Some results...

[Junna]

So I got around to setting getting it done. Alignment and touching up is quite the slow and tedious process... But I have an issue with it: I cannot finish compiling it into a pak, because it fails at 4.2 (says invalid image number).

[The Hood]

That's because it starts at 0.0 and goes up to 3.7 (row 1 is actually row 0...)

[Junna]

That's because it starts at 0.0 and goes up to 3.7 (row 1 is actually row 0...)

Oh, right. How could I forgot, I was thinking of that before.

Is there a good way to clean artefacts (the miscoloured border tiles, etc) that isn't so tedious?

[kierongreen]

Is there a good way to clean artefacts (the miscoloured border tiles, etc) that isn't so tedious?

Unfortunately graphics can be very tedious like this... Just remember, some paks are entirely handdrawn, at least with Pak128.Britain we only have to tidy up a few pixels around the edge!

[Junna]

Roughly finished now...



Slightly looks to be off the track due to some falling off due to the shadow... guess I'll have to try and sort it out. Perhaps a bit dark except for the first one.

[jamespetts]

You can eliminate all alignment work, as well as painting out of the border colours, by using the automatic rendering script. It makes a massive amount of difference to the amount of time that it takes, and has the added advantage that everything ends up perfectly aligned as long as the model is in the right place in to start with (the front should be four squares away from the centre).

Apart from the misalignment of all but the first vehicles, that looks good!

[Junna]

You can eliminate all alignment work, as well as painting out of the border colours, by using the automatic rendering script. It makes a massive amount of difference to the amount of time that it takes, and has the added advantage that everything ends up perfectly aligned as long as the model is in the right place in to start with (the front should be four squares away from the centre).

Apart from the misalignment of all but the first vehicles, that looks good!

How exactly do I execute the script? It's been a very long time since I used any python script.

[The Hood]

Stick it into the blender python scripts folder and apply it in blender (google how to do that) - then it will appear in blender as an extra option under the render tab. You want render 8 views for vehicles...

[kierongreen]

Actually looks to me like the first vehicle is the only one correctly aligned...

[Junna]

You can eliminate all alignment work, as well as painting out of the border colours, by using the automatic rendering script. It makes a massive amount of difference to the amount of time that it takes, and has the added advantage that everything ends up perfectly aligned as long as the model is in the right place in to start with (the front should be four squares away from the centre).

Apart from the misalignment of all but the first vehicles, that looks good!

Four squares ahead of or behind the centre? And aligned just how on the other axis? Right now, it looks like it is hovering.

[jamespetts]

Four squares ahead of the centre. And slightly hovering is the standard here: you need not change that. For all alignments other than forwards/backwards, you can use the existing .blend files as templates. If you are making an entirely new vehicle rather than re-livering an existing vehicle, you should use an existing .blend file as a template.

[Junna]

Vroom-vroom, it's a 4DD!

[kierongreen]

Ah the 4DD... A little on the obscure side I have to say - I did encounter this when researching EMU types before but as it only ever had 2 units built I didn't consider it a priority to draw. Looking at the screenshot the only small thing I'd say is that the driver cab side windows are missing. Are you planning a rail blue livery variant as well?

Well, if it is to be added then it should be balanced to ensure it isn't used that much - so a longer loading time than EMUs of that era.

[jamespetts]

Very interesting! Sadly, the livery is incorrect: the 4DD was introduced in 1949, a year after Nationalisation, so would never have worn the Southern Railway malachite green in which you have it there, but rather the much darker British Railways green as pictured here:



(I suggest using the same colour (copy the R/G/B values) as another multiple unit in 1950s/1960s BR green).

Kieron is also correct about the need to make sure that this has a long loading time to simulate the difficulties that this unit had (it took longer to load because it took people some time to clamber upstairs and downstairs, and because there were the same number of doors for more people).

It really is quite splendid to see somebody new adding to our graphics, however - excellent work!

Edit: See here for more information on this unit. Also, it would look good if you could add some roof detail - see



for details.

[Junna]

Ah the 4DD... A little on the obscure side I have to say - I did encounter this when researching EMU types before but as it only ever had 2 units built I didn't consider it a priority to draw. Looking at the screenshot the only small thing I'd say is that the driver cab side windows are missing. Are you planning a rail blue livery variant as well?

Well, if it is to be added then it should be balanced to ensure it isn't used that much - so a longer loading time than EMUs of that era.

Oops, forgot about the drivers cab window/doors. I'll redo the livery in the EPB-green. I've got three sorted, full-green, green with yellow end and rail blue (which they only carried for about a year...)

I'm thinking loading time of 2/3 more than the 4-SUB. The loading time was the units downfall after all, and the reason no more were produced.

Not sure what engine power was - can't find any specifications. I'm assuming a little stronger than the 4-SUB 1941 engine - 6-700kw?

Adding some roof details.

