July 7th, 2009

The last Milepost 15 entry I made was over a year ago. It wasn't too long after that the KelticSylk.com site came to an abrupt halt. A lot of "stuff" has happened in that time, almost none of it related to train simulators.

After a "sabbatical" of sorts and the arrival (and expected arrival) of some grandchildren and a few other distractions, I started getting back into MSTS. It started slowly of course, almost always by request from someone who had one of my existing models. A tweak here, a revision there. The next thing you know I'm getting caught up in a project.

Although I'm pretty committed to finished all the backburner projects in the train category, I have started new scenery objects. We've all been looking for low poly vintage auto's for our transition era (or earlier) routes. So far we have the British cars that look American (at one time all cars in the world were big with phat fenders), Wayne Campbells beautiful series of V-Rides, and the truck series I was working on last year. Only the Brit versions could be considered low poly. Wayne's cars and my trucks run about 8000 polys a piece.

So I started creating a low poly set of cars. Something we could use to fill up the parking lots and car lots of our virtual world yet still have enough frame rate to run the trains.

The first attempt were this pair of Fords from the 1930's. The car is supposed to be a 1937 Tudor "hump back" sedan. The pickup is a 1939. The cars shape was formed using a scan of a 1:48 diecast 37 which had been "dropped" hot rod style. The fact that this modification would come back to bite me never crossed my mind. More on that later...

The truck was made from the shape of the White truck series, shrunk to pickup size. It has gone thru several ititerations. I've used it in attempts to model various pickups from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. None of them were satisfactory to me, mostly because the roof line was never right. There was also a vertical "bend" about midway thru the cab that has bothered me since day one of the White series. I took out the bend and modified the roof line by rounding it off. The textures were created by modifying parts of the earlier models and adding new grill work.

The models were below 1000 polys, an arbitrary  goal I had set for myself. The previous truck models had poly counts upwards of 3000. The semi and tractor sets can top 8000. I got so happy about reached my goal that I started creating 1937 Fords all over the place. While the first Tudor was basic black, the next two were Bert and Ernie, a police cruiser and a taxi cab inspired by Frank Capras "It's a Wonderful Life". I added fire chief's car to that set creating some vehicles rarely modeled in V-scale (or any other scale).

Then I found some antique color charts on the web and the floodgates broke wide open. The stable of sedans doubled overnight. Then I modified the shape to resemble a Tudor coupe, throwing in a bunch of color variations. The coupes then led to a set of convertibles.

The cars look okay from a distance. They are no match for Wayne's artistry, but they aren't meant to be. They are background models at best, something to leave in back alleys or behind restaurants and gas stations. Even so I wasn't happy with the way they looked. I made a slight modification to the windows in hopes of making them look a little better, but they really weren't as nice as I had hoped for.

So I took a good look at the textures from Wayne's 1939 Ford Sedan. I saw how he had formed the windows and other details that put his models a notch (or 10) above a lot of others. Trouble is, I wasn't sure if I could pull off the same stunt. The answer to the dilemma lay among the hundreds of images I have collected over the years as backdrops for the TSM program I use to make my models.

In TSM (and 3D Canvas etc) you can use a bitmap as a backdrop and "trace" your model in 3D over the picture. I had been doing this for some time and had some very exquisite images in my collection. Among them are 4 view renderings of 3D models made by two artists who are VERY good at recreating vehicles with computer software. One is Dan Palatnik the creator of this beautiful 1935 Lincoln Zephyr.  "Wish I could make textures like that" I thought to myself  and then something went "click" in my head.

Why don't I use these "backdrop" images for textures?  I know it seems obvious, but it had never really crossed my mind. So I started working on a 1935 Lincoln using Dan's renderings as a backdrop to trace and to texture the model. By doing both I was able to massage a 37 Ford Sedan into a reasonable replica of the Lincoln. I would trace the general shape on the backdrop and then massage the points to fine tune the mesh to the texture. It's a new technique for me and one that is working very well. The model went from a background Ford to a respectable 1935 Lincoln Zephyr.

The other renderings in my collection are a series of trucks by a fellow named Niko Moritz. Niko and Dan are on a similar level of artistry with Dan cornering the classic automobile market while Niko does antique trucks. When I did the White WA series with Tim Muir all I had was a black and white specification sheet. It had detail, but it was the same as the "paper doll" textures I use on my locomotives. I would have to create textures from the spec sheet drawing, ending up in the same dead end as the Ford series.  Niko's rendering, on the other hand, was everything I could want.

I used the same technique I applied to the Lincoln. The render was used as a backdrop and a texture. I used the backdrop for the rough shape and fine tuned it with the textures. By doing this I was able to see exactly what polys lined up with what seam on the skin. I could then split some polys off as a separate part or even add those polys to another part. I was readily able to see what needed to be tweaked and where. This is a radical departure from the way I make locomotives. It had to be. I find that recreating these vehicle shapes is a lot more complex than any locomotive I've ever attempted (except perhaps GM's Aerotrain, which is more automobile than railroad equipment). By pushing and prodding polys and points I was able to develop the White WA into something unlike any model I have done up till now. I remember Wayne recalling that developing hhis V-Rides was a bit like sculpture. This new technique feels that way to me. It's more like working with clay than 3D software.

The end result is shown here in a screen shot taken by Tim Muir on his PE route. While it still needs more work, it is far better than the previous WA models. You can see one of the previous series trailers in the background. That trailer has about four or five times the normal (poly) count of the tractor in the foreground. Of course Tim's screenshots always make everything look great, but I pretty happy with the results...

Oh, and one other thing.

I wrote to Niko Moritz and Dan Palatnik and asked for permission to use these renderings as textures for my models.

The answer was YES!!!

That, in my opinion at least, is very, very cool!

That's about all for now, thanks for listening.