[WIP] GWR 1400 Class Auto tank.
polycounter lvl 5
Two years ago, I had started modelling a 1400 Class locomotive (Some might recognise it as the character, Oliver from Thomas the Tank Engine). Work on this stopped shortly after I started working my first industry job, and recently I've decided to pick it back up again. In that time I have grown massively as an artist, so picking this back up now should be a fun side project.
Lets start with where I left off two years ago. Honestly I'd forgotten how much I had done, and for the most part it's not as bad as I was expecting it to be! A few bits are incorrect in terms of accuracy to the locomotive.
Here I've highlighted a few key issues: mainly poly-count/usage (Working from left to right)
- The band around the boiler is to big - going back over my reference this detail would be cheaper if it was just put into the normal map. Plus the chamfered edge is smoother than the rest of that piece! So this will be removed completely.
- The nut on the cap for the water tank again has more resolution than the rest of that piece, silly considering how small that is.
- On this final bit there's way to many polygons that are doing absolutely nothing! So fixing up how the supporting topology for those holes terminate will: 1)Bring down that poly-count by a fair amount. 2) Make my life a little easier. Gonna take a look at that dome thing too, geometry for that seems a bit mental!
Obviously there are more issues than I've highlighted, but it's mostly rinse and repeat. At this point the current Tri count is just over 25K.
Recently gone though and stripped the polys down and in some cases added some around the boiler and funnel. Also started remodelling the water tanks and cab as this was both incorrect and a mess. Currently sitting at 18k tris.
-Sam-
Replies
So remember when I said I was going to be posting more frequently, and then immediately didn't do that? Well I'm currently trying to get back on the poly train by Twitch streaming the process. It's given me a little bit of a change mentally as I'm not really modelling for me anymore, means I'm modelling for other people which I feel more inclined to do. So it would be cool if you could give me a follow (is that the correct terminology?) if that's something you would be interested in following!
In these twitch steams I've actually been making a fair whack of progress! A lot of the major details are done (or at least modelled), I tend to work from the top, down, hence why my wheels are still the "block out" geometry.
I've also added a the rear hatch to the back of the cab, as well as modelling the bars that cover the windows. These I'm yet to mirror over.
Previously I had bands that ran around the boiler (the cylinder in the middle) but I realised that:
I also modelled the whistles that sit just in front of the cab.
Down at the front I've now added the buffers, coupling hook and the little tool box along with the hinge for the front of the smoke box. I feel that the hook is a little on the thin side at the moment as the only reference that I have for it are at a 3/4 perspective so getting the shape right was a little difficult. I may go back and thicken it up, but I'll see how I feel about it when I come back to it.
While modelling I'm also considering how parts of the locomotives work, this means in some areas I'm setting up pivot points ahead of time, this allows me to open up areas so I can work in them; the smoke box for example.
-Sam-
So today I started to tackle the wheels, originally I was going to model them similar to how you would model the alloys for a car, with an edge of a cylinder going through the centre of a spoke and another going through the centre between spokes.
The problem with this method for this particular wheel is there's basically no point of symmetry, meaning that this method was not going to be a suitable way of modelling this. Instead what I ended up doing was modelling one spoke and then copying it around the centre.
But not all of the spokes are the same length, to get around this I made a "template" spoke which I could create instances of, position them where they needed to be and then easily manipulate the vertexes to fit correctly.
Ended up using the same method for the wheel weights.
At the moment all of the pieces are still floating geometry. Though I plan to cut and weld it all up together, just before I finish up the tire (the part of the wheel that sits on the track).
I'm very happy with how this is coming along! Not far until I start getting into the finer details.
-Sam-
So today I noticed that the wheel weights are off set from each other, which means that one wheel model is not suitable for all 4 driving wheels and a second model will need to be created as the central axle and side rod mounting is in the same orientation on both wheels.
(Wheel weights = blue / Axle and side rod mounting = Yellow)
So by rotating the tire and the spokes means that the bottom of the spokes no longer match up to the centre. Which is a little annoying, but isn't the most difficult thing to fix.
