BNSF SD70ACe Mega-Pack Creation and Inquiry

[ZachBell4400]

I've been so infatuated with reskinning locos on the blank SLI SD70ACe, I decided now to create a mega-pack of SLI BNSF SD70ACe's. It will be the 8400 and 8500 series. For editing the ACE files, I would prefer Paint.net over any other paint editor on the web. Before I get started with repainting the blanks, however, there are a few questions I would like to ask the community here.

1) How can I rotate and reposition the headlight on the blank SD70ACe so it is on the nose rather than the cab?
2) When I go into TGATool2A, what are the steps to eliminating the risk of the wipers and parts being alpha'ed in? (That way I won't see black rectangles on the windshield once exported.)
3) Does Paint.net (open-source) offer the same benefit as the paid apps?

[SD40-2]

Regarding the nose, you're just setting yourself up for a lot of work if you're going to re-position the headlight like you said.

Just use the MRL SD70ACe units with the nose in the headlights, and there's a little FA made by Jeff Auberpine that'll fill in the gap between the number boards.

[=FI=Ghost]

I've been so infatuated with reskinning locos on the blank SLI SD70ACe, I decided now to create a mega-pack of SLI BNSF SD70ACe's. It will be the 8400 and 8500 series. For editing the ACE files, I would prefer Paint.net over any other paint editor on the web. Before I get started with repainting the blanks, however, there are a few questions I would like to ask the community here.

1) How can I rotate and reposition the headlight on the blank SD70ACe so it is on the nose rather than the cab?
2) When I go into TGATool2A, what are the steps to eliminating the risk of the wipers and parts being alpha'ed in? (That way I won't see black rectangles on the windshield once exported.)
3) Does Paint.net (open-source) offer the same benefit as the paid apps?

I am not 100% sure about the first question, but I believe that this is done in the locomotive's .eng file. There are a lot of lines regarding lights in it, so I presume some of those lines determine the position of each light.

Alpha channels are added separately when you use a paint editing program to edit a piece of texture. Alpha channels that are already present in texture can be deleted or edited, as needed. TgaTool only converts your textures in and out of different formats.

I don't know about that one. I've been using Photoshop for all of my skinning and cab creating projects for almost a decade now.

[ebnertra000]

I use paint.net for all my texture work. For just about anything you'd need to do, it'll work fine.
Peesonally, I don't even use TGATool to get my .ace files - ShapeViewer can export texture files

[geepster775]

I have an easier path. Buy this



and then apply the textures to the UP 8347 from another pack and then tinker with the textures a bit. Find yourself whatever BNSF unit numbers that carry the high headlight that also have lost the Lexan dome in favor of a PTC cluster











Now I understand some people may be reluctant to follow this approach, I mean, not everyone wants a 52,000 poly model when they can have a 9,000 poly model that is 14 years old.

[ZachBell4400]

Regarding the nose, you're just setting yourself up for a lot of work if you're going to re-position the headlight like you said.

Just use the MRL SD70ACe units with the nose in the headlights, and there's a little FA made by Jeff Auberpine that'll fill in the gap between the number boards.

I wonder if the F/A will work for the UP/CSX SD70ACe blank textures? Can I use the F/A for the nose variant?