CityRail V-Set

[AaronBradford]

Hi - I'm not new to Simutrans but I'm new to the forum (I haven't really been active here at all). I'm a player of Simutrans rather than a developer, but I would like to know how I'd go about creating a new train, one that I know and love and travel on regularly. I'm not sure if I've posted this in the right spot, but I would appreciate any help.

This is the train I'm trying to recreate: http://www.cityrail.info/aboutus/trains/v_control.jsp and http://www.cityrail.info/aboutus/trains/v_trailer.jsp.

[The Hood]

There are two main ways to create graphics:
1) pixel paint, using a program such as paint or the GIMP to paint pixel by pixel.
2) use a 3D graphics program (e.g. blender) to make a 3D model, then take "pictures" of it.

Personally I'd favour option 2, especially for pak128 scale.  It means you can get detailed textures, and also makes sure that the lengths and lighting levels/angles are consistent in all 8 rotations.  If you decide to go down this route I would be happy to let you have a blender file of one of the pak128.Britain vehicles, which would have all the lighting and rendering settings already set up (this is harder than you might think!).  On the other hand, if you are doing pak64, I understand pixel painting is a bit easier, as there are only 1/4 of the pixels to paint and you don't need to worry about getting your settings right in 3D.  Up to you!

Whichever way you do it, you need to end up with a png file showing 8 rotations - you can get some examples from either pak64 or pak128.Britain which are both open source from: http://simutrans.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/simutrans/ - have a browse around.  I'd recommend using an existing vehicle png and dat as a template to help you get the alignments right.  Either way, the best way is to get started, get stuck, and then ask for help with the bit you are stuck on!

[vilvoh]

In fact, in this case option 2 would be faster. I mean, you got front and side views with textures for both vehicles, so you just need to model the vehicle and add the textures already painted from those images. You would save a lot of time!

I'll try to model some of them for pak64.

[AaronBradford]

Sounds fun - thanks for your replies!