Weathering

[sniper297]

I'm using RS Tools TMB to convert textures to DDS, then DXTBmp to send to Paint Shop Pro 7 (Doodlebug sent me a plugin, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet). I am getting some pixelation, dunno which part of the conversion process is causing that. Anyway, still using Marc Nelson's layering technique for weathering;

http://www.3dtrains.com/guides/painting/

Trying to be more subtle to reduce the "rustoleum reject" effect, here's the results with an SD40 and a boxcar;

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/pon/weather1.jpg

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/pon/weather2.jpg

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/pon/weather3.jpg

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/pon/weather4.jpg

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg183/sniper297/pon/weather5.jpg

[NorfolkSouthern_37]

dxtbmp seems to use compression a little different for dtx3 textures, ive noticed myself that it tends to make them pixelated and lossy. now, in any case its going to get a litte lossy because it is compressing, and dxt3 is not the very best imo. i use the nvidia converter or the photoshop plugins - i think the nvidia converter is best and it seems to do a better job and can convert all my images at once.

[sporbust]

i am into weathering myself. I noticed on a boxcar reskin i did you cant letter over the ribs because the way they mapped them :( I see you did a boxcar and had the same outcome. Maybe i will make a new boxcar for RS like a Highcube that people can skin and not have this problem. The lettering should wrap the ribs
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/1985/ttxpt8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[NorfolkSouthern_37]

good, a new boxcar would be great for this, i dont even recognize that as a boxcar most of the time.

[GBSD70Ace]

WHY did they put a catwalk on the boxcar????

[sniper297]

Hee-hee, was wondering that myself, thought they did away with catwalks when the high cube boxcars came out. When I was a kid we used to hop freights to go out to the suburbs, do crazy things like running along the catwalks and jumping from car to car. First time I saw a high cube I did a running jump from the old 40 foot standard (standard for that time) boxcar up to the roof of the high cube, no catwalk! :eek: Being wintertime and everything covered with ice and snow, damn near did a Brody and missed being here to type my memoirs. :o

[ozark]

Sporbust for what you got to work with that looks great,keep it up man.:)

[sniper297]

Well, just noticed the trucks on that boxcar appeared to pivot the wrong way on a curve, so I set up a test on my MSTS route with two back to back SDs, then all the cars I was schemin' to skin, same problem with all but the coal hoppers. Can't really tell but it looks like they're not actually pivoting the wrong way on curves, they're just not pivoting at all. Didn't test all the cars, just one each boxcar, cement hopper, coal hopper, covered hopper, reefer, tanker, and caboose. Only one from that list that don't have the problem is the open topped coal hoppers, in fact those will even take a 30 meter radius curve and look good doing it. SDs are okay even coupled back to back, but all the cars except the coal hoppers the wheels visually come off the rails even on a 100 meter curve. Obviously fixable, if the coal hopper works the rest can be made to work too, but I think I'm gonna hold off cloning and skinning until I get something I won't have to patch later. :rolleyes: