I Love all Things Military

So I've been debating taking a different approach with the blog and maybe going more for a general CG art theme instead of just railroad related stuff. I've always been fascinated with machinery and heavy equipment that ranges from trains to planes to construction equipment. I guess its a guy thing. Anyway, a while back I got into a print phase and here is one of the projects I would really like to get around to finishing. It basically consists of a scene with a few Vietnam era Marine Corps CH46s coming into a hot LZ.

The above shot is a really rough composition of the look I was trying to achieve. The helicopters are very early representations of what I was working on, comped on top of a background plate consisting of the sky and distant mountains. Following that was a few trees I added in then finally painted some rough grass in. The grass has been somewhat of a sticking point. I've tried using fur set up as grass and I just was not happy with the it turned out. I guess its ok though since I'm definitely not a Maya fur expert.

Now to the CH46 and this is where I absolutely went wrong. I love browsing the forum over at Military Meshes and there are some awe inspiring projects posted there. After seeing a few threads on super high res models I then got the bright idea to do the same.

So off I go, modeling every little detail I could see from panel lines to individual rivets. I'll have to admit this was way overkill for the end product I was wanting and something I definitely regret. A year later I am still not close to finishing this up at all. Dont get me wrong it is a awesome exercise in sub-D modeling, and using a few really cool animation functions in Maya to get my geometry but I really wish I left the panel lines and rivets to the texture map. I think my best route would have been to use some really nice super high res textures. Polycount really isn't an issue, even with the super high res model. My system has gone as high as 10 million tris on the screen with viewport lag starting to rear its head but as a static object in one or two renders, it was doable. Its just a huge huge time sink. So my hats off to any of those guys that have finished those super detailed models. Maybe one day I'll get around to finishing this up.

Wow, its May of 2013

Man, things have been busy to say the least and my lack of activity on this blog is unfortunately the result.  Things are still plugging away on the Run 8 front. Maybe more than plugging away since I am absolutely swamped with asset projects for the sim and let me tell you when I say swamped, I mean swamped. For anyone that is into trains and has debated trying out Run 8 I would absolutely encourage you to do so as it is by far the most realistic train sim I have run. In addition to that there are a lot of really cool things in the works that go beyond the new, and absolutely awesome Amtrak equipment that will be coming out and not to mention the Needles sub.

Anyway I wanted to share a few items I've had the pleasure to work on. First is a pig from that particular rolling stock expansion that was released. This is rendered in Mental Ray with a few lights thrown in the scene. Ray traced shadows are being used as well. I opted to omit an AO pass since that information is already baked into the diffuse map. There is, however, some very subtle lighting information baked into the diffuse map as well. I generally tend to stay away from doing that, especially in a situation where there is dynamic lighting as things can conflict in what the sun is doing and what that particular asset is showing. However if the baked lighting is kept very very subtle then there is usually not much of an issue. For something like this I only baked a little spec into rivets, corners, tire rims, etc, in order to make them pop a little.

And a few other items. Model presentation is something I've always been big on as it was something that was kinda drilled into my education early on. Keep it clean and simple they say. Most will say definitely go for a good neutral background, something like 50% grey on a textured model. Doing so will keep the item from fighting with the background. For instance a black environment will make the model tend to appear dark and white will wash it out. Now with that being said I have started going against my own preaching as far as a white background. Sometimes it seems a bit nicer/cleaner for a product beauty shot. So I dont know, I do go back and forth a lot but I wont ever venture much from either of these two set ups.   The racks are rendered with the same set up as the pig, Mental Ray, couple lights, ray traced shadows. I did add some reflection to the environment then adjusted in Photoshop.

Working With the Enemy, pt 3

First, I want to revisit our power used on the yard job. As I mentioned earlier, it always consisted of shared power between NS and CSX, which was usually a NS high hood GP38-2 or GP38AC, and a CSX B30-7. For the most part, we kept the same units unless they needed fuel or were due for some sort of inspection or maintenance. Out of three months working on the yard job, I can only think of a few occasions that our power was changed. On one particular night I remember being left a B36-7 which immediately made our engineer quite unhappy. After working with it a few hours, I quickly realized why, as all the unit wanted to do was spin.  After that one hard night with the B36, a unit that was once reserved for the highest priority intermodal trains but bucked down to local service, we decided that it was in our best interest to somehow get it sent back to Birmingham. After giving the loco a good going over and finding a few problems, we quickly bad ordered the unit and called Birmingham. The next night we picked up our replacement B30-7 and left the feeble B36-7. The only other issue I remember having with our power was, to our surprise, being left a rent-a-wreck FURX SD40-2. Yep that's right they wanted us to switch all those industrial tracks and tight switches with 6 axle power. We bad ordered the unit on the spot and had it sent back. A few nights later we received our usual B30.

Typical B30-7 used. This unit was the first I ever worked a job on.

Typical NS GP38-2 used. We always ran from the NS units.

Similar unit to the one they tried to stick us with one night.

B36-7s make horrible horrible switchers lol.