I've gone around and welded up the spokes to the outside of the wheel, I'm getting a little bit of pinching where the two meet but I'm not to worried about that has it's in a pretty small area. I'm yet to weld the spokes to the centre as I need to sort out the spokes for the other wheel first. But in the mean time I've also sorted out the shape of the tire and flange making them look smoother. At the same time I've retoped the wheel to bring the tri-count down: I'm looking to keep each wheel as close as I can to the 3k mark.
I've also started to flesh out a couple more details (as modelling wheels was getting a little dull) like adding the steps and some rings to the top of the water tanks.
In my next post I hope to have all of the wheels sorted, including the small trailing wheels. Along with the side rods, and maybe the casing that covers the tops of the wheels!
-Sam-
As the never ending modelling of wheels comes to and end, I noticed that I had positioned the second wheel incorrectly as it had a spoke going directly up and down where as there should have been a "V" at the top and bottom. This was throwing out the positioning of the cuts that I was making in the central hub. Fixing that made welding everything up a lot quicker! So now the two main driving wheels are now modelled as one continuous piece.
I also was able to quickly produce the smaller trailing wheel using the larger wheels. As the centre of the while is covered by an axle box it would be a waist of polygons to model them properly which is why there is no central geometry here.
-Sam-
With the wheels finalised, today I went about finishing up the major forms of the locomotive. Specifically the side rods and axle box for the rear trailing wheels.
With all of the major forms now done I can start to produce all of the finer details; railings, steps, suspension, piping, bolts and the like. I started off with the sanders. These are fairly detailed due to there size and position, when I get this into unreal these will be just under eye level, so the poly usage is justified.
Total tri-count at the moment is 57.7k - so I've used just over half of my planned exterior budget. Which should be enough for me to get all of the piping work in, as that will end up being the killer!
-Sam-
-Sam-
I've altered my post processing I do to these renders, which is why they look a little different. Unsure if I'll keep them this way. Though note, .gifs wont have this same process... to much work.
I've made a fair whack of progress this weekend, mostly getting some of the finer details; pipes, hooks, lap irons and such. Some of these details are a-symmetrical such a piping and taps around the front of the smoke box, others are mirrored like steps and grab handles.
He're I've added more detail to the under frame, this was mainly suspension but also includes the sanding mechanism for the front wheels!
First little bit of piping work, admittedly the top part of this is a little made up as there's a pretty big gap in my reference for this side of the loco at this angle.
Added the only detail that is necessary to the smokebox, which is the locking mechanism. The fire tubes will be added in the texture as it will also be pretty dark in there as I intend to texture this with lots of soot!
-Sam-
This will be the only piece of high poly geometry on the model that will get baked. Every other normal that I'll do will be painted in Quixel.
The model however is very nearly complete! The only thing left to do at this stage is the brake and break linkage, along with a couple of additional piping for them.
Current tri-count is between 75k-80k (this is not including the high poly number board), so I'm on point to be under my 100k limit! Which will mean that I may be able to go around and add some bolts to use up the remaining budget.
-Sam-
I have also thought about adding a bit more detail to the inside of the smoke box as there's a little bit more going on that I had originally understood so adding these bits of detail would make a nice edition.
Here is a reminder of how the smoke box looks currently.
As you can see there's a little bit more going on inside.
I'm looking forward to adding these little bits of detail
-Sam-
Today I've added the missing details in the smoke box from my last post, a small and picky detail but will be spotted if opened!
Additionally I've now also added the brake rig and shoes. The inclusion of this means that I've had to re-arrange the piping for the front sand dispensers as they actually sit behind the brake arm.
I'm unsure where or not to include this pipe that runs up the left hand side of the cab; the locomotive that I'm representing (1450) doesn't seem to have it but other locomotives of the same class do. So I'm unsure to model for the many, and not for the view (if that makes sense) though removing it will give me back some polygons that are becoming increasingly sparse. But equally I like the detail and the way it looks.
I'm beginning to get close to the end, at the moment I've finished all of the piping and major details. The only thing left to do is figure out the driving mechanism and break linkage.
