May 4th, 2008

I haven't updated this "blog" in quite a while. I've been busy over the past couple of months with various projects, a granddaughter, travel and God knows what else...

Anyway, my modeling for MSTS has taken a rather wide tangent. Can't say for sure what started it, but something got me modeling trucks. Not the "bogie" kind of truck, but plain old everyday highway trucks. Well, maybe not everyday, at least not for about five decades...

What started as an innocent attempt to duplicate an old Alan Armitage project turned into an obsession. Alan had an article in an old Model Railroader magazine about modeling with styrene. The article featured a number of his creations but the one that struck me the most was an early Mack model AC, like the one on the right...

As usual, things got out of hand. Tim Muir saw the truck and thought it was great. That was all the encouragement I needed. Before I knew it, Tim, Wayne Campbell and I were coming up with photos and ideas for more trucks. The result was a collection of Mack AC's form the 1930's that represented the AC as it might have appeared even after production ceased in 1939. Part of the set was lettered for the Stanwyck Texaco outlet on Tim's Santa Myrnaloya mini-route, the other four were made from photos we started collecting from all over the web, books, advertisements, postcards or any other image we could get our hands on.

Of course, the madness didn't stop with the AC series. Tim shot an e-mail with a dimensioned drawing of a 1941 White model WA. Using parts from the Macks, I created a new cab and hood and went into another modeling frenzy. Pretty soon there was a substantial number of additional images in the library and a whole new set of trucks for MSTS...All based on the one plan Tim had forwarded. All of them were based on ideas from the images we had collected. Almost all of them were freelance versions of real trucks, but a couple, the two dump trucks, were just imagineered. One was lettered for the Santa Myrnaloya Sanitation Department while the other, complete with primer red fender was owned by the Marley & Marley (think Muppets) Haulage Company. I built the truck in "action mode" with the dump body up and a pile of sand "pouring" out. Three were built as tractor trailers, using the shorter and more rounded semi-trailer designs common for the period. There is also a heavy wrecker, which appears to be named after the relatively well known Holmes company. In actuality I was playing with the phrase "home wrecker". It was part of the fun of creating these models. Even the research was fun, though a bit overwhelming. There are so many different makes and models of trucks and a seemingly infinite range of color schemes that it was hard to settle on which one to model.

I also developed a really cool technique for making windows. Most of the trucks use a texture that simulates reflected light. It came out really well, IMHO...

The key to the trick is the texture used to produce it...A gradient fill called Chrome Reflect. Combined with a light gray alpha it produces a pretty good representaion of a real window. On the model, only the outer "window" is alpha, AlphaNorm+. Unlike earlier attempts to produce windows there is no inner window, just a hole in the part where the window should be. All the truck windows, with the exception of the Mack ACs are done in this manner.

Another trick developed was a new way of structuring textures. The original textures for the Mack ACs were designed to be used across a number of models, based on some thoughts that Lukas and Wayne had shared in the forums. Both has tried various ways to improve the performane of the sim and both had come to the conclusion that textures hurt framerates far more than poly count. If a group of models can share the same textures, the sim only has to load that one texture for all those models, cutting down on the processing. I applied that discovery to the Macks. For the Whites, I started to use the same set of textures. There came a point, however, where I ran out of space on the textures for all the trucks in the all the sets being created. I already had too many textures in the AC series and I was defeating the whole idea. I had to revise my thinking quite a bit...

This resulted in a set of texture like the one on the left...Very organized by my standards and a direct result of the way I texture my models. All of the color is done by mapping these squares of color to the part. Only parts that require detail, such as the grill or chrome work get a separate texture. Those parts are created seperately and overlayed on the body, just the same as the technique Tim Muir developed for lettering. I've used this idea before on locomotives. Here on the trucks it's been taken to ridiculous levels.

This technique was used on the White trucks and the Diamond T series that followed. By the time the two  Studebaker K-30 models were done the textures had to be revised again.

The textures used for this Mack COE set stayed with the organization scheme, but the color "swatches" were shrunk to allow more variety. I also incorporated the "chrome" band I use on the headlight nacelles into each swatch, rather than creating a separate texture as on the previous version. Many of the lettering and graphics items were also shrunk down a bit. This included the texture for the wheels. I was able to double the number of different wheel appearances and colors, making way for even more makes and models of trucks. I also continued the use of "borders' for each item, making it a bit easier to use when mapping in TSM.

The chrome I now use was also developed while building these models. I frst color the item using another gradient fill called black and white. I then use the Chrome effect on he same part. It does a pretty good job on some of the grillwork and ornamentation, especially noticeable on the Diamond T set.

These trucks are a lot of fun, almost too much as a matter of fact. I've totally neglected all my other MSTS projects. I've actually thought of specializing on vintage vehicles.

That's about all for now. Thanks for listening.