Back to School

Well, as promised, My wife has started repairing all the dead computers around here, and the first to be resurrected was my development system, aka "Minotaur".

It was a real pain getting windows up, due to it having a different motherboard than the old drivers expected, but eventually I got it up far enough to install the new drivers. For anyone curious, I went with an Asus M3N78-Pro, though now I will need to upgrade the CPU and memory at some point, to take advantage of the new board. I've always been a Gigabyte guy in the past, but over the past year or so Ive had at least 3 Gigabyte boards die for no real reason, so its time to see what else is out there. So far Im impressed with the Asus board.

Minotaur is still as good as it ever was. Surprisingly the problem with my wireless mouse suddenly not working remains - it must be a problem in the driver that came with it. Looks like I'll be swapping back to the tethered mouse I was using before.

The first thing I did was to check all my Gmax models and everything else related to this project, and its all fine. Then I realised that Ive forgotten how to drive Gmax, which is kind of embarassing. Even simple things like rotating the camera around to see the model from different angles are eluding me at the moment, so its back to school, to re-learn Gmax. Ugh. It shouldn't be so bad - once I remember the basics I should be back into it in no time.

To get Windows up, I had to break the mirror that my hard drives were a part of, but now that I have the new motherboard drivers installed, I should be able to get the raid array set up again soon. I feel better when I have redundant copies of my data around.

So now Im off to re-learn Gmax, and get the system set up the way I like it again.

Me Again

*Sneaks in hoping no-one notices*

Wow... Its been a while.

I could lie and say I spent the last couple of years in Japan, but where's the fun in that? The truth is, having some time off, away from my computers got me thinking about other things, and my priorities kind of changed for a while.

This project has always been in the back of my mind, but several factors stopped me from getting back to it. The 'priorities' mentioned before, troubles with my job - hearing that Auran went bankrupt didn't help either - for a long time, I thought, "Well.. thats the end of Trainz". I was also wrestling with texturing the Tangara Control trailer, and in the end, it became too hard, and I put it off for a while. With everything else in combination, that "while" got longer and longer.

In the last couple of years several things have changed for me. I still love electric trains, that much hasn't changed (especially the Tangara and the 86 Class of New South Wales, but increasingly also the Shinkansen (Bullet Trains) of Japan, as I got to know them more) but there are a few issues that are still keeping me away from this project.

In recent months Ive been yearning to do some more work on the 86 Class locomotive, and see it running in Trainz, as I envisioned it (Did I mention it would be fully operational, including the awkward way its driven? (ie: 1-2-3-2-3-2.. etc, for those that know). I'd even like to finish the Tangara, which isnt really that far away from loading up and running - the motor car, and variations (G Sets) wont take a lot of work, although the scripting I had planned for it will take some time).

The issues keeping me away right now, are firstly that my PC died (along with all of the Gmax files on it) and has been out of comission for probably over 18 months now. In fact, since it died, 5 other computers have died as well (I have a lot of computers on a big network). All of these are still dead, and right now, I'm on the oldest, slowest machine I have (excluding the unix systems, which run web services and other work for clients) and it just wont handle Gmax.

Originally, the problem that caused the demise of my PC was hard to diagnose. It was a hardware failure, but I didnt want to replace working components, and I didnt have any good way of figuring out which part was broken, so I just used another computer for a while. Finally (just recently as it happens) that other computer also died, and I had a chance to swap components. The good news is I narrowed the problem (on both machines) down to the motherboard. The bad news is, with 2 dead motherboards, I still cant make one working good machine.

The other big issue thats affecting me right now is that I left my job mid last year (it was long overdue), and so far, havnt found another. I dont have the money to repair the machines at the moment, so Im stuck on this slow one for now.

I heard about Trainz 2009 being released, and that gave me some hope that all this work wasnt wasted. Its re-kindled my interest in finishing what Ive started, as it seems that there is a future. The other good news is, as partial payment for building and maintaining a web site for my wife's business, she has agreed to pay for repairs to all of the dead computers, though that will depend on when she can afford to do that, and is conditional on me getting a job again.

So, the upshot is that things are slowly coming full circle, and I'm beginning to think more and more about this project. I said to myself at the beginning of this post, that I wouldnt apologise for being away so long, and I hope that you understand that we (content creators) do this because we want to, and have the resources. We are not obligated to do it. For a while I wasnt able to spend the time, or didnt have the resources (or both), but in the near future, that should be changing, so consider this post the first buds of spring :p

Another thing that helped keep me away, was the disapointment I felt about the way Railcorp approaches heritage issues in New South Wales. I touched apon it in previous posts, but since then time has shown that the token gesutres made thus far have had little real benefit (if any). They seem to have no interest in "Heritage", other than generating goodwill with a few well composed press releases. Unfortunately that goodwill on the part of the public, doesnt seem to be balanced by any real advances in rail heritage. Despite their words I can cite many examples where Railcorp's own actions could be viewed as having little concern for rail heritage. Private groups are doing far more, but its Railcorp's bat and ball (its even their ballpark), and they dont seem to want to play - they just leave the lights on so that it looks like they're interested, and when someone else kicks the ball around, they can say that by leaving the lights on they enabled them to do that! Perhaps in future posts, I'll give a few examples.

Even more future posts will probably also talk about the N Scale layout I'm planning to build in a spare room (Another thing that has got me thinking about this project). I'm hoping to capture aspects of Japan's rail system, including Shinkansen, regular passenger, freight end even metro systems.

As you can see, I have a lot to write about. I guess in a way this post is designed to put leverage on myself. Much of what I want to do, requires me to get a job, and with you lot knowing that Im still here, its even more pressure on me to get on with it, rebuild my systems, and get these models finished and uploaded to the DLS!

