Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues

LAST EDITED ON Sep-11-03 AT 06:00 PM (EDT)

Hey all,Been making great progress on a caboose project and I am to the point I need a coupler. I dl'd Larry's excellent piece for 3Dcanvas, as it's better than I could likely do, but ran into a problem. Apparently he used a different scale as it is tiny. (I build in feet, not meters)I looked around on the Amabilis forum and found how to scale an object made from multiple pieces, but it doesn't work for me. I end up with the thing being one big brick. (alt/click on the group all the pieces are in highlights the entire object fine. It doesn't scale correctly though.)I also dl'd the 3DS part hoping I could get that to scale, but no dice there either. (That one is HUGE btw... )Does anybody (Larry?) have this coupler scaled for use in feet? Or, can someone try and convert it since I am having no luck?Also, I have extruded the trucks to get a nice looking piece and ended up with trucks running at 1500 polys. So, I started merging faces on the front and deleting the nonvisible parts. I am not getting much of a reduction however. And, to top it off, the textures are getting distorted when I merge a large, oddly shaped area. See pic;The truck should be a mirror image from left to right.Any thoughts or tips on extruding these things and getting a bit lower number of polys?Edit-I should note that when in wireframe mode, the truck frames look fine. The shape is correct. It only gets funky when I return to "smooth".Thanks,
Todd

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RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, ssw, Sep-11-03, 07:17 PM, (1) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, xlspecial261, Sep-11-03, 07:50 PM, (2) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, pwillard, Sep-11-03, 11:28 PM, (3) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, xlspecial261, Sep-11-03, 11:37 PM, (5) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, BN_9402, Sep-11-03, 11:36 PM, (4) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, pwillard, Sep-12-03, 06:34 AM, (6) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, xlspecial261, Sep-12-03, 07:21 AM, (7) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, ssw, Sep-12-03, 08:44 AM, (8) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, pwillard, Sep-12-03, 04:41 PM, (9) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, Vulcan Foundry, Sep-14-03, 07:54 PM, (10) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, plainsman, Sep-15-03, 05:02 PM, (11) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, xlspecial261, Sep-15-03, 11:19 PM, (12) RE: Larry Goss' coupler/ extruded truck issues, xlspecial261, Sep-16-03, 10:51 AM, (13)

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Is that what I think it is? If so, COOL!

Bradley Linda
Waco, Texas

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>Is that what I think it is? If so, COOL! Yes, it is.I scrapped the old one and made a new one yesterday. The trucks are the stumbling block right now.Otherwise, it's pretty close to done other than I'm not happy with the textures I made for it.Todd

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Just keep at it. I had a horrible time with trucks myself. Practice... Step 1 Try something out.
step 2 throw it away
Step 3 practice some more...
Step 4 go to step 1That's how *I* learned.Also... I only work in meters... I have a handy calculator and I convert every meassurement. It's just easier for me since decimal values makes so much more sense.
Pete Willard
http://www.trainsimstuff.com

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hehehe Getting good at throwing away Pete. Threw away the whole caboose yesterday and started over.Poly count is pretty good on it other than the trucks. 4700 polys with about 3400 of that being the trucks. *argh*Here's what I have so far. Need to adjust my textures but it's coming along nicely.Time to take another swing at the trucks....Thanks,
Todd

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I don't know a thing about 3DC but will say one thing, thats a foamtastic caboose you got goin!Austin
Midwest Rail Group

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My first rendition of most trucks is about 1000 poly's each when using extrude. Obviously that's not good. With careful use of ALPHA channels, I have been able to get them well below 100 poly's.
Pete Willard
http://www.trainsimstuff.com

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Well, I redid them last night and they comeout around 800 or so per truck. (That's just the truck itself. Not including wheels, axles, etc. Just the sideframes and springplanks)A bonus is I got them looking much nicer this time. Now it's time to go on a poly hunt and destroy mission.I'm not sure if I follow your idea about using Alpha's Pete. Are you talking about extruding just the outline of the truck, then using alpha to open it up? I don't really care for the appearance of that. At least not on something like a caboose or locomotive that will be inspected a bit more than the rest of the rolling stock.I'm not worried about getting this thing super low on polys, but it does need to be lower than it currently is as I want to add an interior to it.I don't think a 10,000 poly caboose would be met with much enthusiasm. btw-Also finally got the coupler resized. For some reason when doing the ctrl/alt/right click the program doesn't always bring up the menu. Usually doesn't in fact. It just flashes it. Perhaps something I should mention over on the Amabilis forum so they can look at it.Here's what she looks like right now. No, it will not be released with that paint job. I'm using the photo to properly map and place windows, etc.Best,
Todd

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Agree with Ausitn.. Foamtastic!Now, about that texture...... Can we get the "Clean, unweathered" version too?

Bradley Linda
Waco, Texas

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LAST EDITED ON Sep-12-03 AT 04:42 PM (EDT)

I totally understand about full 3d versus using alpha channels. However, at some point during model development, you really need to start culling out excess poly's or people will Love/Hate your model.One of my first models... the 3 GATX TankTrain cars, suffer greatly when used in "long" trains because of the number of poly's used in each car. I've learned a ton since then and dropping poly's is an important process.The fact that you are creating a caboose will save you from having to squeeze every last extra poly out. I doubt people will run a string of cabooses. I originally used extrude to make trucks and found that I was creating too many "points" when defining the extrude parameters. You can actually get by with the bare minimum or even manually add more, if needed.Anyway... good luck.
Pete Willard
http://www.trainsimstuff.com

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Instead of creating the bogies/trucks using 3D Canvas, why not use an alpha channel and then build and add sections in 3D Canvas to create the illusion of 3D. Then apply part of your truck texture over them.Allows for better poly counts and frame rates without looking bad at all.Just my 2 cents worth.

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Hey Todd,
Nice!! Any chance to get one of those with the crud left on it? I like a little (lot) of dirt!
Bob

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It's coming along. Just have to make some alphaable lanterns and paddles so you can choose which era you want.The textures are going to take me the longest I think. I'm not that great at making them from scratch.I may do a dirty modern style one bob. Not sure yet. Will likely depend on my skinning abilites. Having a bear of a time figuring out gradients in PSP.Todd

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Getting closer. Got the origin recentered so it lines up right. The textures are coming along as well as I can do for now. Just need to texture the trucks yet and do something with the roof.The heralds, marker paddles and marker lanterns are alphable so it can be painted to match different eras. As built they did not carry heralds and had the roadname along the top as shown.Hope to have it done by this weekend.For now, it's off to work. (Got a student. *grumble*)Todd

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