Swamper's Garage

[Swamper77]

After a few hours today, I have successfully converted the First Class car for the Regional Runner set that Kenworth sent me as GMAX files. Here's what I have to show:


The automata model, fully skinned and awaiting export


The First Class car with the BR143 engine pulling it


Train leaving the station with only First Class cars

Due to the length of the cars (and the yet to be shown new engine) for the Regional Runner set, I recommend that you use the Rail Curve Puzzle Piece from the NAM for making your curves and make your slopes as gradual as possible. The game won't care about the cars "passing through" the terrain, but it looks odd when that happens.

The cars are just over 26.5 meters in length. The unrevealed new engine is somewhat shorter, but it will still look better with gradual curves and slopes when it is traveling. Care will have to be exercised when passing one of these Regional Runners with another in UDI due to the lengths of the cars/engine and the turning radius that is "required" for their movements.

Sadly, I can't implement the variation of the new engine that I have from Kenworth. It's a control car that goes at the end of the train, but the game does not allow cabooses for the passenger trains. Only the freight trains are allowed to have that special class of train car. So I will be shipping the First Class Car, the Second Class Car, the new engine that I haven't shown yet, and the BR143 engine (which I have shown) when I am done with the Regional Runner set.

The First Class car replaces the default Maxis passenger train car. The Second Class car will be an additional passenger train car that will be mixed into the line of cars.

I will most likely set the BR143 as an additional passenger engine for the release because its shape doesn't match the cars of the Regional Runner train. I will also clean up the graphics for the symbols and the texts that are on the cars/engines since they are currently blurred and unreadable, even at the closest zoom level.

-Jan

[BigSlark]

That's looking really, really good Jan. Thanks again for adding new automata to the game and I'm looking forward to the release.

Cheers,
Kevin

[Adept2Rock]

He looks good!!!! I love it!

[jeronij]

Very nice models.... very.... brittish ?¿.... 

good work as usual 

[Nardo69]

Very nice models.... very.... brittish ?¿.... 

good work as usual 

not really the class 143 was the last electric engine from the DR - the railway company of the ex DDR ... 

You can see it everywhere in Germany pulling freight and local trains (the latter unless they don't use the faster and newer class 146)

[snorrelli]

Looks great, Swamper!

I'd like to throw out the idea of a yellow livery too, if you ever don't have anything else to do... I've always wanted to use Oppie's yellow double-decker Dutch trains but they produce a weird graphics glitch for me when they go around curves...

[jeronij]

not really the class 143 was the last electric engine from the DR - the railway company of the ex DDR ... 

You can see it everywhere in Germany pulling freight and local trains (the latter unless they don't use the faster and newer class 146)

I see... I guess I suposed that because of the red colour and the two decks....  

[Kenworth]

Swamper, it's fantastic I am blown.

You can see it everywhere in Germany pulling freight and local trains (the latter unless they don't use the faster and newer class 146)

Ehm, the BR143 (EX-DR234) was a freight locomitive, but the locomitve is only for local trains (RE, RB, ...) today (since 1993/94...).

More information about BR143:
www.br143.de

[Swamper77]

Thanks for the information on the BR143 engine, everyone. I will set it up to replace the default freight engine when the Regional Runner set goes out. In the meantime, it will be my passenger train engine until I make the automata form of 146 engine and get it into the game.

The Regional Runner train set's contents will be all in one DAT file since all the units are sharing certain graphics for the details. The set will replace the default passenger train engine and the default passenger car, add an additional passenger car, and replace the default freight train engine.

I was recently toying with an idea, and it might work for those that want a second engine for their freight trains. I created a caboose that uses the default freight train model and headlights. So, the game will randomly choose between the default caboose and this new one I created.

If the default caboose looks out of place to those of you that are familiar with this train set I am working on, I can replace it with the BR143 engine model so it will show the BR143 model instead of the Maxis caboose for the freight trains. I will ship it that way when the Regional Runner set goes out if there is enough interest.

-Jan

[Glenni]

Very nice swamper, i won't use it though, heh my cj/md is based off Norway so i use mjig's NSB trains.

[Kenworth]

I can build a DR 243 (http://images.banal.net/msts/catalog/images/250x400/DE/DE_DR_243_243-3.jpg) for a freight train? It would only to run few hours.

Later I would build  BR232 and BR154 as freight train.

[Andreas]

The bilevel car looks fantastic, Jan, great work! However, could you make the second class car the default one, and the first class car as addition? Usually, regional trains here in Germany only have one first class car, and several second class cars. Of course I know that you can't really control how the cars appear in the game, but it looks a tad odd to see so many first class cars attached to the BR143 engine.

[snorrelli]

The bilevel car looks fantastic, Jan, great work! However, could you make the second class car the default one, and the first class car as addition? Usually, regional trains here in Germany only have one first class car, and several second class cars. Of course I know that you can't really control how the cars appear in the game, but it looks a tad odd to see so many first class cars attached to the BR143 engine.

Would be best to have a choice - either one by itself or both together. Not everyone will be going for a realistic re-creation of German trains and may prefer all double-decker. Others will prefer all second class. Others will want to mix...

[Swamper77]

Okay, I will rearrange the cars and separate the First Class car and put it in its own file then.


First picture of the new BR146 engine with a Second Class car and a First Class car.

The BR146 engine has a complete set of 3 headlight beams for it's headlight model for nighttime running. The side windows of the cars and the engine have no lighting at night yet. I haven't decided on how I want to do that yet or if anyone wants the windows lit at night. The BR143 engine has been reassigned as a freight train engine instead of a passenger train engine.

Error with the long Regional Runner cars

It seems the game doesn't like the long cars for the train. The last car behaves oddly on both default and NAM tracks. It's likely an EXE problem, because I saw it happen with just the commuter trains. I really don't want to shorten the cars because I want to keep them true to the models that Kenworth sent me.

-Jan

[BigSlark]

Jan,

These cars look great. Its a shame about the EXE problem, I assume its something that can't be fixed unless the EXE goes open source?

Cheers,
Kevin

[Swamper77]

The only fix I can do right now is shorten the cars.

-Jan

[ejc]

awesome progress!! it's cool to see we can use kenworths lots now as automata in the future!!

great work, it will look good in my German CJ

[Andreas]

Would be best to have a choice - either one by itself or both together. Not everyone will be going for a realistic re-creation of German trains and may prefer all double-decker. Others will prefer all second class. Others will want to mix...

Actually, the second class cars are double-deckers as well. The only difference on the outside is the yellow line that indicates the first class part. Second class cars have a white bar.

[Kenworth]

I built a DR 243 for a freight version:



The GMAX DATA are in my folder (DR 243.zip)

[snorrelli]

Error with the long Regional Runner cars

It seems the game doesn't like the long cars for the train. The last car behaves oddly on both default and NAM tracks. It's likely an EXE problem, because I saw it happen with just the commuter trains. I really don't want to shorten the cars because I want to keep them true to the models that Kenworth sent me.

This is the exact problem that happens to me with Oppie's Dutch trains (and all other skins based on them). I thought it might be due to the length of the cars...