US Set Development Thread

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krtaylor
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Post by krtaylor »

Cheer up alphanumeric, I've tried to do a model train set for decades and not gotten anywhere. Time, space, money... :cry:

Don't worry about the skins. The Genesis is available in Amtrak livery as well as the VIA livery pictured there.

The Turbotrain is in VIA livery, but the Amtrak livery looked so much the same that it doesn't really matter.

The F40 is the only one that really needs repainting into Amtrak, and anyway it's matching cars are already in Amtrak, or close enough.

We could add them as they are and then repaint them as we get a chance.

Let's see about getting some of the steam up and running, since big iron is what TTD lacks most.
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Post by alphanumeric »

okay I am thinking.. we should add at least 1 small\slower engine with a switcher body designe.. here is a picture.. maybe something like this but smaller...

they can be used in the early stages of the game after steam.. for short distance.. or you can add a couple of them to the back of ur existing train to boost up teh speed..

but im not sure how the physics of the game work just yet, in adding additional engines to go faster....
Last edited by alphanumeric on 04 Feb 2004 03:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mnorman »

I have almost finished the Big Boy (just add the domes to the remaining two veiws, and draw tenders for those veiws as well). From a comment about the lack of detail on it, one of the problems with the Big Boy is that it is so huge, that ever large details are barely visible compared with the boiler, so hinting at detail is more important than making it obvious. for instance, I originally tried the domes sticking up above the engine, but they just looked far too big, so now they are just darkened areas, in the side veiw, and changes in shading in the other veiws, similarly all of the side detail has been reduced to some semirandom shading, and a single pipe along the side (which is emphasised by being rather lighter than it should be).
However, with the size of the engine, I am having great problems fitting it all in, and so in most of the veiws, the area between the smokebox and the front of the engine is smaller than in the side veiw.
I will probably finish it sometime tommorow evening.

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Post by krtaylor »

Sounds like you're on the right track.

And when it's done, I bet it can be readily sliced-and-diced into the other freight locomotives on the list (K4, Berkshire, etc)
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Post by krtaylor »

OK, talking about multiheading.

The physics of the Patch version of the game are vastly more complicated and more realistic than the original way the game worked. Adding a second engine has the expected increase in power, even if the multiheaded engines are not the same. We could add a short switch engine, but really, there weren't that many of those made, and very few used in line service. The "road switchers" that came later, like the GP7s, will be represented.

Thinking about the way the flow goes, you start with a K4 Pacific (general purpose), the Southern Pacific cab-forward for very heavy freight, and the Berkshire for medium-heavy freight.

Aroung 1930 you get your first express passenger loomotive, the SP "Daylight" Northern. In 1935 you have the GG1 and can do electrified systems if you have the traffic density. In the late 30s, you get two more express passenger locomotives, the NYC Hudson (heavy) and Hiawatha (light).

Around 1940 you get the first diesel, the F7 series, but it should start out as prohibitively unreliable (but improve dramatically over the next ten years).
In 1941 you get the Big Boy, the most powerful thing on the road.

In 1950 you get the GP7. With that and the F7 you could retire all your steam.

It seems pretty coherent to me. I thought about adding another heavy freight locomotive in the early 1930s, and I'll take suggestions (I was thinking of a N&W Y5) but between the three you start with, you probably have all you need. The trouble is, the articulated freight locomotives look really very similar at the scale of TTD and you don't want them to be indistinguishable if you're going to have them at all. The ones I've picked will all be easily told apart.
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Post by uzurpator »

alphanumeric: that "thing" is the service gap DDA40x has. Just take a look at centennial photos.

As for my help - I am currently busy with ... umm ... other things ^^
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Post by krtaylor »

Yes, the Centennial has a big hole in the middle of it. That's because it's really two diesel locomotives bolted together on one really long chassis. That's also why they haven't made any more of them, you can hook several smaller locomotives together to get the same effect as one powerful one, but you can't cut a Centennial in half when you really need two separate, smaller engines.

Well, we'd love your help uzurpator, but it looks like mnorman has figured out how to play with GRFs anyway since he has an in-service screen capture of the Big Boy.
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Post by alphanumeric »

aww man.. oh well Maybe in the future if we need your help 8)

I dont mean the gap between it.. im talking about the roof.. I see then on the top at the end of A LOT of other diesels.. but on the DDA40X it has 2 of htem in the middle...

oh.. they must be the exhaust fans.... ya thats it..

on teh RED AC4400 in the picture......

1 side of it has rear exhaust fans, and the other one does not..



