[Frank Musick]

I was able to get Lou Fournier's Labatt tractor down to 2200 polys. The limited dissolve function seems to help a lot. Still have to do a inordinate amount of poly culling. The Labatt lettering and logos on the model is in 3D. Fortunately no much interior detail.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8e/55/b8/8e55b844a6b22eac4fc87b82a3b7e915.jpg

The textures are from Nico Moritz care of SMCars.com.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a8/d6/ff/a8d6ff8e4dc7583591be069401cf23e9.jpg
Years ago I had Nico\s permission to use his textures on the White series of trucks Tim Muir and I worked on.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/a4/c3/16a4c3f44b8914a7307e811e20089f5a.jpg


Hopefully, he's still agreeable to that.

[Frank Musick]

I know I've been jumping back and forth posting what appears to be a bjillion things at once but there is a method to this madness. Trying to get a handle on Blender and produce usable models.

Hopefully I'm finally getting somewhere. I'm hoping this is the first of a series of realistic looking "low-poly" period vehicles. This 1937 Ford "woody" wagon is 1500 polys, about the same as Wayne Campbells gems.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/86/b3/b486b36110409175253219380613ccdb.jpg

The textures need to be completed and toned down. I'm not overly fond of photorealistic textures as they really don't match other MSTS / OR assets and appear rather jarring when added to a scene.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/40/8c/cb/408ccbde9a75ee809bd382b49e8badc9.jpg

[Genma Saotome]

Oooohhh, that White Truck would be nice to have!

[ErickC]

 Frank Musick, on 26 July 2021 - 12:11 PM, said:

The textures need to be completed and toned down. I'm not overly fond of photorealistic textures as they really don't match other MSTS / OR assets and appear rather jarring when added to a scene.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/40/8c/cb/408ccbde9a75ee809bd382b49e8badc9.jpg

The problem, as I see it, is more that most of the environmental assets in the MSTS/OR world don't hold up well in 2021. To be fair, most of them didn't hold up well in 2001, either.

Mind, I also generally dislike doing photo textures, but it's primarily for practical reasons. Slapping photos on an object with no rhyme or reason rarely looks good (see: Kuju), getting photos in good lighting from all sides of an object is difficult, and seamlessly blending them takes a lot more time than baking some shadows, building a set of master textures, and using photo elements to flesh out details. In the end, you're left with something that is difficult to repaint in a credible way (hence why most repaints of photo textures look like colourized black and white films - i.e. "not great, not terrible"). Bleach bypass looks cool in movies about World War II, but not so good on boxcars in OR.

I experimented with an all-photo locomotive once, and while it was fun, it was a lot of work. These days I can crank out repaint after repaint to a similar level of quality with a minimum of time and effort by just building a good set of master textures. Shake 'n Bake.

[ErickC]

 pwillard, on 21 July 2021 - 05:55 AM, said:

Granted, probably has way more poly's than you want in the SIM, but its a starting point and there are some "decimate" options within Blender to reduce polycount.

And yeah, thingiverse has some gems we can pull from. (This is > 300,000 faces)

https://i.imgur.com/C4k53mu.png


The same model was reduced to 15K Faces using only the Decimate modifier...

https://i.imgur.com/bJXriUb.png

Ah, but the nice thing about that model is you can map it, bake it, and use that AO map as the starting point for a set of master textures on a new model. It would be much faster to build a new low-poly model from the ground up using the original as a reference point. The benefit is you can build the new model to incorporate all of the structures for the kind of visual trickery that will make a low poly model look good (e.g., alpha windows and an interior that is optimized to work with them). Then you just map it to your pre-rendered textures, colour it, and weather it to your liking. I bet one could easily build a 500-triangle model using baked textures from that model that will look good at most viewing distances if they were meticulous about it.

[CrisGer]

Frank that Woodie is amazing i LOVE it..even if you do change it i would love a copy of that version i think the textures work just fine. and my feeling about photo or any other improved texture is go for it we dont need to be held back by the past for we are making a new future. :) just my 2 cents but your work is really wonderful and we do need more good realsitsic vehicles from that era

Chris

[pwillard]

We really should not be held back because a lot of stuff that is available was done in what we see now as inferior quality. These are challenges that should be making us think "how can we fix or redo those to make them more 'correct'?"

And like was mentioned. 3dPrinting has made some interesting things available. I got the "basics": for this model from the O-SCale Magazine forum. So after 15 minutes of tinkering... I had this as a starting point. The main body shape was made publicly available as STL files. All I need to do is add trucks and couplers and finer details...

I might just use this...

https://i.imgur.com/pSk4nXO.png

Pete

[Frank Musick]

Looks like I'm getting where I want to go. Poly count went back up because I added a bottom to the Ford. Didn't know till a few minutes ago that Waynes cars are open on the bottom. Saved myself a bunch O polys.


Shape Viewer shows 1456 polys.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/4d/18/094d18c4b8eeec7eed074445f8faa48c.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f1/b6/00/f1b600ed69439f2d94861fceed67ce93.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8f/b2/c9/8fb2c913307443496143ff21abaecb95.jpg

Some small tweaks and it should be ready for the library. Hopefully I remember how to package and upload these things.

[timmuir]

 Frank Musick, on 21 July 2021 - 06:50 PM, said:

I was able to get Lou Fournier's Labatt tractor down to 2200 polys. The limited dissolve function seems to help a lot. Still have to do a inordinate amount of poly culling. The Labatt lettering and logos on the model is in 3D. Fortunately no much interior detail.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8e/55/b8/8e55b844a6b22eac4fc87b82a3b7e915.jpg

The textures are from Nico Moritz care of SMCars.com.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a8/d6/ff/a8d6ff8e4dc7583591be069401cf23e9.jpg
Years ago I had Nico\s permission to use his textures on the White series of trucks Tim Muir and I worked on.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/a4/c3/16a4c3f44b8914a7307e811e20089f5a.jpg


Hopefully, he's still agreeable to that.

Man, that brings back memories! Remember the Autocar trucks we did? Those were fun to do.

Your Ford wagon is looking better, I'll be sure to grab one when you release it. :thumbup3:

[Frank Musick]

 timmuir, on 01 August 2021 - 06:24 PM, said:

Man, that brings back memories! Remember the Autocar trucks we did? Those were fun to do.

Your Ford wagon is looking better, I'll be sure to grab one when you release it. :thumbup3:

I had a lot of fun working on those trucks too,


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/82/35/118235b265bbe9969e23d260033f44b8.jpg

The Ford is "finished" and I took what I had learned and went back to the Nash. They both could use some improvement but I think I'm tired of working on them. Your gas station makes them look a lot better.