter than Dick's hatband and a pain in the a$$ to knock off if there wasn't a release.
The car is also pretty high in polycount, coming in at a little under 10k or half of what is allowed for locomotives. Once again I'm going to use the size to justify the extra budget. The dev docs suggest 7k for a freight car. Well, I'm figuring that to be a typical 50' car. Twenty five more feet would be another 3.5k coming in for a total of 10.5 in order to keep everything close in detail. The panels are currently modeled but I may just leave that part to the normal map depending on how good it turns out. If I do leave them in, I may have them appear at 16m. After all, they are a major spotting feature for this particular car.
I'm actually pretty excited about this particular car as I grew up seeing a LOT of them. Fast forward several years and I wound up working on them. As a side note, it seemed like all of the forest product related cars were the biggest pieces of junk. Old as hell and not in the best of shape. Also, all of the chip hoppers I worked around, that I can remember, utilized the high mounted handbrakes, roughly 15 feet up. Some of the absolute worst cars I remember working with included wood racks and ballast hoppers. There's nothing like fighting with a tight handbrake on a wood rack at 2a.m.. If you really wanted to piss someone off, set a really tight handbrake, then dump the air. This was almost a sure combination to make the handbrake tighter than Dick's hatband and a pain in the a$$ to knock off if there wasn't a release.
'Remote' Control Work
Finding work as a digital modeler has definitely not been an easy task. How do you make it easier? Go west young man... and get your work in a functioning game engine! So here is a project I've worked on for a sim in hopes of fluffing my portfolio and finding remote work.
The real life version of the model is actually quite an interesting piece of equipment. Without going into a lot of drawn out specifics, it is a receiver car for radio signals which allows locomotives, located mid-train, to be operated remotely from the head end. The technology was revolutionized by the Southern Railway, way back in the mid 60s. A few locomotives were designated as masters and included transmitting equipment in the nose. With the receiver cars placed mid train with locomotives connected to them, the Southern was able to utilize any locomotive they wished.
The model itself has several levels of detail with the top coming in at 8000 tris and change. The furthest LOD kicks in around 256m and is 10% of the total polycount. Getting this thing working in game has been feat in itself and requires slight of hand that rivals Houdini himself. Needless to say it has been a huge learning experience. Hopefully the next few will go a LOT easier.
 | |
| Completed and rendered with Mental Ray |
The real life version of the model is actually quite an interesting piece of equipment. Without going into a lot of drawn out specifics, it is a receiver car for radio signals which allows locomotives, located mid-train, to be operated remotely from the head end. The technology was revolutionized by the Southern Railway, way back in the mid 60s. A few locomotives were designated as masters and included transmitting equipment in the nose. With the receiver cars placed mid train with locomotives connected to them, the Southern was able to utilize any locomotive they wished.
The model itself has several levels of detail with the top coming in at 8000 tris and change. The furthest LOD kicks in around 256m and is 10% of the total polycount. Getting this thing working in game has been feat in itself and requires slight of hand that rivals Houdini himself. Needless to say it has been a huge learning experience. Hopefully the next few will go a LOT easier.
 |
| In game render. |
Monday, May 21, 2012
Introduction
Here we are, my first blog, so bare with me. I'd like to start out with a little more about myself. I'm currently a 4th year student, finishing my Bachelors in animation and visual effects. My area of study is 3D modeling with my focus, for now, being hard surface modeling. Eventually, I hope to get into more organic work but that will probably be down the road a bit.
From Rails to Computers is something I thought of that would allow me to share finished and current projects that are related to trains and train-sims. I also thought it would be a nice way to share a few of my experiences and thoughts of rail operations, for anyone that is interested.
Even though I left the railroad several years ago, I still enjoy trains. Probably even more so now than before. I guess my appreciation for them has grown as I definitely enjoy modeling them. I've worked around them, crawled on them, smelled them, rode them, and figured it would be a good area to hone my digital skills and apply them to a working game engine.
So a bit more about my former rail experience. I was a conductor for CSX, during the early 2000s, out of Manchester, GA. My territory included 201 miles to Birmingham, AL, 77 miles to Atlanta, GA, and 202 miles to Waycross, GA. I was lucky enough to work a multitude of jobs including the lowly extra board, all the way to dedicated freight pools and yard jobs. My favorite trips included the run to Birmingham because that was home to me and the most scenic. So most of the time I stayed on the F2 pool.
Fast forward several years, and here I am.
I've been lucky enough to train under instructors that have worked for prestigious companies such as Industrial Light and Magic, Electronic Arts, and Bioware. I've been modeling for four years, and I work with the following programs:
Maya 2010 - the main program I use for modeling
3DS Max 2010 - still in the process of learning this one
Photoshop CS6 - used for texture work and post production
After Effects CS6 - post production video
XNormal - used to bake ambient occlusion and normal maps
ZBrush - digital sculpting
As you can see it can be a huge investment of time and money but definitely very rewarding to see your work applied to film or games. So anyway I hope you enjoy and I look forward to sharing my work and thoughts with you!
Spur
From Rails to Computers is something I thought of that would allow me to share finished and current projects that are related to trains and train-sims. I also thought it would be a nice way to share a few of my experiences and thoughts of rail operations, for anyone that is interested.
Even though I left the railroad several years ago, I still enjoy trains. Probably even more so now than before. I guess my appreciation for them has grown as I definitely enjoy modeling them. I've worked around them, crawled on them, smelled them, rode them, and figured it would be a good area to hone my digital skills and apply them to a working game engine.
So a bit more about my former rail experience. I was a conductor for CSX, during the early 2000s, out of Manchester, GA. My territory included 201 miles to Birmingham, AL, 77 miles to Atlanta, GA, and 202 miles to Waycross, GA. I was lucky enough to work a multitude of jobs including the lowly extra board, all the way to dedicated freight pools and yard jobs. My favorite trips included the run to Birmingham because that was home to me and the most scenic. So most of the time I stayed on the F2 pool.
Fast forward several years, and here I am.
I've been lucky enough to train under instructors that have worked for prestigious companies such as Industrial Light and Magic, Electronic Arts, and Bioware. I've been modeling for four years, and I work with the following programs:
Maya 2010 - the main program I use for modeling
3DS Max 2010 - still in the process of learning this one
Photoshop CS6 - used for texture work and post production
After Effects CS6 - post production video
XNormal - used to bake ambient occlusion and normal maps
ZBrush - digital sculpting
As you can see it can be a huge investment of time and money but definitely very rewarding to see your work applied to film or games. So anyway I hope you enjoy and I look forward to sharing my work and thoughts with you!
Spur
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