Latest 86 Class Progress

Here is a screen shot, as of tonight. Apologies if its a bit big, I will get Picassa installed on Minotaur soon, and that should shrink the screen shots down a little.

I know everyone is waiting for a Tangara update, and I will try to get one posted before I go to Japan in 2 weeks. Im still working out the UVW mapping.

Ive been working on the 86 Class recently. Ive found that once you've been away from it for a while, it takes a little time to get everything organised in your head again, but I also found, that this gives you the opportunity to look at the model with a fresh perspective.

One of the things I noticed was that the interior floor was too low. The photographs I have show it as being level with the bottom of the door surround, which sits a few inches above the yellow base. The door surround was too low, and so was the floor. Ive raised them to where they should be.

I also added the foot and hand holds on the side, and have started on the last of the hand rails. There are just two more small grab handles at the front that I havnt started on yet. The cut outs for the hand holds on the side caused a few problems. The boolean tool did its usual damage, but it wasnt too hard to fix. Ive tried other methods of hole punching, but even with its problems, boolean is still a lot easier to use.

For the most part, I think the body is just about finished. There is just a little detail to do on the roof, and a bit more on the front. The interior is just about done too, but will still need more work to dumb it down for the exterior view, and separate the high detail interior into its own file where I can finish off all the levers etc for CAB mode.

One of the most annoying things about building these models is that I have a lot of ideas for features that I want to build into them, but not having a finished locomotive yet, I have nowhere to test those ideas, so I find that I have to keep remembering them until Im up to that point. Ive been making notes. One thing that I wont forget (because I'm looking forward to it myself) is that the 86 Class will operate like the real thing (as much as possible). The annoying part is that I can't start writing the cab script for that until I have the loco in Trainz so that I can test it, and there is quite a bit to do before it gets to that stage.

The next update (in a few days) will be all about the Tangara, which is progressing slowly, but still progressing. (Yes, I do work on it - I just don't have a lot to show right now - its all been tweaking and struggling with textures - but more on that later).

File Version: 95
Poly Count: 6999

Note: The poly count shown here is for the gmax model in progress. The count will generally be higher than that of the finished in-game model since it includes various tools, jigs, and other pieces which may not be part of the final model. LOD modelling will further reduce in-game polygons.