Sd40-2 Grand Announcement!

Hee-hee, one of these days I'm gonna get around to joining the procrastinator's club too. Anybody living in a cave who missed it, Microsoft has a content update:
http://microsoftgamesinsider.com/TrainSimulator/InsideTrainSimulator/TrainSim_v1.2ContentUpdate.htmThat includes some new cars and an drop-dead gorgeous SD40-2 made by the artisans at Train Artisan. After picking my jaw up off the floor I had to reskin it for the PO&N, so I did, and forgot to make the announcement (too many irons in the fire) after uploading last week.IT'S HERE!! IT'S WOW!! IT'S HOLY COW!!
PORT OGDEN AND NORTHERN NEW SD40-2S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!There, now I feel better, don't you? I uploaded these last weekend, kept meaning to announce them, kept forgetting.Look for ponsd402.zip in the file library, includes 3 reskins in assorted states of deferred maintenance.#1953, in the usual PO&N maintenance style (sandblast the grease, coal dust, and swamp muck off, then run off the end of Switchback Bridge to rinse with salt water):#2369, hasn't been in service as long:
Awright, who's the wise guy who snuck the competition's engine into my screenshot?!#2380, almost fresh from the paint shop:All 3 engines include a slightly customized version of the TA cabview, requires the MS/TA SD40-2_content_update.exe installed (if you have MSTS 1.2 you already have it).

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

RE: SD40-2 GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!, ghosty12, Nov-02-02, 01:04 PM, (1) RE: SD40-2 GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!, sniper297, Nov-02-02, 10:54 PM, (2) RE: SD40-2 GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!, ghosty12, Nov-02-02, 11:50 PM, (3) RE: SD40-2 GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!, Hobart, Nov-03-02, 04:23 AM, (4) RE: SD40-2 GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!, dejoh, Nov-03-02, 09:05 AM, (5) RE: ACK!!! DEJOH THE THREAD KILLER STRIKES AGAIN!!!!!!!, sniper297, Nov-03-02, 04:01 PM, (6) RE: SD40-2 GRAND ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!, TrainFreak, Nov-03-02, 04:21 PM, (7)

Conferences | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

Wow man nice work very nice indeed, wish I could get my weathering to look like yours, also did you see the bit on trainartisans site, bout how to change the headlight position from the nose to between the number boards, just by changing the alpha's and editing the eng file but it does look good again nice work.CheersLeith

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Yeah, they included some really neat little customizing tricks, I think there's even an invisible horn on the cab roof, and you can paint over the alpha to hide the other horn.As far as the weathering, browsing thru the "MSTS Engine & Livery Skinning" forum for tips is a good idea, Paint Shop Pro is the best money I ever spent on a graphics program, but in the end the only way to develop the touch (and I don't have it yet, not really) is to practice, practice, practice. Basically all I do is play around with it when I need to take a break from that @%&*#! route editor, and fiddle with all the tools available to find out what does what. Brains and talent are nice things to have, but I don't let the fact that I have neither stop me, because persistence and determination are omnipotent.
First thing to play with are the opacity, step, density, and hardness settings, if the spray is mostly transparent you can hold the mouse button down longer for heavier coverage, or just quick shpritz for subtle texturing. Rust is mostly go to the orange region and move the two circles around, I spray a little light orange, move the circle to darker, spray over it again, move it to more gray or move the other circle more towards the red or yellow end of the orange region, spray again, you know, play with it.
Another thing I'm fiddling with is the selection tools, dragging rectangles or the lasso tool around some areas and playing with drop shadows, texturing effects, color balance, brightness & contrast, or even copying and pasting from other pictures, giving it that "replaced door with cannibalized part from another engine" look.The main thing is to remember it's a hobby, so the whole process of learning how to do it and getting better at it should be fun.
First skins in PO&N colors were done by Kevin "Cadman" Shea, a man with a lot of talent. Foreground are his SD40s #12 and #18, real nice subtle weathering. Upper right was the first one I did that I thought was good enough to upload, GP38 #297 "Rustoleum Reject", looks like the thing ran thru a bunch of barbed wire fences on the way to crashing into a salt pile. #1953 looks much better, but it still isn't as realistic looking to me as Cadman's early SD40s. That's OK tho, I ain't competing with anyone, it's a hobby, not a job. I may or may not ever come up with something that looks as good as what Cadman did, but it's a benchmark to aim for. As long as we're having fun with it, that's the most important thing.

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Cool thankyou for the info, will make it alot easier to get to grips with the paint progs, which is my main prob cause they always look great when you paint it's when you put them into MSTS that it comes out either looking great or rubbish, but nice work on the locos very cool.CheersLeith P

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I liked your SD40-2 so much I went and downloaded one. I liked the cab o.k. except it was hard to see out of. So I did a hatchet job on it, spent to much time makin the route to have it all covered up by the cab view. Realism be damned

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Like this cab very much, can we see it in the download files? Sooner or later we might see a standard cab for the SD40-2 locomotive, and I can quit changing it to the next improvement from the last. Very nice work, I too like to see most of the route. Well back to watching Von Ryan's Express.Dejoh

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Hee-hee, good luck getting a standard cab, look how many versions of the geep38 cabview there are. I'm with Hobart on this one, I like a reasonably realistic view, but compromise is a must to actually see outside. I suspect most route developers have a different "viewpoint" than the loco designers, they want to see backheads & fireboxes & gauges, we wanna see our pretty scenery. I've been working off&on trying to make a compromise steam cab view, moving the engineer's eyeballs up to that front right window looking forward, instead of sitting in the coal scuttle on the tender. Not much luck yet, lots of stuff that has to be moved around.That SD40-2 cabview was subtly wrong from day one, I can't really say I improved it much, but I just got an idea.You want to get that hood repositioned and the view aligned correctly, put two engines face to face and align it from there. This pic makes it obvious, it's too low, and the hood needs to be moved down a little and twisted to the left. Or something, I dunno. Every time I look at it I think it needs something different. Anyway, thing to do is park one engine facing another, save the activity and exit, hack the .cvf file, reload the activity (so it loads your changes), try again until you get disgusted and say "that's close enough".

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Is that the cab from the v1.2 addon or a Dekosoft cab?
If it is the v1.2 cab, what values did you use to create that view?

Alert | IP

[ Home | MSTS Forum | MSTS FAQ | File Library ] Copyright © 2002 by Nels Anderson. All Rights Reserved.