dragonsteincole's Workshop

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Thank you for the contribution and comments @Eggman121 I do believe it was some of these screenshots that first gave me the thought of making automata, as it was seeing that BR Blue locomotive that led me to search for any other British train automata. And thank you of course for the peerless work on RRW/HRW that gives these trains something attractive to run on!

Speaking of which, I am once again pleased to announce that I have just released the Glasgow Subway 2nd and 3rd Generation trains!

I'm certainly pleased with how they all came out, but the 3rd Generation looks pretty special. But a lot of fun can be had wherever they run.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Some slightly cursed content, a WIP most definitely. BUT an important step in learning how animated items work.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Things have been learnt, progress has been made. Many things tweaked. Too many things broke and then fixed again.

But very excited for these so far. I plan to do 1-2 more in the most varied liveries, and fix up the current ones. Then possibly work on some appropriate coaching stock for them. At the moment I've been using my own BR Mk2 coaches, and @rivit's Flying Scotsman mod, both for the coaches, and to pick apart and learn exactly how the animation system works - or rather, how me, an idiot, can figure out what to do.

 

[rivit 3,402]

I'm very much liking the look of those new engines - they were always on my one day... list. If you've any questions about the S3D animations etc. don't hesistate to PM me - the more who know the better.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

The main hurdle was figuring out a few things that weren't obvious, or what wasn't relevant to the actual animation process - and also realising that "i'll just update the model a little then re-import it" will absolutely cause issues

I've settled on the five engines - "Silver Link", "Mallard", "William Whitelaw", "Golden Fleece" and "Falcon". I'll make replacement and addon versions for passenger trains. I may try and make some of the teak Gresley-style coaching stock.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Very pleased with how these have come out.

And my favourite little bit of detail

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Added a 6th engine, Dominion of Australia as a freight replacement/addon. Possible release of all these coming Saturday or Sunday.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Final addition - smoke FX

Some boring info and details - I've decided to release two mods, the trains and the coaches independent of each other. I have made efforts to ensure that both the trains and the coaches can work alongside and with Rivit's Flying Scotsman mod, without completely overwriting one or the other.

There are 5 passenger locos, with replacement and additional versions of each. There is one freight loco, with both replacement and additional versions. And there is a final, 7th engine "Sir Murrough Wilson" which acts as a replacement for the Maxis Steam train, and also has an additional freight version.

The coaches are going to be released as 1 singular DAT, with 1 replacement and 6 possible additional versions. the main differences between each coach are the windows/nightlighting, and are accurate to the sets of coaches once pulled by Class A4s

Both additional loco and coaches make use of the IID 0x7faffc__ ... just because having "faff" autogenerate amused me.

This has been a good learning experience for working on animated automata. it's fiddly but it'll work on some future planned trains, like the BR Class 08s

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just released the Class A4 Pacifics, and the Gresley Teak Carriages. As always, if there are any issues then please let us know.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Work on the SNCF BB17000. Aiming for about 4-5 liveries when complete.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Well this one flew together, I'm pleased to announce I just released the SNCF Class BB17000 locos.

I liked how they came out, they definitely pair well with Girafe's existing french rolling stock imo.

I think the next few 'releases' will be updating older releases, continuing to fix those carriage length issues, and also a general refresh and tidy up of those files. Whilst i'm still not great at it, I feel there's improvements to be made and fixing IIDs as well

 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

WIP of a new British Rail carriage. Little shorter overall but the entire model has been reworked. Whilst it is still based on Girafe's models and thus will still e credited as such, it's been modified extensively to give it more of a UK rolling stock look. More rounded ends to the coach, under carriage equipment etc. Mapping has also been redone completely with a proper template made so it will hopefully make the process of creating variants easier.

Variants

BTW, something I should mention for those who read/follow this thread. Suggestions for future rolling stock are still very welcome. Most of the recent work has just been working through the previous suggestions in the first post, so don't feel like you cannot suggest something that would fit your own regions.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I was confused as to how it had been an entire week since I last posted here. Then I put together a "quick" preview image of the Mk2 coaching stock i've been working on and quickly realised why...

This pack has blown up in scope as there's currently 8 designs, and will possibly grow to 10 or even 12 by the end. Each livery is from a real livery/use that are/were seen on these types of coaches, and have 2-4 different coach variations, with nightlighting. Each livery has one REPlacement coach, and the rest are ADDons, which ARE interchangeable with the other designs. So should you so desire you can get some very mixed rakes of coaches.

[rsc204 21,859]

Really happy to see these MKII coaches, especially in the old BR Blue and InterCity liveries, if for no other reason than nostalgia for a time you could actually take trains places. Will there be updated engines like the 125 and 225?

I recall one of the early (post privatisation) GWR liveries in Green/White/Gold:

I got this snap at Paddington, but it isn’t so clear. But this is another livery I’d love to be able to use in-game. 

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Really happy to see these MKII coaches, especially in the old BR Blue and InterCity liveries, if for no other reason than nostalgia for a time you could actually take trains places. Will there be updated engines like the 125 and 225?

I recall one of the early (post privatisation) GWR liveries in Green/White/Gold:

I got this snap at Paddington, but it isn’t so clear. But this is another livery I’d love to be able to use in-game. 

A lovely photo, and that livery is one of the ones I plan to add. Whilst it's a bit dark in shade, it's a nice green-focused livery which is currently lacking in the pack.

My plans for the moment are to finish this pack, and then update the existing "British Rail Blue" coack pack to be the Mk2 pack. Then use the model as a basis for a Mk3 coach, and then go through and update the following mods: "Class 91 and Carriages" "Network SouthEast EMU", "Southern (GTR) EMU", "Class 156 Pack 1", "Class 380", and even the recent "Class 165-166 Networker" pack.

