We shall build a locomotive not because it is easy...

[SCLALINE]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... itcher.JPG
maybe good for textures

here is a very very interesting link

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6659016.html

[Csxgp38-2]

If they were still there, I'd go down to Laurinburg, NC and get you some measurements and photos, however unfortunately the 20 so Alco and Early EMDs were cut up on site last year. :(

[PapaXpress]

If I might interject, you might be better making the end of the secondary spring a seperate item, rather than growing it out of the subframe.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/manual/geg-15304h.pdf might help a bit.

All the parts are separate

I learned my lesson about extruding last month.

Update: I just got the PDF
... wow. I now understand what you mean by the springs. And it makes sense too. The way I have it, it would interfere with motors. It also comforting to see that some of my guessing was really close.

[SMMDigital]

Still looking ahead here, my locomotive shell is almost finished, and i'm start to graze for information on making a cab for it. I've never done this, so i'm a total n00b at it. Here is what I think I know about it.

- The 2D cab, the one you see looking outside in, is a rudimentary control stand, chairs, and textures on the walls. It is included with the main locomotive body.

- The 3D cab is a separate Geo file, referenced by the Engine bin file

Among the questions I have...

What is a cab occlusion file, how is it created, what does it do?

How do you animate switches, levers, etc? For example, the regulator notches. To go from notch 0 to notch 1, you need to animate the of the lever from 0 to 1. But what about to notch 2? Do you animate from notch 0 to notch 2, from 1 to 2, or is the whole 0-8 one animation?

What type of naming convention connects each switch or lever to it's function?

Any information yous guys can volunteer will help, and will be woven into th how-to.

[Chacal]

Did you read the dev docs from RSC? I seem to remember seeing all of this in them.

[Kali]

Cab occlusion is something sound related - it just muffles external sounds in some way ( and only works with EAX I think ). I know nothing more about it.

Control animations... the easiest way is to just animate the entire range, and then it will run from Min to Max values of the control - this is definitely how you want to do power levers and dials and so on. There are other ways you can make objects in the same place change depending on the value of the control, but the only use I can think for that in an old US cab is for the selector lever indicator, and you can just do that with a traditional anim anyway I think. If you're doing a modern glass cab, then you've got bigger issues like scripting to worry about too and that's a bit out of the scope of this.

There are some predefined control names that do certain things, best bet is to just look at a few existing blueprints and the basic engine tutorial ( and I believe there's something in the scripting section ) in the dev docs. How you interact with them in the 3d cab is by binding an object in the cab to the control's interface section ( where it's called a Transform ) - you don't actually have to have an animation to be able to click on the object and change the control value. Regulator will make the train move, and you can call the train brake control whatever you want provided you call it the same thing in the simulation blueprint.

[SMMDigital]

Did you read the dev docs from RSC? I seem to remember seeing all of this in them.

You are correct, and the Dev Docs and wiki are must-read for this project. However, they are written from the viewpoint of someone experienced in Max and leave a lot for assumption. Having people chime in who have experience with this sort of thing helps to fill in the gaps.

[danpmeyer]

Been following along with the tutorial and have a question. How important is the 3DC pro version to our project? Can we use the freeware version...or will there be problems later?

[PapaXpress]

The exporter will only work with the pro version.

[eyein12]

best to use a low key frame length like 16 should do it. only need to animate in 1 direction. yo ucan manipulate the rest in your control values section of your loco BP.

[jpetersjr]

Hoping to start on a locomotive soon myself, but I think I'd rather wait until the first part of the body tutorial is up.

[SMMDigital]

The "Basic Bodywork" tutorial will be out Tuesday. Most of it is online but not accessible because not all of the pics are uploaded. It will cover the basic processes from building the sub-deck through doing the punch-outs for the cab windows (an imperfect process, but it works). It will not get into the detailing. I'm working on that in the next section, but right now the AND route is taking precedence over all.

[jpetersjr]

Next will you try a tutorial for building and getting a steam locomotive into the game?

I have a ton of steam locomotives that I want to build, including a 2,10,4 Texas that I have a ton of reference photo's to. I would like to build that and make it freeware later on.

[SMMDigital]

Next will you try a tutorial for building and getting a steam locomotive into the game?

No. Just doing this one is taking a lot of time, and we haven't even gotten to the hard parts yet. If I may suggest though, you might want to do a Steam tutorial, building off of this one. Basic shape construction,texturing, blueprinting and such should be the same. The extra steps you would need to learn would be the animation of the steam rods. Give it a try, even though it's time consuming, it's still been quite a fun diversion from the ever-present drone of route building.

[jpetersjr]

I probably will later on, but first I'll have to get a diesel into the game.