Update: 9 Feb 2009 - Ive just spent several hours tweaking this blog, adding tags, gadgets etc. I cant access Gmax for a while so I do what I can. I also replied to a lot of old comments, so that the answers are on the same archive page. Its been tough going because this old machine is so slow. Something is chewing up all the CPU, but it isnt as simple as a worm or spyware or anything obvious like that. Im a geek, but so far, its eluded me. Im still working on it.

Looking back over old posts I realised how much I have forgotten about Gmax, but Im sure it will come back to me when I get started again, and I have lots of notes. The hard drives in my machine are still ok, and mirrored just in case, so once its fixed, everything will be right where I left it.

Konichiwa

Im in Japan! While Im here, I will be taking lots of detail photos of various infrastructure, such as buildings, signs, bridges, traffic lights etc, so I can model them in the future (way in the future). These signs are at Fukuoka airport.

If I dont get deported for being a suspected terrorist (photographing stuff with little artistc value), I should be home in about two weeks time.

My wife's home town is on the southern island of Kyushu. We caught the Relay Tsubame (Info | Photos) from Hakata station in Fukuoka, and I got a lot of good pictures of the interior, as well as a few close up shots of the pantograph etc. The photos linked here are not mine, but will fill in a lot of gaps

Ive mentioned before that I'd like to do a Japanese route one day. I was considering the Shinkansen line from Tokyo to Osaka, but the truth is, its too long, and in Trainz it would be over 1000 base boards - I want something a bit smaller if Im going to be modelling the content, as well as laying the track.

While I was on the Tsubame it hit me - why not model the JR Kyushu main line? JR Kyushu has some unique trains that are only found on Kyushu, such as the Relay Tsubame, and to the south, they also have a new 800 series Shinkansen which runs to Kagoshima, and eventually to Hakata. I have wanted to model the 800 series for a while.

If you have Microsoft Trainz, you will remember the Kyushu Railway Company (aka JR Kyushu), since MSTS includes a scenario which begins at Yatsushiro (just down the road from where Im typing this in Kumamoto). In the scenario, you drive a small KiHa (diesel railcar) over the mountains. They give some good reasons why they chose to model the Kyushu Railway (and that particular branch line) and it makes a lot of sense for me too.

So, the Japanese route idea has evolved a little further, and it now looks like when I start it, I will be modelling the line from Hakata to Kagoshima, with perhaps the Yatsushiro branch line thrown in for good measure.

In a couple of days, I will be catching the 800 series to Kagoshima, and back, and then it will be back on the Tsubame to Hakata, and from there, a 700 series Shinkansen (most probably) to Tokyo, with stops at Osaka, Kyoto, and hopefully Hiroshima as well. I will be taking as many photos as I can of anything and everything (but especially the trains and buildings etc) along the way.

Oh, did I mention that I bought a new camera especially for the trip? (and lots of memory cards).

Follow the links to photos and info about the trains that Im talking about.

It goes up, It goes down

A quick update to show some more of the pantograph. Ive added the cross-arms and animated it. There is still a little more to do on the details and animating other bits such as the pistons which operate the pantograph. So far the entire pantograph, including the base, weighs in at about 980 polys, which I reckon is pretty good, considering whats in it. I need to add a few more though.

I also discovered a small miss-match between the interior and exterior around the small side windows, so that has been fixed as well.

While I'm here, Im going to play around with the blog template a bit. It seems that I cant do much about the width without changing all of the background images. Eventually I'd like to redo the whole thing with a proper Redfern Workshopz header and a variable width template. Perhaps one day.

You can actually see that Im only working on half a loco in the screen shot above.

Update: 31 Jan - The pistons are now animated. Im not going to animate the springs. Still some polys to add on the contact. The pant is now 1020 polys. I removed some jigs that I had hidden - the model is now 8703 polys. File version is 108.

File Version: 106
Poly Count: 9031

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.

Pants!

My head hurts.

I've done a bit more on the 86 Class. I added the last of the hand holds (at the front) and have started on the first pantograph. All that concentration has given me a headache.

Im making a heavy duty version of a cross-arm pantograph, as was originally fitted to the 86 Class (Like the ones you see on the S sets, but tougher). I also plan to build a heavy duty version of a high speed panto, which were used on the 86 Class in later years. (Like the ones on the Tangara). While the loco itself is going to be payware, the pantographs will be free, and available on the DLS. I will also eventually be building a light duty version of each, and have already started on the high speed version for the Tangara. These will also be on the DLS, and having all four versions used by Railcorp / Cityrail will allow me to use them on other locos in the future. If you like them, you could even use them on locos make by other creators.

I've finished the base and the contacts, and added the pistons and springs. I need to tweak those some more. I havnt built the cross-arms yet, but they will be next. You can just see the pivot bar for the arms in the base, if you squint :)

Somehow, I managed to freeze the ditch lights, so they havnt been appearing on recent screenshots. They're back now, and integrated into the base so that they wont go missing again. I havnt started on the headlights yet.

I also did a bit more work on the catenary, and have the first model almost ready for testing in Trainz.

Im off to Japan at the end of this week, so if I dont post anything for a couple of weeks, you know why.

The poly count has crept up a bit - remembering that the number below represents half of the loco. Im not sure if you can use LOD modelling on pantographs, but I guess I will find out. Im building this one with a lot of detail, but I can make it a bit simpler if I have to. I plan to animate it, and besides the usual up and down motion, you should also be able to see the pistons and springs expand and contract. I want the workings to be apparent. The panto itself isnt really using a lot of polys. The number below includes a lot of things that will be separated into different files, so individually, it should be fine.

File Version: 102
Poly Count: 8931

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.