[kierongreen]

See http://www.therailwaycentre.com/Recognition%20Tech%20Data%20EMU/EMU_DD.html. 1000hp so 745kw

[jamespetts]

Splendid. With the locomotives, it is often not possible to accommodate liveries with and without the yellow ends, but you can use the BR-Early and BR-Revised liveries for these purposes here, as these were introduced as early as 1949.

[Junna]

More or less finished now.



Images:
DMBT/S(green):

DMBT/S(yellow front)

DMBT/S(rail blue)

TT/TS(green):

TT/TS(railblue):

.dat-file in attachment (for experimental, but should compile with standard, but without extra liveries and extra features.)


Misc. recolours:

4-COR:

4-COR buffet/restaurant (think they were all withdrawn prior to the blue livery, but still...)


2/4EPB DMBS/DT(railblue)

2/4EPB trailer in railblue

2BIL in railblue:

[jamespetts]

Thank you for those - now on my Github branch. Note that the DD's power as given above was for the whole unit, not for each motor carriage: the power for each  motor carriage has to be half the power for the train. Also, we need a retirement date which is a reasonable guess as to when the things would last have been built had they been at least slightly less unsuccessful - I have guessed a date in the mid 1950s. I have corrected both of these things in my version on Github.

[greenling]

Hello that it a very great new vehicle!
very good work juuna.
edit: it's be planned this train to copy in pak128.britain standart too?

[Junna]

Liverpool Overhead Railway (1893) wooden 14-m two-car EMU (motor+trailer)

[jamespetts]

Thank you for that - now on my Github branch, with added retirement dates.

[Junna]

NER Tyneside 1904 units; optional trailer or second motor, 3 or 4 car sets. I haven't managed to align it all perfectly but after wasting five hours trying to get it perfect, there's still a bit too large a space between the front unit and the rest, but I have been unable to eliminate it... and the space isn't too bad.



LMS 1926 third rail EMU's for London and Liverpool suburban services, modified from the outwardly very similar 1931 MSJ&A DC overhead EMU. Slightly weaker, however. The middle trailer has higher comfort and less total capacity due to the presence of first class compartments (as opposed to the MSJA series, which had first class in the driving motors.)

[greenling]

Who Junna
Those Trains looks very good out.
Very good work.

[jamespetts]

Junna,

those look rather splendid - thank you for your work to this. You are quite dedicated to the third rail DC EMU cause, I see!

Five hours is a very long time to spend trying to get things aligned manually - I really do urge you to have a go with the automatic rendering scripts. Do you need any help in setting this up? I can try to give you some pointers if this would help. You don't have to worry about alignments at all with this, so long as the image is properly aligned in Blender to start with, which is not hard (especially if you are starting with an existing vehicle as a template and not changing its length). Once this system is set up, it drastically reduces rending time and effort and makes producing new vehicle graphics about as easy as making the .blend files in the first place.

Alternatively, if you upload the .blend files somewhere, I could re-export the images with my rendering script setup when I get the chance to get the alignments right, although it would be better for the long term if you were able to set them up yourself.

In any event, alignment issues aside, looking lovely!

[Junna]

Junna,

those look rather splendid - thank you for your work to this. You are quite dedicated to the third rail DC EMU cause, I see!

Five hours is a very long time to spend trying to get things aligned manually - I really do urge you to have a go with the automatic rendering scripts. Do you need any help in setting this up? I can try to give you some pointers if this would help. You don't have to worry about alignments at all with this, so long as the image is properly aligned in Blender to start with, which is not hard (especially if you are starting with an existing vehicle as a template and not changing its length). Once this system is set up, it drastically reduces rending time and effort and makes producing new vehicle graphics about as easy as making the .blend files in the first place.

We've been using your script, and it made the process easier, however, the images it produces do not have the vehicle entirely correctly aligned (diagonals tend to be off by maybe 6-7 pixels vertically and they do not align properly) so I had to try and correct them by compiling and loading in game and gradually trying to get it into the right place. How do I make sure the vehicle is in the exact right position for the render?

It's been about 4 squares from one of the ends, but it doesn't show up right in all of the renders?

Added:



This is the raw output of the script added of a 101 to a single image (front, rear, trailer) and added background colour (can one make it output things pre-ordered in a line with the right background colour?). It is somewhat off in alignment, but it keeps coming out like this, which is why I tried ot use the template and align the vehicles individually - but that gave odd results, too...

[jamespetts]

Hmm - how do you composite the individual 128x128 images into the final image of the sort that we see above? I use the Render Post Processor tool to do this automatically (which gives exactly one vehicle per image with a space for identifying text above).

It would help if I could see your .blend files to see how I am able to export them.

As for your BR Class 101, thank you for doing that, too, although the top part of the cab needs to be raked as in the following image:

[Junna]

As for your BR Class 101, thank you for doing that, too, although the top part of the cab needs to be raked as in the following image:

It is actually sloped, for some reason it just doesn't show up in the render.

I put those together manually in paint/GIMP and made any modification there, pixel by pixel. I only just now figured out how to make use of the Vehicle alignment tool to correct my off images in a far less tedious process. So daft I am...