So now back to the switching. The south end of the plant is complete, and it's now time to tackle the north end. The north end switch consisted of several parts. Taking our outbound CSX cut to the mainline, and switching the roll pulp, bale pulp, tall oil, turpentine, sodium chlorate, and caustic soda spots. First thing on our agenda would be to call our mainline dispatcher out on the 'railroad'. The call simply consisted of us asking if we would be able to get time to occupy the siding at Grassmer (also known as Coosa Pines on our timetable) in order to make our set out and pick up. Some nights the answer was yes, some nights no, it all depended on how bad the dispatcher needed the 10,000 foot signaled siding.

If the answer was yes, then our first move consisted of coupling to the outbound CSX cut in our yard, that was preassembled during the day shift. We would also grab any other cars we may need for the north end, consisting of box cars, tank cars, covered hoppers, etc. We usually tried to keep our yard cleaned out and strategically stored cars that would be needed later. For example, caustic soda was stored in the north yard, etc.

After grabbing our CSX cut and any other cars we needed, we would then head down the main branch which ran right through the middle of the plant. First order of business would be to cut off our train just short of where the empty turpentine and tall oil cars were stored, along with sodium chlorate hoppers. If any of those cars needed spotting, we would take care of them now. None of the above cars were switched nightly, only as needed. It seems like I remember spotting more empty tank cars for loading with 'tall oil' than anything else. 

Example of the Sodium Chlorate cars we would spot.

After making that switch, we would head to the north yard with light engines. We now had to switch the roll pulp dock. This was a nightly job and mostly consisted of pulling 8 loads and replacing them with 8 empties. The roll pulp dock was located on the side of the plant and was partially covered. Regular run of the mill box cars were always used and I can only think of a couple times that cars were rejected. Usually due to stuck doors. The great thing about that switch was that it was a straight pull and replace, unlike the paper dock that might have loads buried in empties that needed to be switched out. The thing about the roll pulp switch that was kind of odd was that a lot of times we would pull the loads, take them a few hundred feet down the branch and then spot them at a warehouse known as Triple E. The cars would then be unloaded and we would use those empties to re-spot at the roll pulp dock. Many times we would take loads several miles down our branch to a building known as Beaunit. Beaunit consisted of a large abandoned plant that evidently the paper mill leased and used to store roll pulp as well. Back to the north end switch though. 

Immediately adjacent to the roll pulp dock was a very small yard known as the north yard. This yard held empties for roll and bail pulp, along with loaded caustic soda tank cars. As we pulled roll pulp, we would set the loads out on an empty track in the north yard. They would remain there till the day shift picked them up,  took them to our small yard, and sorted them into their outbound cuts.

Coming off of the roll pulp building at about a 45 degree angle was another building with a large roll up door. This was known as bail pulp, and they had the ability to load 3 boxes inside the building. This wasn't a nightly switch though, and if we did switch them, it was very seldom all three cars. It was usually just one or two cars at the most.

Now that we've finished up roll and bail pulp, it's now time for our final switch on the north end. This consisted of grabbing  tank cars loaded with caustic soda, stored in the north yard, and switching them deep in the bowels of the plant. In my opinion, this was one of the coolest aspects of the whole job. As we slowly make our way into the plant, you are surrounded by all kinds of pipes, tanks, and a huge rotary kiln that made the midst of winter feel like summer. It resembled more of a refinery than anything else. So at the end of the lead, deep in the heart of the plant, were two tracks that each held two caustic soda tanks. We'd usually switch one or two a night.

Most of the caustic soda cars were HOKX tanks like this one.

A few of the caustic soda cars were in the all grey scheme.

At this point, the north end is finished with all of the outbound cars left in one of the north yard tracks. Unfortunately, I can't remember the names of any of the north yard tracks, but if I remember correctly they were all numbered but something odd like 49, 50, etc. I could be completely wrong on that but those numbers stand out. With that part of the job complete, we would run with light engines back to our outbound CSX cut, which was left on the branch. We would then take our cut to the mainline.

Our mainline was located roughly 5 miles to the north of the plant or something like 6 or 7 miles by rail. This area, known on the timetable as 'Coosa Pines', consisted of a 10,000 foot siding, a wye and two shorter storage tracks, known as the outside and middle tracks, that came off  the siding. Our outbound cut was always left on the north leg of the wye and was usually picked up by the A735 road switcher. I think that the Atlanta to Birmingham freight, Q679 would also make the pickup in the event that 735 couldn't. Our inbound cuts were always left on the outside and middle tracks. After gathering our inbound cuts, we would head back down the branch to the plant.

Upon arriving at our yard, located on the grounds of the plant, we would swing a wye then shove back into the yard. This allowed us to set out recycle cars on the recycle lead and shove the rest into the yard. We usually would do a quick sort of the inbound yard, such as setting out paper dock cars on a certain track, caustic soda, and sodium chlorate on another, etc. At this point we may have one more switch at the paper dock or receive a call to replenish a tank car of either chlorine or peroxide at the recycle plant.