[Jonatan]

Peter, I've ran the test model and the results were a few puffs ever so often but not a series of puffs synced with the wheel rotation. Is this the way it's suposed to work?

[superheatedsteam]

steamer_ctn, on 30 December 2022 - 05:22 PM, said:

I think that the modeler needs to distinguish between driven wheels and non-driven wheels. (Perhaps a modeler can add a comment in regard to this.)

From my understanding and I am open to correction:

Driven wheels and motion should be animated by the 3D modeller.

WheelRadius ( ) in the Engine section of the .ENG file controls the speed of rotation of the driving wheels.

Bogies and other wheels use reserved object names like BOGIE and WHEELS with numbers after them, indicating location, e.g.

BOGIE1 would have WHEELS11 and WHEELS12 linked as child objects.

BOGIE2 would have WHEELS21 and WHEELS22 linked as child objects.

The modeller does not have to animate these objects. OR knows how to rotate objects that begin with the word BOGIE or WHEELS about their origin/pivot points.

WheelRadius ( ) in the Wagon section of the .ENG file controls the speed of rotation for the wheels on the bogies.

Cheers,

Marek.

[copperpen]

Having taken the latest version of the Atlantic for a test run I have the following observations.
1, The cylinder cocks steam animation works
2. The exhaust definitely has distinct puffs now, but not in sync with the cylinder forward/back motion.
3. The sprite system needs much more work to give a better visual experience. At rest they are too large at the point of origin in the world. As speed increases the point of origin moves forward of the chimney and the spaces between puffs are painfully obvious. Once the puffs get to merge though you do get a very large cloud of steam, but the sprites do not last long enough and need to be more tightly controlled in expansion.


Mervyn

[Weter]

Quote

not in sync with the cylinder forward/back motion

Quote

Steam Crank Angle variation - The crank angles for multiple cylinder locomotives can vary, for example a 2 cylinder locomotive has a 90 deg separation whereas a 3 cylinder locomotive has a 120 deg variation. OR will default to a "common" value for the number of cylinders defined, but the user can override this with "ORTSWheelCrankAngleDifference ( A B C D )", where A, B, C and D are the separations for up to a 4 cylinder locomotive. For example, a 4 cylinder locomotive can have a separation of 90 deg for each cylinder or sometimes it has two of the cranks separated by 45 deg instead. These values can either be in Rad (default) or Deg

[copperpen]

Hi Weter

I was using the current NYC Atlantic from Peters' website. This has everything set up to demonstrate the new code and visual effects. Cylinders OK, exhaust, close but no banana.

[ATSF3751]

Hey everyone,

I first want to say Happy New Year and 2023 to everyone here on Elvastower!

I have also been testing out Peters new and updated features for steam locomotives as well.

For myself though instead of using Peters locomotives for testing I have been using my own model of Milwaukee Road 261 4-8-4 steam locomotive for testing purposes as I know exactly how it should perform under different loads and circumstances.

The real locomotive runs in excursion service in the USA. I have been part of the crew for a number of years and riding behind the locomotive since the early 2000's under all different weather conditions and tonnage the locomotive has pulled over the years.

In real life the locomotive has pulled a 32 car passenger train up 1% grades in the mountainous territory of West Virginia along with a 60 car loaded coal train, 8 passenger cars, and 3 GP10 locomotives dead in tow on level track.

I have performed both of these test in Open Rails for a max load test and the locomotive is able to perform both in the simulator.

It also has the capability of running over 100 MPH but its sweet spot where it is happiest is 60 to 70 MPH.

As far as my model goes I have talked to Peter about possibly using it as a test model but do not have it released to the public yet. I did send it to Scott so he could try out and he told me its quite the brute of a locomotive.

From my observations with the new wheel slip and break changes it is much more realistic and having a lot of fun testing it out on different loads and in all types of weather. It was built as a duel purpose locomotive so it could pull anything.

As a little touch I have added all of the bell and whistles to it including animated doors and windows, animated coal load, animated front coupler, other steam animations that are available, cylinder cock steam matching with the chuffing and revolution of the drivers, along with custom sounds from the real locomotive that I have recorded from over the years.

I feel like the next step for steam locomotives and the simulator in general is working on some eye candy to keep up with today's other simulators that are available. Open Rails blows every other simulator out of the water when it comes to physics but lacks in eye candy like smoke for steam locomotives. The puff balls just do not cut it any more and could use a makeover.

Brandon

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Jonatan]

Yeah I've toyed around with one or two of my own models, the wheelslip is much nicer with the simulated flywheel effect on the wheels.

[ATSF3751]

Another thought I had was to upgrade some of the models of steam locomotives we already have for Open Rails to the new physics and see how they perform. Some famous ones I was thinking of was Norfolk & Western 611 4-8-4, UP 844 4-8-4, FRISCO 1522 4-8-2, SP Daylight 4-8-4s, Reading and Northern 4-6-2, Flying Scotsman, Mallard, and other locomotives others are familiar with from around the world that still run today.

Brandon

[darwins]

Here is an eng file for the GNR / LNER class A1 as originally built with short travel valves. (such as Flying Scotsman)
They were later rebuilt as an LNER A3 with long travel valves and higher boiler pressure. Then later again with a Kylchap exhaust.
Hopefully I can put together versions for later class A3 and class A4 locos (such as Mallard).
Perhaps one day in the future we could model the physics a Chapelon design. The ability to model the de Glehn compound system together with the more sophisticated cab controls of the Chapelon locos is still far away in the future of OpenRails.

Attached File(s)

•  LNER_A1_Gresley.zip (8.72K)
  Number of downloads: 112

[steamer_ctn]

copperpen, on 31 December 2022 - 05:37 AM, said:

2. The exhaust definitely has distinct puffs now, but not in sync with the cylinder forward/back motion.
3. The sprite system needs much more work to give a better visual experience. At rest they are too large at the point of origin in the world. As speed increases the point of origin moves forward of the chimney and the spaces between puffs are painfully obvious. Once the puffs get to merge though you do get a very large cloud of steam, but the sprites do not last long enough and need to be more tightly controlled in expansion.

Thanks for the feedback.

In regards to item 2, I will have a look at it.

Item 3, appears to be impacted by the current capability of the ParticleEmitter (which appears to have a "known" problem in it at high speeds - this is beyond my capability to fix), so I will attempt to get a "reasonable" compromise using the existing "faulted" version.

ATSF3751, on 01 January 2023 - 12:29 PM, said:

Another thought I had was to upgrade some of the models of steam locomotives we already have for Open Rails to the new physics and see how they perform. Some famous ones I was thinking of was Norfolk & Western 611 4-8-4, UP 844 4-8-4, FRISCO 1522 4-8-2, SP Daylight 4-8-4s, Reading and Northern 4-6-2, Flying Scotsman, Mallard, and other locomotives others are familiar with from around the world that still run today.

One thing that I would really appreciate is a couple of people to work with me to keep the CTN test stock physics up to date. In some instances even for a modeller to rebuild the stock to allow the fitting and show casing of new features.

Whilst I appreciate that most people would like to use their own stock, a lot of the CTN stock has railway company test reports, and hence provides a very accurate yard stick to test against. Any takers?