GE AC4400CW Train Engine

ariofighter

Hello everyone. This is my first post here on polycount.com. I have seen a great volume of work on this forum and have been lurking around for a while. I figured I will only get feedback by posting so here we go.

After seeing the movie Unstoppable the other day I was inspired to create the "Enemy Train" from this movie. It took me some time to find out the model that they used int he movie. I believe it was the GE AC4400CW. Like many other vehicles there are several different versions out there. I am trying to keep it as close to just one of the models as possible.

I am going to end up with a game mesh that can be used as a large scale prop for perhaps a train yard environment.

I have been working on it for the past few days so I will post up the wips up until where I am now.

So to stop myself from rambling on, here are the images.

Ludix

Looks great dude, love the old diesel trains! One thing I would say is, the left side front of the engine, underneath the window needs something to fill that space. Maybe a vent like on the otherside, or maybe when you've textured it, a company logo could go there, it just seems a little empty otherwise.

Nice work man,
George

ariofighter

Ludix: You have a good eye for seeing what is missing. There needs to be some paneling there that I haven't done yet. Very similar to what would be the passenger side. I also realized after staring at these renders that I need to add the couplings (I'm not sure of their official name) that allow the train to connect to the other cars.

Thanks a lot for your feedback and ill be working on it more over the thanksgiving weekend. Nothing like modeling while eating turkey.

ariofighter

I'm nearly finished with the high poly now, but its reaching a poly count that doesn't like to render well on my pc. So I started working on the low poly mesh. I am building it trying to keep in mind how I can reuse as many elements as possible. Things like the headlights, ladder handles, train wheels, etc.

I did have a question regarding meshes this large. Would it be better to put the main body segments onto its own texture page, and the other accessories on a second, or just place everything on a single large page. I just worry about the much smaller parts loosing texture space and res when next to the MUCH larger body panels. Any suggestions would be awesome.

Contrails

Great model ! Some of the edge loops are unnecessary on the low poly - for example the rectangularish looking thing on the roof towards the aft or the front light - a lot of those details would transfer well from a normal bake so there's no need to model them in

Also how many sides do you have on those railings? For something as small as that you probably wouldn't need more than 6 or 8 using smoothing groups

As for your texture question, you'll definitely want to map those reused elements to the same uv space and I'd go with a large texture size.

roosterMAP

lookin good! the wheels on the HP need a lot of work. Even if it deviates from the concept a bit, you should add more "tech noise." This is essentially a higher density of detail that will give a contrast from the flat plates of metal the rest of the train is filled with. Its these contrasts that make models look nicer. I use this in many of my models.

Take a look at my train as an example:
http://plaza.ufl.edu/rooster/individual_assets.html

ariofighter

Contrails: All of my railings on the low poly are only 6 sided. I was thinking about going as low as 4 and angling them, but I really thought that would be pushing it. When it comes to those large square pannals on top, I am going back and forth. On the actual train they are a fairly large (thick) panel. So they may need to have some real thickness to them. I guess the final poly count will help dictate the result of that one.

roosterMAP: I couldn't agree with you more. In fact that is where I have had one of my biggest conflicts. What details should be removed for the sake of budget. However the more I mess with it, the more I know something needs to be there. I also want to thank you for showing me your model. I really like how you filled in the space and made everything feel like it had a purpose.

I now have several new things to add to the high poly model. Not a bad thing, it will only add to the final build really. Thank both of you very much for your feedback.

Snader

How many polies are you aiming for and how many do you have now? This relates to how to separate textures and modules.

ariofighter

Snader: Right now, I am sitting at 13k quads, 26k tris. This is not counting the piping and tech that I will be adding near the wheels. However the majority of that will be 4-5 sided cylinders so they may not add up to much.

I would like to keep it under 30-35k tris if at all possible. I don't think that's too bad for a mesh this large and with this amount of detail.

A new question has come of this. The pipes that will run on the undercarriage of the train wont be important enough to all have their own unique texture space. So would it make sence to almost make a series of modular pipes and rig them together after their baked?

ariofighter

New update on the high poly. I added some tech in the wheel section. I'm still debating the "modular pipes" as apposed to unique pipes in the low poly section. I also filled in the front and rear "bumper" sections if you will.