After that, I could work on the Class 43 as it will have a lot of coaching stock to use by that point, and it's certainly had enough liveries to create a few packs. I've also been working on some additional liveries for the Class 33 which would cover some of the liveries on the Mk2s.

It's not a complete certainty this will be the only order I do things in, as there are some other requests that I have been gathering some source material of. But there is a plan at least.

[rsc204 21,859]

On 28/01/2023 at 4:43 PM, dragonsteincole said:

I have just released the Class A4 Pacifics, and the Gresley Teak Carriages. As always, if there are any issues then please let us know.

One other ask, what wagon replacements are you using in this screenshot? I don't recall seeing any that looked that decent before.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

13 hours ago, rsc204 said:

One other ask, what wagon replacements are you using in this screenshot? I don't recall seeing any that looked that decent before.

The boxcars are from the 1950s German Trains mod. I've only used the boxcars in this instance.

The tank wagons are from Jim FreightTrain Automata Pack 1.0. I edited the .DAT to just allow one of the tanker wagons to show (which I did by removing most of the exemplars. Might re-do this bit in the near future.)

And finally, I used a 'block Maxis freight cars' mod which is available in the SC4D forums on this post:
https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=802.msg417117#msg417117

I've not seen an official release elsewhere but I use both files.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just released the British Rail Mk2 Coach Pack

It's a lot of liveries to choose from, I'll include the preview images here in the post:

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Part of the update to Class 91 pack. Will add some more liveries, and have already tweaked the shape a little. I think the original model was a bit too long in comparison, where I may have scaled it in two axis by 135%, rather than just height.

Something else planned for this update is adding HSR versions of the InterCity and maybe one other livery.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

WIP of the Euskotren 900 EMU

  Edited March 2, 2023 by dragonsteincole  

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Been a bit scatter-brained recently. Another WIP - this time focusing on some worn out tanker cars.

I like the very worn in, grubby and used feel so I want to try and fill that niche, most tanker wagon automata looks so clean, very "fresh out the box" so I want to give a nice contrast to that. Both are good in different situations, but there's an imbalance in whats available for either.

 

[rsc204 21,859]

I’m loving these tankers, i was so pleased to find the JIM rail Waggons, but the quality of these surpasses anything I’ve seen for freight rail. Are you planning on adding some hoppers, container cars, car transporters (see them a lot around here in Germany) and other things? Would be nice to keep a mixed freight setup or have other options. But even if not, these are going to be the only things my trains will be pulling in future.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

I’m loving these tankers, i was so pleased to find the JIM rail Waggons, but the quality of these surpasses anything I’ve seen for freight rail. Are you planning on adding some hoppers, container cars, car transporters (see them a lot around here in Germany) and other things? Would be nice to keep a mixed freight setup or have other options. But even if not, these are going to be the only things my trains will be pulling in future.

I would ultimately like to release a pack or two of mixed freight cars, mainly based on UK stock because that's what I have some decent reference for.
Would like to set it up so each type of freight has it's own folder, so you can mix and match what types you want, and then use the 'block maxis train cars.dat' to just have those appear.
What i'd really love is the ability to have multiple pre-determined consists for rail automata (e.g one .dat file with x amount of rail automata that appears as one consist) but I doubt even a dll mod could make that happen. :v
So this is the next best thing.

[PaPa-J 778]

These train cars look amazing. I don't  understand the full concept of MOD'ing but why wouldn't a DLL mod work?

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

7 hours ago, PaPa-J said:

These train cars look amazing. I don't  understand the full concept of MOD'ing but why wouldn't a DLL mod work?

My assumption is that it's just part of the game logic thats not easily available to get at, let alone modify in such a way. But it's something way outside of my capabilities either way. I doubt DLL-stuff is a magic fix-all thing.

 

[rsc204 21,859]

Indeed, all too often people tout DLL fixes as potential solutions to everything we want to change that's locked in the game code, but the reality is that .DLL mods serve very singular purposes and rely on being able to alter something that exists already. To do something like this would more than likely require a re-write of the code itself, because it's just not something that the game was ever designed to do. But even if it were possible to change with a .DLL mod, you 'd have to find the code that handles this, understand it - easier said than done even for those skilled enough to do so, then write your DLL to alter the function. Like one or two active users can even make DLL mods to start with, so it's just very unlikely that a solution like that would ever become available. In short many suggestions for DLL mods probably wouldn't work anyhow (too complex, nothing to hook into), but even those that could, are very unlikely to ever get realised, as such it's not really a practical solution.

UK Freight works for me and is actually my preference, my main regions, not that I ever get anything done in them these days, are all UK-based.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Worked on more details, lengthened them a bit and came up with some more variations on the "generic" grungy style. Still need to fix some minor bits but functionally, I like where these are at, so it's just about churning out more texture variations.

Will also be easy to make a shorter tank car variation too.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

Coal wagons! I may split this potential group into "full" and "empty" variants, rather than having them appear at the same time as in these shots. But i'm happy with how these look already.

Edit: Added variants

  Edited March 16, 2023 by dragonsteincole  
Additional screenshot

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

And a nice nighttime shot of the Euskotren 900 EMU that's probably being released this weekend.

[dragonsteincole 1,400]

I have just released the Euskotren 900 series EMU, another of the long-standing requests. Another commuter train that should look lovely in suburban and built-up areas.

Going to spend a bit more time working on some of the freight wagons, and trying to form an idea on how I'd like to release them.