Thursday 28 January 2010

Project Platform

Have been working on a new vessel for Captain Bazza, which is for the new Project Platform route, in aid of the Railway Children's Charity.



Have also started a model myself, of a dump truck, which is required for the route, but I don't think it will be ready on time. I've never unwrapped something this big before, so could take a while.

Sunday 24 January 2010

Textures

Texturing the tower didn't prove as difficult as I thought, so its now in game.


Whilst doing the texturing I decided to implement something I've been thinking about for a while. I like the fact that Stencil Shadows help to give a 3d feel to the model, anchoring it to the terrain., but, in common with many others, I find them difficult to do and not the best form of shadow effect. In particular, I hate the shadows being cast at night, as it seems somewhat less than prototypical, especially when they are cast onto the surface of a light beam. Consequently I now add the _ fx_day extension to my shadows, so they only appear during the day.

On the subject of textures, Gary used some of the US assets which don't have winter textures, so asked if I could make some? Making winter textures is easy with the help of RWTools, but the problem is getting the game to recognise they are there. Took me a while to work out but I came to realise that in the .geopcdx file is a line like this, for objects without winter textures.

textures\[00]us_road_dirt_1lane

But, if you change the [00] to [08], then winter textures will be recognised, so problem solved.

Wednesday 20 January 2010

What time is it?

On Google Earth is a model of the Prince Albert Memorial clock tower, in The Square, Barnstaple, and I thought it may transfer to Railworks, with a little effort.

Unfortunately it ran to 30000 polys, so I decided to make my own. I managed to complete the model in 2550 polys.



I also animated the hands, but I suspect there may be a better way as my .bin files don't look like the Kuju ones. Still, it works.

I was very pleased to complete the model in one day, but I suspect the texturing will take considerably longer!

Friday 15 January 2010

Heritage

Just completed my version of the Barnstaple Heritage Centre.



A fairly low quality version, but I hope it gives the right feel.



Barnstaple Heritage Centre is housed in the grade I and II listed "Queen Anne's Walk" building on the riverfront. Once a merchant's walkway (the Great Quay once cut in in front of the collonade). In 1709 the fancy stonework and statue of Queen Anne was added. The building behind the Colonnade was built in the 1850s and has been used as a baths & wash-house, a masonic lodge and a day-centre, but has now been given a new lease of life as Barnstaple Heritage Centre.