I wrote all the .dat' files individually too, I imagine there's some easier and faster process to use, as rewriting all the text is a tedious repetitive process.

There's one further thing, however: the Render Post-Processor, which seems very useful, wants an oversampled image and such, but there's only one type I have, which seems to mean the background remains black. Is this just how it is? Well, re-colouring the background is a lot less of a hassle than realigning it pixel by pixel to get it right.

Addendum: If I have a front unit, and a rear unit that looks the same, how do I sort that out using these programs? It only generates a finished one based on a render, but the render is not reversed - do I then reverse it in blender and re-render it or do I change the order in the dat?

[jamespetts]

Hmm - perhaps you should make the slope more steeply inclined? The real 101 is steeply enough sloped that it should show up even at our scale (other units are more subtly sloped, such as the 117, which will probably not show up).

As to the Render Post-Processor, it is designed to take an oversampled image to work with a different workflow (used for Pak.128), but it is not necessary to use that feature. All that you have to do is select the same image twice, and it will simply composite them. Then, once the images are composited, go to the GIMP, set the primary colour to the appropriate background colour (eye dropper it from another file), select the fill tool, change the "threshold" to 0, and click the background - the whole black background should now be replaced with the background colour. Then re-export the file (CTRL+E, ALT+R, ALT+E). If you are doing multiple images at once, then you will not need to repeat the steps up to and including setting the threshold.

As to the .dat files, I do not automate these, but I just copy and paste from existing .dat files and modify as necessary. For the image definitions, I use search and replace to prevent repetitive work.

As to identical front/rear units (such as HST power cars or front/rear brake carriages), to ensure correct alignment, export the graphics from Blender twice using the script: the second time having rotated it through 180 degrees.

I hope that this helps! Your contributions are very much appreciated.

[Junna]

Figured out what was messed up. Was using some wrong setting...

Fixed alignment issues.

BR Class 09 Shunter/light goods working


Note that the speed is increased a bit, generously, in order to match the speed limit of the in-game non-braked wagons (56km/h). This is not entirely realistic, but because the unit so otherwise so slow (44.7km/h), I think this is a fair trade-off.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for that. Glad that you have the alignments working now! Do you think that you could re-export the NER Tyneside units that you said that you had difficulty aligning earlier using this new technique so that they are correctly aligned? Also, do the LMS third rail units need re-aligning, too, or are they correctly aligned already in the graphic above? Incidentally, to change the text from "text 1" and "text 2", open Render Post Processor as an administrator, click the settings button (underneath the delete button), and type in the text for up to three rows.

As to the class 09, however, I do think that we need to retain the realistic speed limit, or else this class becomes something totally different: the reason for the low speed limit was that the locomotive had a very low powered engine, but was able to haul larger loads by virtue of gearing. If it is allowed to be faster, it becomes, in effect, a much more powerful unit, which would have to be much bigger in reality, but would also be used far more often for non-shunting work than it actually was.

Finally, do you think that you could upload the .blends somewhere? It would be useful to be able, for example, to fill in additional liveries; the .blend files should be considered open source in the same way as the .png files, I think. If you are having trouble finding somewhere to store them, might I suggest that you start your own Github repository for them?

[Junna]

The LMS EMU is correctly aligned (as I used the existing 1931 DC overhead stock to align it).

Well, I'm a bit reluctant about the .blends because some of them are... obviously the work of beginners, so to say. A bit embarrassing when they are seen outside of their 2D rendered state...

Working on fixing the NER and 101's at the moment.

[jamespetts]

Thank you - that's helpful.

Really, don't worry about the quality of the .blends: mine are rather basic, too, and they're only intended for being rendered for very low resolution 2d graphics: anything that is not perceptible in a 128x128 render is unnecessary ornamentation in any event. It's more useful to have everyone's .blends available for modification into different vehicles and/or relivering as necessary/desirable than not, however basic that they are.

Edit: The LMS EMU has some graphical problems, too: it is not quite aligned, and there is an issue with the background in some rotations - see the below



Might I suggest that you re-export this, too, using the new system?

Edit 2: Also - may I ask why the LMS EMU's maximum speed is greater than the MSJ&A EMU, the latter of which used a higher voltage and was introduced some years later?

Edit 3: I have managed to fix the white line issue in the GIMP, but the alignment issue will require re-exporting.

[Junna]

Edit 2: Also - may I ask why the LMS EMU's maximum speed is greater than the MSJ&A EMU, the latter of which used a higher voltage and was introduced some years later?

I'm not sure why it is. It's speed limit was given as 110/70mph somewhere I have now forgotten where, and this being the design speed of the later 1938 type, didn't seem too unreasonable.

I didn't catch that white space mistake... It seems my declaration of success was hasty, for I notice I still am unable to get them correctly aligned.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/jp4a0lje1jak37c/blends.rar

[jamespetts]

Thank you very much for that. I have re-aligned the LMS EMU using the automatic method that I described:







You had not set the export script to use vehicle alignments, which is why it was not automatically aligned to start with.