I'm sorry these are not renders, I just did some screen grabs. They have a rough idea of the shading that is caused by the smoothing being on. My pc has had some problems rendering large poly scenes any more. Max likes to crash. I'm guessing I need more ram.

Any who, I will keep progressing on the low poly mesh threw the weekend. My goal for myself is to have the bake done by Monday and texturing done by the end of next week.

I'm still not 100% how to handle the texture pages. At the moment I'm leaning towards the two pages, one for the main body panels, and a smaller for the other accessories.

On that note, here is the newest image.

Snader

I'd go for 3 maps - 1 large for the main body, combined with a small (256²?) detail map, and a second large one for the props.

I'd put all those boxes in there as floating objects I think, with a lot of mirrored and rotated textures you can get very far with relatively few (10 or so panel types) different textures:

Possibly using insets for the ones with grating, it might be a bit more flexible and efficient to have 1 grate texture, and you can put small object in the holes where the grate would normally be in the red green and yellow objects.

I'd also go and instance the wheels, stairsteps, ladder type bars and possibly I'm forgetting a couple of objects. 2 or 3 variations should be enough per object type.

What perspective are you going for? FPS standing on the ground? Have a camera at the expected viewing angle, you might be able to optimize based on that (less bevels on things on top - for instance. Oh and how many sides are your railings?

roosterMAP

love the added detail. it looks great! cant wait to see it textured!

ariofighter

Snader: Thanks a lot for the paint over. It really didn't even occcur to me to segment the main body like that. I think the main reason was I was planning on baking in the panels as apposed to having them modeled. However if I model them it would shrink the size of the large mesh and allow for more detailed smaller meshes. (I'm not really sure if I said that right, but it made sense in my head.)

And from what I have been reading lately, tri count is becoming less of an issue when compared to proper texture space and texture usage. Not that tri count isn't important, but you know what I mean.

To answer a few of your questions, I was thinking of it being a prop with a FPS view. So you could climb on it maybe. All of my railings are 6 sided. 8 seemed almost unnecessary, but 4 seemed to low.

I have to rework the unwrap I did last night, but I think this method that you are recommending will make it much more efficient.

I think I am going to unwrap the whole train in max and then space out the pages afterwords. I don't want to miss anything. I could then also place everything on texture maps based on pixel density and such.

roosterMAP: Looking at the added details on your Locomotive was a big help. I also really like the way your renders game out. Everything looks so....heavy, for the lack of a better word. Everything feels so grounded.


Quick new question, If I did not normal map the doors directly to the train, is there any way I could place a large logo on the train? I don't know if its possible but maybe using a second unwrap as a "decal" map. I don't think a simple decal sheet would work because it is not a single flat surface. What do you think?

ariofighter

So I have been a little stumped on how to make the large painted details if I break the body apart into a series of tiling bits. I also wasn't sure how to ask the question, or explain my situation. So below will be a picture of a "real" paintjob on the train. How could I replicate this paintjob if I divide it into "modular" sections. Mainly the large letter sections. The Colored Sections I can figure out.

roosterMAP

here's something that should be useful to you:

http://www.ilyanedyal.com/images/big/train_low_big.jpg
http://www.ilyanedyal.com/images/big/train_big.jpg
http://www.ilyanedyal.com/images/textures/train.jpg

ariofighter

Well it was a long process, and it took several days longer then I had wanted, but I was able to finish my low poly and bake out my normals. I need to clean them up a bit, but once I realized you could bring your own cage into xNormal, I was a happy man.

Anyway, I am now sitting at 45k Tris, witch is a bit over my original limit. This was however set before I had planned on actually modeling the individual panel doors. I had tried baking the whole body onto a single map, but it needed to be 4k by 4k just to kind of hold up.

I know I said it already, but the stats at the moment.

45k Tris, so around 23k Polys.
2 2248x2048 Normals

I have started my diffuse maps, but they are so basic at the moment there is no point in showing yet. So here are two images.

The first is a screen grab with the Xoliul shader. The second is a mental ray render to show my topology.

Thanks a lot for every ones help so far.

ariofighter

I know its only been 12 hours and I slept somewhere in there, but I wanted to post a quick pic of a rough color block out. I am liking the orange/black combo. But a solid black wouldn't read to well, so I'm going with a dark gray instead.

There is a lot of work to do changing the base of each material to get enough contrast. At the moment there is just a single base metal across the whole train. A slight adjustment on a few of the bits has been made.