Current tri count: 81.5k feeling good about what's left, I may even go back over and add some more details to various areas, depending on how much of the budget is left after producing the driving mechanism.
-Sam-
I'm down to the last final details, most of what I've done today has been more of the mechanical aspects of the locomotives, specifically the brake system and the cylinder and valve gear both of which have been set up to animate.
There's not a whole lot of movement in the braking mechanism, about 5 degrees of so the movement will be subtle.
The crank and valve gears took a while to set up and animate correctly, the animation in the gif below is a bit rough, but once I have rigged and skinned the model I'll have to redo it. But thankfully as this will be mostly in shadow I don't have to worry about it to much.
I've thrown in a plane with some noise on it. I plan to make a coal texture using Alchemist. I'm unsure whether or not I'll be using any POM as it's pretty expensive, though I may use it for renders, alternatively I could through some geometry in there to give it a bit of additional high and detail.
The current tri-count 86.5k! So to finish the model off I'm going to go around adding 3d bolts where they're needed, I may even give geometry to some of the rivets but most are going to be put into the normal map. Hopefully in the next post I'll have a completed model and a couple of renders out from UE4.
-Sam-
I hit my first major milestone yesterday which is getting the exterior modelling completed. So here's some renders of the finished model:
Model is currently sitting at 96k tris, which is great! Gives me a little bit of wiggle room when I comes to the interior mesh which will be similar in tri-count but if needs be I do have an extra 4k tris in my belt. I've also set myself up an unreal project and threw the mesh in just to see how it looks; see if I was getting any weird reflection errors or light pinching, which there was none!
For a bit of fun and change of pace I started to sculpt the scene a little, but I haven't had much thought on what I'm going to be doing with it. Maybe I'll go with a typical British country side with a small forrest, perhaps a happy little stream? We'll see how it goes, but in preparation for this I have grabbed myself the Environment Set from NatureManufacture from the Epic Marketplace (which at the time of writing was FREE! Absolute steal.) So I'm looking forward to using those.
But for now I just have my train, and a hill.
So up next is packing the all of the UV islands into their little box. But I am going to interject a step just before that - that would seem a little weird... Rigging. Well specifically skeleton set up since all of my pivot points for animation are in the correct places now, I wouldn't want to lose those when I attach everything together so I'm going to save myself a headache now and pop in the required dummies ahead of time.
As for the UE scene it's very basic at the moment, just a sky light and a directional light which is why it's looking a bit flat but that's all to come.
Looking forward to getting some colour onto the model!
-Sam-
I've finally finished the UV mapping. Really looking forward to getting some textures done soon!
I've ended up splitting the locomotive into two textures for the main body: one deals with all of the main details + plus areas of the model that will need the most Normal painting work done to it, as this will be easy to work with in NDo. This will be a 4k texture.
The second is all of the undeframe and wheels as any normals I will be doing for this will either be baked, or made in substance. This one will be a 2k texture.
For how there's a fair whack of free UV space, but most likely I'll give some smaller objects a bit more resolution during texturing to make it pop a little more. But we'll see how it goes.
-Sam-
I've just gone through can completed creating the normals for the model.
I find that using NDO in the Quixel Suite is a lot quicker and easier than baking from a high poly mesh. Normally creating a high poly mesh takes about a week, this normal texture took just a couple of hours. Admittedly there are some areas of the texture (like the number board) which I have done the traditional high to low bake, as that was going to give a better result. But most of this page is just standard shapes (mostly circles due to the metric fuck ton for rivets) and NDO gives you a greater control for this.
I have then converted that map into a "fine" AO map, which I will be using as a mask in substance, as well as an additional overlay to the main AO.
I'm going to be baking the main AO map soon, which has needed some consideration as parts of the mesh are going to move. These parts need to be separated for baking so we don't get any weirdness later on down the line. For this I have split out the mesh like so:
I'm Looking forward to getting the mesh into Substance Painter and getting some colour onto it! Which should happen in the next couple of days if I get time!
-Sam-
Got some texturing on the go today, just sorting out base colours to start off with before I do roughness variations and grime. Not textured the under-frame at all really, but for rendering purposes I threw a material on it to get rid of the garish pink I use to see what I have yet to texture.
