A runaway project (learning blender)

[railrunner112]

After about 5 years of not working on OR since gmax was simply to unstable and the workarounds became tedious I wanted a small project to re-learn modeling skills. This time with 3ds max and blender for the msts/or exports.
The project I had in mind was the train from runaway train based on the B team train set (Alaska team) Fully custom made will be the two gp7's and the gp40-2. The F7 wil be modified from 3dtrains (I am not that good with carbody units yet)

The last unit (ARR 1810 with fake high hood and number 812) is almost done.

Wheathering the units will be left for last.

I do need to figure out how to animate in blender; I want to make working windshield wipers.

[superheatedsteam]

Always good to see more models being created. I also migrated from gmax to Blender so I have an appreciation of how difficult it can be.

Thankfully, key frame animation is a fundamental part of most 3D software programs so the same principles that apply in 3ds Max, also apply in Blender. There are many tutorials out there on how to do this.

Thank you for sharing your progress. Seeing the results of others, inspires me to keep on working on my projects.

[railrunner112]

Thanks, I think I found out how to do the keyframe but I do notice weird glitches,
The wipers become huge all of the sudden when I activate them in shape viewer.
Also I don't seem to get working wheels and bogies, the bogies appear standing upwards. (Not visible in my screenshots since i disabled them for the pictures) how do you build your hierachy so everything is shown correctly? And what could be causing the scaling issues with the animated whipers?

furthermore some screenshots of the progress so far, including the freightanim on the F7.

[scottb613]

Hi...

I think your issues - are the same ones Josh had. Apply Scale and Rotation - as you model - and prior to animating. Also shows hierarchy.

See Post:
blender-built rolling stock help - TrainSim.Com

Nice work - glad to see others taking the Blender plunge.

Regards,
Scott

[superheatedsteam]

Use View>Hierarchy in Shape File Viewer to display the hierarchy of your exported model.

You use the 'Parent' functions in Blender to build the hierarchy, using CTRL + P to make and ALT + P to break.

For those with less experience here is an example:

Holding down SHIFT key to multiple select, left mouse click WHEELS11, WHEELS12 and BOGIE1

Then use CTRL + P to bring up the 'Select Parent To' menu and select 'Object'

This makes the last selected object (in this case the bogie shape), the 'parent' of the previously selected (wheels) 'child' objects

Now if you move the 'parent' bogie shape, the 'child' wheel shapes will follow.

Then select just the BOGIE1 shape and SHIFT select your 'main' object and again use CTRL + P and select 'Object' to make the bogie a 'child' of the main 'parent' shape. Now when you move the main parent shape, the child bogie shape and and its child wheel shapes will follow.

Do the same for the other bogie.

If you want to break the parent child relationship, select the child object you want to break the relationship with and use ALT + P.

I do it anyway but I have read that the reserved object names like BOGIE1, BOGIE2, WHEELS11, etc need to be in capital letters in Blender order to export correctly.

[railrunner112]

Thanks for the tip, I got the wheels and bogies working now. Same as the wipers on one side but they are a bit slow, might need to change that.Here is a closeup of Alaska Railroad 1810 as 812, includes round cab, fake higher hood and alco bogies.