Diesel Train Engine

[CoryC]

This is a train engine I am working on for a project. It isn't quite finished but getting there. I have some more work to do around the wheels and I haven't done any real surfacing yet. The renders are just base textures just to see how it is coming together.

[groodwanderer]

hey looks pretty good from here. Just get those textures done and it should be good enough. I really should try some inorganic modelling.

[pauland]

Looks really good to me. I'll give you 10/10 for presentation.

Paul

[CoryC]

Thanks for the comments. I also forgot that I need to add the couplers or else it isn't going to pull a whole lot of anything around, now will it.

[Matt]

hey cory I'm interested how you're gonna go about animating it (with carriages) along a curved track!

I had to do a similar thing for a tram once and it was a nightmare.

the curve constraint plugin sucks!

interesting to see how you do it!

[Rei]

Use the follower thing, and get them to follow a spline path of the track, it works but I cant remember the specific details, Ill PM to you if u want?

[CoryC]

The animation will involve 9 square miles and up to 135 cars. Luckily a good portion will be straight track. The curved sections are long and sweeping. I still haven't decided exactly how I am going to go about doing those parts. I did some tests with a null set to curve conform and several cars set with follower to follow a set distance behind the null. It works fine for a constant rate of speed. The problem is there is no way to vary the speed. It would be nice to lock the null to a spline and have the ability to keyframe it.

[Matt]

CoryC

You might find this links of use! They are the threads from the old forum when I was tearing my hear out trying to animate this thing.

http://forums.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/29139.html?

http://forums.newtek.com/discus/messages/2/31928.html?

As you've already discovered the curve constraint plugin doesn't allow any changes in speed, it just goes and goes!

It's also painfully slow to work with in Layout.

This is why I have a big gripe with the motion plugins, LW _should_ be able to do this kind of thing in its sleep.

Turned out to be a right nightmare, never did get the results I wanted either.

I used the curve constraint plugin in on the first car and then set the rest with Follower (set with a delay to get the spacing right) problem is the movement would 'jerk' when it went over a control point on the spline.

See here (most noticable when the tram nears the Bus Stop sign on the road)

Tram Anim (MPEG) - Curve Constraint Problem (http://www.creactive-design.co.uk/temp/train_anim.mpg)

If you manage to get it to work let me know!

Cheers
Matt

[Hurben]

I also agree.. Lightwave shoulf be able to do this kind of activity in it's sleep..
Object influenced by curves. Max has had this feature since v3..
'Choose the object > choose the curve > choose which axis to use as the front > and then you can keyframe it along the curve"

What's the big deal??
In newer releases, you can choose many curves and then dynamically define the percentage of influence for each one.

Can lightwave do it? nope.. do I love Lightwave? yep.. hmm

:)