At the moment it looks like a toy model, but it is amazing how much of a difference colour makes!
-Sam-
Just as small update today, I sorted out the base colours for the under frame for real this time! Still looks a bit like a toy train for now though, But once I have sorted the "GWR" pin striping and the loco number on the front and rear, I'll be ready to get this dirty!
-Sam-
I'm not saying "Why didn't you do one of those?!" or "Do one of those!", I'm just curious is all.
Also, are you going to make any rolling stock for it? Like an Autocoach, or maybe even a Slip Coach?
I don't have any plan for rolling stock at the moment, though it's not out of the realms of possibility
I'm glad you've enjoyed this thread
I've finally got around to throwing some dirt on to this thing. I've also found a nice way of getting a paint brush stroke effect using some of the filters in Substance Painter, which are subtle but give a really nice close up detail. Along with this I've added a slight normal warping to the sides, which give's the metal an uneven surface, again this is quite subtle bit should look nice once I move into UE.
(The level of dirt I was going for)
(example of the paint strokes)
The following renders are out of Substance Painter.
Textures: Main bodywork 4096x4096
(Base Colour)
(Metal)
(Roughness)
(AO)
(Normals)
Textures: Underframe 2048x2048
(Base Colour)
(Metal)
(Roughness)
(AO)
(Normals)
Note: The Metal, Roughness and AO maps are combined into a single map for use in engine.
I'm going to be doing some renders out of UE some time soon, I'm also looking into using Substance Alchemist to make myself a nice tilling Coal map, and with that the exterior will be completed!
-Sam-
I noticed that my AO output from substance is incorrect so I've corrected that, it's a small but important change.
Also for fun I (my computer) spent the last 7 hours doing an 4K render, was it worth it? Probably not:
-Sam-
Small post this evening.
I've just dropped the texture into unreal.
For now I'm not a fan of the current lighting, though this is the scene you get with the starter content for now. So I'm not getting any nice screen space reflections from a terrain, so it should get better with time. Some of the rust is coming out a bit strong some I'm going to go in and knock that back a touch, but I'm glad to see it in engine finally.
-Sam-
Yeah that's the plan, I did start an environment further up but I've not done anything to it yet.
Today I gave Substance Alchemist a go, I used it to create the Coal texture for the bunker. Now usually you would do something like this in designer, but I feel like this bitmap to material on steroids is pretty good for those who haven't really got time to dive into the spaghetti of designers node system. So I thought I would give this a go.
To start I just grabbed an image of coal from google. I was interested to see how well the tilling filters worked so I didn't go out of my way to find an image that would tile, and ended up using this image:
Started off by removing as much of the lighting information that I could.
I then added an adjustment layer to the bring back some of the dark colour.
Next came the tilling filter which did an ok job at removing seams, but there was a very noticeable tile.
The make it tile advanced helped to sort that. There's some larger chunks that I wanted to content aware out, but at the time the programme wasn't having any of it, but once that's working I may go back in and do that to help even more.
I then used the gravel generator to fill in some of the gaps.
And finally a small layer of dust just to bring it all together,
from left to right: Base colour, Metalness, Roughness, AO, Normal, Height.
Over all I'm quite pleased with the final result, and I quite like the work flow of Alchemist, it will be really useful for basing out quick materials!
That's all for now, I'm almost ready to get going with the cab modelling now so that should be fun!
-Sam-
Decided to bust out some Track to put the locomotive on. I've modelled it with the intention of making a spline component so I can quickly throw down some curved track which should look pretty nice. Which is why I have a decent amount of geometry running down the length of the model for cleaner bending.
I painted the rail in Substance Painter, created a tilling sleeper texture in Substance Alchemist and the ballast texture was grabbed off of textures.com as they have a really nice Granite Gravel 3d scaned texture which I wanted to try out.
I've also updated my version of unreal to 2.24 and was trying out some of the new automotive lighting scenes with the model and it's amazing what some decent lighting does the model, so I'm going to bring my project over and use some of the new sky lights that's available and see if I can get a similar result to these.
-Sam-