Train models for a PC game
polycounter lvl 4
Hello guys. 
Fairly new, but not new to 3D. I've been playing with 3D for over 10 years as a hobby, but never done any mods, all though I've had some ideas but not the discipline to follow through.
The new game "Train Fever" was released last week. I've known about the game for a couple of years, and when the developers said the game will be mod-friendly, I started thinking of what trains I wanted to make.
Here in Norway there's a good looking train, Stadler Flirt, in a new design compared to others running in central Europe.
Took me a good while to find good reference photos. Meanwhile looking for reference photos and reaching out to the train fan community, I purchased a set of tutorials on how to do spline cage modeling/patching, and started learning how I thought would be the best way to model the train.
I went through a ton of iterations and testing for a week, trying to learn the ropes of this kind of modeling. It's completely new to me, as I've mostly been doing 2D logos into 3D, and buildings.
I did a simple planar map of the sides and front. The texture map is 2K, and consists of color, and the alpha channel tells the game what's reflective and how much it's reflecting.
In the middle, the reference photo compared to the texture made up from scratch below. Only the windows are from the reference photo, and they're working fine in-game.
A 100% crop.
After I started school (change of profession, leaving the TV and film industry after 10 years..) I'm taking this very train every day, so I've got a bit more reference pohots now. And then I noticed some differences on either side, which I've put into the textures.
Norway also celebrated the constitution being 200 years in 2014, so all their Flirt trains had a sticker that says "We're celebrating the constitution anniversary". Of course I had to add that sticker!
The bogies were made a week later. They're fine, but not awesome. A guy who's really into trains is sending me some reference photos today.
The game was released, I had my model ready, but no way to get it into the game.
A smart russian guy made an app for that. Object conversion from literally any object format (3ds, blend, lwo - my favorite!, obj and so on..) into the format the game needs.
There's a ton of stuff to learn yet, and hours of editing textfiles and testing in-game to make it all perfect. But it's getting there.
Just a test to see how it shows up in the buy train menu.
And an early test in-game. I noticed this version of the train had far too many wagons. I've cut that down to 5 in total now, like the real world train.
There's more to come. This is just the first Norwegian train I've done, and there's plenty left. Electric, diesel and steam driven.
Fairly new, but not new to 3D. I've been playing with 3D for over 10 years as a hobby, but never done any mods, all though I've had some ideas but not the discipline to follow through.The new game "Train Fever" was released last week. I've known about the game for a couple of years, and when the developers said the game will be mod-friendly, I started thinking of what trains I wanted to make.
Here in Norway there's a good looking train, Stadler Flirt, in a new design compared to others running in central Europe.
Took me a good while to find good reference photos. Meanwhile looking for reference photos and reaching out to the train fan community, I purchased a set of tutorials on how to do spline cage modeling/patching, and started learning how I thought would be the best way to model the train.
I went through a ton of iterations and testing for a week, trying to learn the ropes of this kind of modeling. It's completely new to me, as I've mostly been doing 2D logos into 3D, and buildings.
I did a simple planar map of the sides and front. The texture map is 2K, and consists of color, and the alpha channel tells the game what's reflective and how much it's reflecting.
In the middle, the reference photo compared to the texture made up from scratch below. Only the windows are from the reference photo, and they're working fine in-game.
A 100% crop.
After I started school (change of profession, leaving the TV and film industry after 10 years..) I'm taking this very train every day, so I've got a bit more reference pohots now. And then I noticed some differences on either side, which I've put into the textures.
Norway also celebrated the constitution being 200 years in 2014, so all their Flirt trains had a sticker that says "We're celebrating the constitution anniversary". Of course I had to add that sticker!
The bogies were made a week later. They're fine, but not awesome. A guy who's really into trains is sending me some reference photos today.
The game was released, I had my model ready, but no way to get it into the game.
A smart russian guy made an app for that. Object conversion from literally any object format (3ds, blend, lwo - my favorite!, obj and so on..) into the format the game needs.
There's a ton of stuff to learn yet, and hours of editing textfiles and testing in-game to make it all perfect. But it's getting there.
Just a test to see how it shows up in the buy train menu.
And an early test in-game. I noticed this version of the train had far too many wagons. I've cut that down to 5 in total now, like the real world train.
There's more to come. This is just the first Norwegian train I've done, and there's plenty left. Electric, diesel and steam driven.
Replies
Thought I could show you the real world counterpart..
As my first project to get used to the tools and ways of Modo, I made this model of a locomotive. It's an NSB El 13 from the late 50's. It came in green and red flavors.
Click here to see it in Marmoset Viewer.
Game view