Thanks everyone and of course I welcome any C&C

ariofighter

I'm working on a small scene to put the train in. I found it after digging for reference photos online. It was a sketch that game up in a Google image search. I am not sure who the artist was, but it was not me.

Any feedback would be great. Thanks.

Mr. Brightside

The wheel flanges are too long, they need to be shorter;

ariofighter

I picked up a copy of the Marmoset Tool bag. It's a great tool. Not that I'm sure everyone on here doesn't know that.

Here is a quick update on the train. I am working on dirtying up the texture. I also plan on denting up the metal via the normal map.

I look forward to hearing any C&C. Thanks a lot everyone.

roosterMAP

the contrast on your specular isnt high enough. neight is it bright enough. That why theres not material differentiation. Nor is there enough shine on the metal.

also, on the metal, there is no "unique detail." What I mean is it kinda looks like you just slapped a base metal texture. I dont see enough detail that suggests events the material went through. Like dirt near the base, rust leaking out from between plates and vents, dents on corners, algea where water accumulates.

What helps me for texturing is I try to make a list of everywhere my object could go, and try to associate a specific detail with each of those environments/locations. For example, if your train is active in tropical areas, I would assume water and mud is a problem. If your train works in industrial areas, graffiti is an obvious addition. Also, pollutants and dust create a thin layer of black shit that accumulates all over the surface of the train. This stuff can then be smeared, washed off by water... you get the idea.

Also, these are other great examples of trains.
http://www.ilyanedyal.com/images/big/train_low_big.jpg
http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g70/6170/6170_1234014087_large.jpg

And here's my tut I made a while ago. I want too good at it back then, but the info is solid: http://vimeo.com/11100774




One last that: that background you are using to frame your render looks very bad. You know this, I know this; get rid of it.

ariofighter

It has been a long long time since I have worked on my train. I decided to come back again and work on it because it seemed like such a waste of a good high poly model and not have it completed, that and a few good crits of my portfolio told me I should finish it.

So I went back to the drawing board with my low poly model and how I broke down, well everything. This time I have come back with a model that uses both less texture space and has a smaller poly count.

It is sitting right now at 37,000 tris. That is a drop of about 8k tris from my first. I know that is still a lot, am I am still cutting out tris here and there. I also went from 2 2k maps to a single 2k map. I am building the texture on a 4k map, but I plan to save it down smaller in the end. There is a mild loss in sharpness, but it isn't too noticeable.

All that is done now is just re-blocked out the paint scheme and am deciding on paint colors. I am figuring for this project I will go with a more realistic paint scheme, as apposed to my black and orange texture from before. It will also make the dirt and grime easier to see in the end.

Well enough of me rambling on here is my updated WIP image.



On a side note, I would like to get this into the Marmoset Tool bag but for some reason when I try to export this as an obj out of max it stops at "preparing poly mesh" or something like that. Its the first load bar. Does anyone know what that means?

wasabi

ariofighter // Hey.. I have been also doing one of the train engines of my own lately. I am really curious to see the whole process of this bad ass being done.
Like you, I am thinking about using just one single 2K texture map for the whole thing and bake as many pieces(like the cabinets and stuff) as possible on the body part.
I am not ready to post the stuff yet. But once I finish my high poly, it would be very helpful if you took a look at it and gave some crits.
Anyways, nice stuff..
I can't wait to see this thing gets textured...

ajr2764

Yea you should finish this piece I wouldn't scrap it at all, its a well done model. I really like the new direction with the color scheme which I see resembles one of the references. I could see how a train like this would consume alot of polys, guess it all depends on what purpose it serves in game and how the player is going to view it.

ariofighter

So here is a new updated textured version. I am happy with the way it coming, it still feels way more like a "real" train then my previous version.

I have tried to dirty up the texture, remove paint and add some overall dirt and grime. I am focusing on the body for now, the wheels and "suspension" will be done last.

I am having a bit of trouble working on what will be such a large object, mainly because I have always worked on small individual props. It takes damage and wear I feel very differently then a smaller pillar or fire hydrant or what have you. However instead of having a whole 1k or 2k texture for a small prop, I have to make it fit a whole large object. A fun challenge but still proving to have its issues.

Any who, to stop myself from rambling on, here is an updated image. Please any feedback would be greatly welcome.