The shipping news

I've been helping CaptainBazza get a couple of new vessels into Railworks. The first is the MV Infanta, a small cargo ship made for a new route based in Cantabria.



The second is a sailing vessel used to ferry cargo up the River Taw to Barnstaple and was a request of mine for inclusion in the L&B route. Should be appearing alongside Rolle Quay (when I finish Rolle Quay)

East of Barnstaple Station

At last. Finished the block of buildings to the east of Barnstaple Station

As it was

My version

Crane again

Crane is now in the game.



Must try animating it sometime, should be fun trying to get the "level luffing" system working. Still, must get back to L&B before Gary and the guys get annoyed with me, but it made a nice change.

I love cranes

Absolutely nothing to do with Lynton & Barnstaple, but I love cranes and when somebody on UKTS asked for one of these, I couldn't resist the challenge!

Texturing still to do, so will be a little while yet. Wish I could bake some shadows, wonder if 3dsMax will ever do a pensioners version?

Level Crossing

Very impressed with AndiS' lua script for opening level crossings. Couldn't resist trying it on Braunton Crossing.

Barnstaple Electric Light

Having just finished the Barnstaple Electric Light Works, just thought I'd add a bit of interest with an electric vehicle to go with it.

The vehicle livery is in the same style as the original but I had to guess the colour scheme.

Let there be light

A new asset for the roadside, to add a bit of illumination.

Some difficulty with the transparent textures trying to avoid alpha sorting problems. Not sure I've completely solved this one but I am pleased with the lighting effect on the post itself, showing light in the beam and dark outside.

Davies Tyre Works

Just completed my latest addition to the route, Davies Tyre Works.


Has taken a while, as the research material consisted of the black & white aerial shot, above, when it was still a seed merchants, and a couple of partial views glimpsed in the background of Barnstaple Station photos.

As nothing remains of this site (now a telephone exchange) and it was modified by 1935 (my period of interest), it was something of a jump into the unknown, both structurally and texture wise.

Anyway here's my take on the subject.

What fix?

Having created a new boat in Railworks and reading that RSDL have fixed the problems with the pathways for boats, I thought it was an ideal opportunity to make a new boat path for RW.

Well that didn't work. The model, in game, is still turned inside out and the wrong way round, so what they fixed I don't know.

On closer examination it seems they have solved the problem of extra boats being generated at track joints.

PS Carrier

Todays problem is to help CaptainBazza export one of his models into the game. This is the Paddle ship Carrier, which used to work the Isle of Wight ferry in the 19th century.

Checked the model and materials, exported to igs then added particle effects in blueprint editor and voila!

Story to date...

About 10 months ago Gary Soden, who I worked with on the Westvale route for MSTS, asked if I wanted to help create a route for RS. I agreed and so we started the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.

It's been a long learning curve, starting with 3DCanvas then RS itself. As it's mainly single track, with its own specific rolling stock, we felt the route would have limited appeal for scenario/rolling stock creators, therefore we decided to make the route as prototypical as possible. Hopefully, this would do justice to one of the UK's signature NG routes. We also chose to model the line just prior to its closure in 1935, when under Southern ownership.

The choice of prototypical has generated its own difficulties, particularly in researching the line as it was during the 1930's, but much help has been received from Keith Vingoe, the archivist for the L&B. In a similar manner, as a first time 3dc modeller, I knew I couldn't produce all the items necessary for a prototypical route, so a number of people from the UKTS forum have kindly agreed to provide content.

I would like to give them a mention here in thanks, they are...

Barry (CaptainBazza), Brian (BWalker), Chris (Ferrisybuga), David (Longbow), John (Johny), Kevin (Kevmt), Mike (sp762)

So, where are we today? The track is laid and I've produced over 20 bridges to represent the 80 that were on the route, the latest being the Taw viaduct which was created as a loft with the uprights as separate scenery items. The uprights had to be made separate because the bridge curves, but the uprights are all parallel to each other, so couldn't be part of the loft as geometry items.


We are currently concentrating on Barnstaple, trying to reproduce as many of the buildings as possible, before we head out into the countryside. Its time consuming work and will take a while, but we'll get there!

In view of the length of time we envisage the route will take, it is now being developed in Railworks as that is the format supported by RSDL and we want to take advantage of any improvements that arise.

Welcome

Hi,

I'm currently helping to re-create the Lynton & Barnstaple railway for the Railworks train simulator, and hope to post the details of some of my trials and tribulations as I go along.