::::EDIT:::: I will take my grahpics out shortly or refill them with small images..

and also im messing with converting GRF files into editable PCX files.. the vehicles seem so LOW quality.. I dont see how u can edit them lol...
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Post by Flavius »

Wow, thank you Zimmlock for more fabulous pics.
The NYC 4x6x4's look great sprinters, but i am afraid i am delirious about the Union Pacific Big Boys. :twisted:
Incidently krtaylor, that graying defect on the 4x8x8x4's (correct hhmm no) is that detergent burn or is it the result of high temperatures :?:
It would be interesting to copy it, because i have noted it before on those locos. 8)
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Post by mnorman »

Here you are, just to wet your apetite. these are not entirely right, and if I do the BB as a weathered version striping will be unnesesary, as the nearly vertical borders to the discoulouration will allow for definition of the boiler shape.
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a couple of Big Boys
a couple of Big Boys
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Post by mnorman »

OK, nearly complete stiped Big boys. If I manage to work out how to make them dark (with appropriate discolouration) this is as far as these will get, otherwise there will be a few graphical glitches that will be dealt with (as well as more experimentation on domes)
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Lot of them
Lot of them
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Post by alphanumeric »

oh dang man!! that looks VERY GOOD!!! u have some tight skills my brotha! haha...


how long would you say it took you to complet just that engine.. did you build it off another existing one? or start from scratch?

im just tryin to get an estamate in time..
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Post by Kruz »

Looks like we got a new MB :P
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Post by uzurpator »

Small hints - WDM 2 will be a great base not for GP7, but for e33. Basicly all you need to do is to make the hood a bit higher and add a pantograph.

Jet train, Acela share the same design.

HHP 8 is acela with shorter nose.

TTD centennial will be a great base for a F7. Alternatively rf 615 would also fit the role.
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Post by krtaylor »

Wow. That Big Boy is great, and totally unlike anything else in the TTD world. A couple of minor comments.

- Your outlining of the domes works great on the vertical shots of the Big Boy, but you can't see them on the diagonals or horizontals. I see you're still playing with it and that's great.

- I don't think the Big Boy should be in company color, at most it should have the company color as a medallion on the tender and under the cab. They should be black/grey. I liked the first grey shot early on. They could be darker, and I'm glad to see you're experimenting with that as well.

- I think the cab is just a teeny bit too small. I think the windows should be one pixel farther apart, so as to make the cab take up one more pixel away from the boiler.

Other than that, it's GREAT. The hinged boiler is strange but I think a necessary compromise.

Other items:

Agreed, the WDM would be a good base for the E33 and E44 if we wanted them. Take the pantograph off of something else and stick it on the WDM, and voila. I still think the WDM would be a good base for the GP7, with minor modifications. I'll change the table accordingly.

Yes, the JetTrain and Acela share the same design and would look almost identical except for the pantographs vs. exhaust ports. The JetTrain has no official livery as nobody is using it, and the livery it's in in the Tropicset is nothing like the Acela Amtrak livery so graphically combining them won't work too well.

The HHP8 is NOT the Acela with a shorter nose. The HHP8 has a slanted nose and cab at both ends of the locomotive, the Acela doesn't - it has a slanted nose and cab at each end of the whole train, like the ICE and TGV.

I can't imagine how the Centennial could be used for an F7. The Centennial is way too long and angular, the F7 has a streamlined carbody. But whoever does the drawing can make that decision.
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Post by mnorman »

I don't think the Big Boy should be in company color, at most it should have the company color as a medallion on the tender and under the cab. They should be black/grey. I liked the first grey shot early on. They could be darker, and I'm glad to see you're experimenting with that as well.
I agree there, but I am having problems getting the gray colour to look right (I cannot make a basic grey banding, and if I try to do it using just flat colours, the diagonal veiws suddenly look like they have a square boiler).

For thos who want to know, I built that in around 5 hours (part of yesterday lunchtime and all of the evening), basing it on the tropic set Garratt (mainly to use the correct NFO sprite settings). I think the reason that it looks so different is that the visible portion of the boiler is 2 pixels wider and 1 pixel deeper than any other loco I have seen in TTD, as well as everything starting 1 pixel further above the wheels.


as to using locos for the basis of each other, I personally prefer to design the shape of a loco seperately and then base the detail on the other locos I can see.

Use of DD40-X. It has features suitable for the SD-60, or any other modern EMD product.
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Post by krtaylor »

If you're doing the drawing you can draw it however you like, goodness knows the results are great. We have permission to use anything we want from the Tropicset, and of course we can use graphics that came with TTD. I'm working on permission for MB's trains.

Probably the experimentation required to figure out the best way to draw a black locomotive is worthwhile, as all American locomotives except the streamlined ones are black.
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Post by Zimmlock »

Verry nice Big-Boys, but the once in the lower part of src28 look like they are running not on the track.
And i agree with Krtaylor that a black engine with a silver smoke box would look the most realistic.
But it looks realy great :shock:
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Post by krtaylor »

Zimmlock is right - the horizontal images aren't on the rails. Easy to fix - just raise the entire thing up one pixel.
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Post by Zimmlock »

If it is possible to make a Big-Boy than the Pennsylvania 6100 would be an option for a passenger train locomotive.
The wheel alignment was 6-4-4-6, it had a double chimney and could run 100 Mph, build 1939.
I dont have the exact mesurements, but the drive wheels had a diameter of 2133,6 mm
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