Hello all,
My latest project is nearing completion... this time the small but fairly fussy B&O depot at Point of Rocks, Maryland.
It was modeled from the photos and drawings found in the Historic American Engineering Record Survey housed on-line at the Library of Congress. I have also consulted other on-line images of the building which still is in use.
Jim
Hi,
From someone who was there, looks like you got it about right, but where is the lava lamp?
Jim
Hello folks,
Here are a couple renderings including my Kelso Depo model.
The backround mountains are images I made on site two weeks ago, the trees are free models from Xfrog.
The third image is an enlarged detail showing roof tiles, awnings and double hung windows, gutter and downspout detail and decorative bandsawn rafter tails.
I hope you enjoy, thanks for looking.
Jim
Hello,
The depo still exists pretty much dead in the middle of no where. The rail road abandoned use of it in 1985 and subequently sold it to the National Park Service in 1992.
It is now fully, and very nicely, restored inside and out and serves as the visitor center at the Mojave National Preserve which is a 2,500 square mile preserve. A park larger than either the state of Deleware or Rhode Island. If you look at Google images of Kelso Depo, you can see how well done it is.
And yes, the tile work was strictly brute force. I wasn't sure I could pull it off but it wasn't too difficult and seems to have worked pretty well.
Jim
I think for the moment, it's time to suspend SU modeling and begin assembling parts in 3DMax.
Here's where things stand this evening.
The station has a partial interior; floors, partitions and doors so I hope to be able to apply some useful interior lighting.
Cheers, Jim
Hello,
Interesting images... looks like light and shadows are well handled.
But, no, so far, my models are static renders only.
The models are a bit large and for me fairly complicated mechanically, I'd love to see them move but I'm not sure how to describe the motions.
Also I've had a bit of a challenge getting 3dMax to render any animations - I think it doesn't like my computer. I can do large static renders but as soon as I attempt even a simple an animation, it crashes.
Jim
My current rail road themed project is Kelso Depo.
Kelso Depo was built by the Union Pacific in 1924 and pretty much sits in the middle of the Mojave desert, over 20 miles from the nearest highway and 35 miles from the closest town. The building still exists and is now operated by the National Park Service.
The model is now about 75% complete and is geo-located.
More to come soon. Jim
OK, setting asside my penchant for dramatic (moody) lighting, here's another view of my scene from another direction with the sun set to a bit closer to noon.
My renderings are typically at 3849x2400 resolution (twice my screen) so they have been reduced a bit to get them through the site's 1000 pixel limit. Below are two images cropped to aprox. 1000x1000 which may give you a bit better idea of the detail I see on my screen.
I rather enjoy the little bit of the scene I see reflected in the caboose's marker lights.
Once again, thanks for looking.
Jim
Hello again,
In answer to the question that probably no one has asked: What do you do with a boxcar?
I couple it into a train, in this case a string of mostly empties behind my switch engine.
And the switch train? Roll it into a scene and press the render button.
Yes, I know still kind of dark, but thanks for looking.
Jim
Hi Bryan,
Yes, I work from engineering drawings and photographs as I can find them. Most are partial sets of drawings either abstracted or redrawn for model builders. I look for drawings where there's enought dimensional and detail information go create a reasonable copy.
Jim
Just added a new box car to my small and slowly growing collection of railroad equipment. It features an improved truck and more complete brake equipment.
Pictures below.
Jim
Yes, absolutely.
However, the ribs typically are cut and erected square and hand reshaped prior to the attachment of the planking. Very often ships were planked (or "ceiled") inside as well so they would be tapered on both sides.
Jim
Hi Majid,
Actually I rather like the rustic texture. I think it makes an interesting contrast to the rather stark geometry of the structure.
Great looking image.
Jim
Hello everyone,
Thanks for looking and your helpful, provocative observations.
Hellnbak, you’re correct, I have run into the occasional problem with back facing polygons and have been attempting to ferret them out of my models. The 060 was one of my first and has been reworked several times, but still a few backward faces… so it goes.
Bryan, Thanks and there’s probably no reason to start adjusting your monitor. These images are a tad dark. This occurs for two reasons. 3dMax and I are still pretty much on mutually suspicious terms and don’t entirely get along and also, I do like the effect of late evening or early morning light. I like the added redness, the way the low shadows fall on the model and to be honest, the reduced light which hides a fairly wild lack of detail on my models. At present, I’m working down to about 1 inch detail, I’m afraid that if I push things to the next level the size of my models will go up by an order of magnitude.
Majid, You’re are mostly right about the level of texture. In my defense, I again site my lack of intimate familiarity with Max but also claim that the goal of the images is not to create a hyper realistic image but rather to evoke the feeling of large scale railroading as seen in the photos made in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s when large steam powered monsters roamed the earth. It is one reason I try not to get too close to my subjects.
One question that someone may be able to answer. If I model SU surfaces with textures, I can edit or change the texture in Max however if I use a solid color in SU all I can do with the imported file is change the color, I can’t apply a texture to it. Any idea what gives?
In any case, get ready for another dark image… really dark. This scene features a pair of locomotives at a cross track. The crossing is guarded by a signal tower (yellow building in the foreground) in order to minimize the chance of the obvious accident. The crossing and tower are generally historic. The scene is illuminated by the two locomotive’s headlamps and a handful of 60W bulbs.
Thanks again everyone
Jim
...here's a sub assembly from the tender as well. Perhaps it will also shed some light.
From the Model statistics panel I see that the entire model has:
5 edges
178 components
And when nested components are shown:
2641 component instances
389,900 +/- edges
167,000 +/- faces
Jim
Sure, no worries.
Here's a view with hidden geometry.
I think the modeling is pretty straight forward, but I certainly would be interested in feedback.
One challenge I really fought with and didn't totally solve was the fillet between the sand and steam domes and the top of the boiler. I calculated the intersection of the boiler and domes and used an offset from the intersection line to create a saddle shaped circular follow me tube, pushed it into place and manually deleted the less useful polygons.
A lot of effort for a less than totally compelling result.
One word about my modeling. I'm one of those old guys, in more ways than one, who would never use a power tool where a manual one will work. As a result, I've never used any of the Ruby extensions and seldom use warehouse components.
Anyhow, that's how I got here...
Jim
A fascinating model.
I've struggled with wooden ship models in AutoCAD, which I suspect many of you know has a fairly unfriendy interface, but does have the ability to manage fairly complex splines in 3d space.
How do you create the complex curves needed with Sketchup?
Jim
When I first started working in Sketchup, one of the things that caught my eye was the quality of surface and light in the images it produced. These images seemed quite reminiscent of the works of Edward Hopper (who’s work I’ve always admired). I wondered how close SU could come to duplicating the look of Hopper’s work and set as one of my many largely unrealized goals to explore the connection when I got a moment.
The moment didn’t come until late last year when I found myself with some unexpected down time to fill. Casting about I found a book on Hopper’s art and in it a series of water colors of the light house at “Two Lights”. I don’t know why the name, I only see one light.
What follows are four small copies of Hopper paintings captured off a variety of internet sites and four images extracted from my SU model. I built the model over a couple days (only one model), paging from one painting to another to try to establish sizes and relationships. The model is pretty simple and clearly far from perfect. On the other hand, I suspect that the paintings, subject to the whims of the artist’s eye, are also not a perfect guide to the model maker.
In the end, it was a fun little project which I believe shows that SU does in fact have some utility as a tool for exploring the artist’s vision.
