Dearnen

I'm not sure about early grain hoppers, to be honest. I have models of modern grain and cement hoppers. I think that during the steam era, though, grain was hauled in boxcars, not hoppers. -Dearnen

While all those hopper roof designs are realistic, they serve different purposes. This style is generally seen on cement hoppers (which are fairly short cars): https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files/CHCSX052.jpg border=0> Grain hoppers have long hatches down the middle like this one: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files/CHBN0411.jpg border=0> Plastic pellet hoppers are like grain hoppers but with round hatches. -Dearnen

On the topic of Instances, I thought I'd give a quick rundown of the system I've been using. I staked my claim beginning with 10AA5010 as follows: ATSF warbonnet 5010 ATSF bluebonnet 5020 BN 5030 BNSF 5040 CNW 5050 DRGW 5060 KCS 5070 SP 5080 UP 5090 CSXT 50A0 NS 50B0 Shortlines 50Cx (NECR 50C0, G&W 50C1, CORP 50C2) CN 50D0 GN 50E0 The idea was to give myself room to make more engines of the same company with very close instances. I wasn't thinking straight when I made the ATSF bluebonnet - it should have been 5011. When/if I am able to get back to the engine works, I've got the following on the slate: CSXT gray 50A1, Wisconsin Central 50C3, Guilford Rail System 50C4, SP Black Widow 5081. I hope this explains the system I used. I love the BN cars Trolca. And your work, Big Red Fish, is cool. -Dearnen

While I like the helicopter design in the magazine, I think a different vtol type might be better for Mars. Something that works similar to the Harrier - but a lot more advanced, of course. I'm just not sure a rotor could be made practical in the thin atmosphere. Though, due to the lower gravity, thrusters could be more practical than they are on Earth. They also look cool. -Dearnen

I'd like to see some of my sketches come to life. But, there's no way I could ever sketch up enough buildings for everything in the game. I've got a life, so I won't do it. I've enjoyed sketching the buildings, though, and I do see there may be more need for sketches to better flesh out the styles. Meanwhile, I also have textures to make. Dearnen the Busy

Basically, you'll need to look for every place that the engine's instance is used in the dat's subfiles and change them to the new instance. Naturally, the subfiles will need their instances changed. Furthermore, the exemplar and s3d files both have internal data that will need to be changed (where they refer to the model and the skin TGIs, respectively). I can't remember where all they are off the top of my head. I usually start with the fsh, then the s3d, and finally the exemplar...sort of working my way up the file heirarchy - it just keeps it all in order. -Dearnen

The headlight on the GN engine was never changed. I was concerned about how it would look, but when I looked at the night version, I decided it looked just fine. The actual focal point is still located at the front of the cab, where it was on the original. I'm curious, how did you flip the engine back around? When I made it, I just rotated the model around its vertical axis in gmax. That's the tool I used to raise the short hood and remap the skin too. Heh, I was surprised at how easy it was. -Dearnen

My own heads-up: I intend to work on the ground textures fairly soon, since that's one of the easiest yet most visible things to be done. My schedule's a little tight right now, so it's going to take a little while to get going. -Dearnen

I'm not sure if this helps, but it might. Gmax can (with the right plugin installed) export to .md3 format. A program called 3d Exploration (version 1.5 is available free on the net) can convert .md3 files to .3ds files. I have used this process a few times to make some changes to the SC4 freight locomotive. -Dearnen

I am honored by the boxcar, Trolca. IThink2 had a good idea, so I spent a little time and came up with this: It can be downloaded from my thread - https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=41015&pageNo=4&num=40#197917 -Dearnen

Smurfer, I don't know if you saw it, but I have a CSX locomotive available in my trains thread: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=41015 -Dearnen

I'm still getting the jpg zip when I download it. -Dearnen

I love these new tank cars, Trolca. They are way better than the original style, IMHO. -Dearnen

Bamakid, Last month I posted some mods that add locomotives from the major American railroads to the game, including NS. Link: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=41015&sessionID=A8F00438850E4DD8B89E137F557B019B The first several are Western roads; CSXT and NS can be found further down the thread. -Dearnen

I finally finished up my Western American railroad set. I started a new thread to avoid confusion. -Dearnen

Slugs are essentially an extra set of electric motors and wheels. They get their power from the engine to which they are mated. For those who may not know, diesel locomotives actually use the diesel engine to turn generators that provide power to electric motors that turn the wheels. If we ever figure out how to attach specific items to the engines (tenders to the steam locomotive, for example), it would be nice to make multiple unit consists for the diesels. A-B consists, double heads, slugs... -Dearnen

BN and BNSF are on my list as well. I've already made the BNSF texture. But, as ilive mentioned, I'm having problems with FSH files at the moment. I did send an error report to you, ilive. I guess it was lost somewhere along the line, as you suggest. I'll PM you with the details. -Dearnen

I remember the comment somewhere that Maxis was hoping to include railyards and (I think) other rail facilities in RH. But, I also remember reading just before RH that they were not able to get it all working right in time for the release. Maybe they'll put it out for free on the website or include it in a second expansion. -Dearnen BTW, I've still got plans to release a pack of diesels from the major western American railroads. There have been a couple of roadbumps and delays on the way, though. I'm now having trouble inserting new FSH files into the DAT files in ilive's Reader. It wasn't an issue until recently, so I don't know what's going on. (I've sent a report to ilive.)

Trolca, I wonder if that's related in anyway to my engines disappearing. Everything seems fine, they appear fine in the Reader, but are invisible in the game. As a newbie, I thought I was just doing something wrong somewhere along the process, but I wonder if something else (other than the undercarriage and U-Drive it data) has been changed, and we're simply missing it. -Dearnen

Well, I've been able to use gmax to restore the normals to the engine rear and cab backsides. After getting the file reconverted back to S3D format and importing it into the DAT (there were a number of stumbles on the way), the locomotive looked fine in the reader (what good that does, since it apparently ignores the normals). Unfortunately, now it is completely invisible in the game. Engineless trains are kinda funny lookin. But, I haven't the foggiest idea what's wrong now. I'll keep plugging away, but I think I'm in over my head with the 3d files. When I get this figured out, I intend to release a package with several western American railoads: Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, Bulington Northern, Santa Fe, BNSF. I'll have both replacement and independant versions for each locomotive. If I ever get used to working with 3d files, I'm thinking of making some earlier diesels (F7s, GP9s, etc.) and some different steam engines. No promises, though. -Dearnen

Well, my guess is that the parts of the engine were accidentally broken when Maxis added the undercarriages to the mesh. It is odd that they show up the editor but not the game. If I knew more about all this, I'd just fix them with gmax or something. I'm going to look into learning how, but it may take me awhile. I hope to be able to make new engine styles eventually anyway. -Dearnen