So, I noticed a severe lack of steam engines for OpenBVE. I made one. I've not had any experience with modeling before so I grabbed Blender, The noob to pro guide and set to work...

It's nowhere near finished, I am a noob at this, I just wanted to see if there was any interest?



Thanks, Chris

EDIT: The forum seems to have cut off the end of the image, right click on the image and view it directly to see the whole thing.

There's never been much steam development for BVE2/BVE4/openBVE, so I'm sure something like this would be a welcome change. Is this intended as a scenery object, or are you planning something drivable?

One piece of advice: don't make the model too complicated. Try using good textures that give the illusion of geometrical complexity.

Thanks for your response.

I was planning something drivable, I'm not sure what I will do for the cab yet, I don't have actual access to the locomotive.

Good textures to give the illusion of geometry? I'll try. However, in Blender I haven't even learned how to texture yet. It can't be THAT hard, though.

There's lots of steam sound packs for MSTS so I could ask one of the owners of those for permission when it is ready for sound.

This looks fab!

Keep up the great work, it will be great to have something different to drive than diesel and electric trains!

It is sure looking absolutely fab, but like Velaro I have my thoughts about the drivability in Open BVE... remember that you will need a lot of moving parts on a steam loc. O once made one for MSTS, and that was a major job!

busheyheath wrote:It is sure looking absolutely fab, but like Velaro I have my thoughts about the drivability in Open BVE... remember that you will need a lot of moving parts on a steam loco. I once made one for MSTS, and that was a major job!

Yes, It's going to be hard animating considering I have never done it before in blender, although I have mode some wheels rotate in Train Sim Modeler for some wagons.

Anyway, I have made the front of the loco flat for the minute to get to grips with texturing, I have put it's face on so far.

I've nicked this texture from MSTS, I'm going to have to create my own before I release the model.

EDIT: I've updated the render with the new chimney and a bit more texture.

Here is a render:



I am going to rework the chimney at some point too, as it's rubbish. EDIT: It's been changed now, see above.

Thanks for all your comments and enthusiasm so far.

It'll certainly be nice having steam locos in openBVE and when it's finished, your model is certainly going to look great.

monkeynut wrote:Yes, It's going to be hard animating considering I have never done it before in blender, although I have mode some wheels rotate in Train Sim Modeler for some wagons.

Don't forget that openBVE uses it's own animation format via the .ANIMATED file format, but I'm not aware of any exporter for Blender which supports it. The .x file export isn't going to be useful, too, as openBVE doesn't support .x file animation, so you probably need to animate your model outside of Blender.

Happy modelling,

Jan

Thanks, Jan. I wasn't certain on how to animate it. It's going to take a while, though, as I'm new to all of this and it won't be ready quickly. I'm going to keep you all updated as I go though.

Here's the model right now:



A load of normals were the wrong way round which caused bits of the model to be invisible, are fixed now.

These are still MSTS textures and are going to be replaced with my own.

Not sure what I'm doing for the cabview and sound yet.

Is it going to be the scottsman

metropolitanline wrote:Is it going to be the scottsman

Damn straight! Hopefully within the next month I will have chance to go to the NRM, might be able to get some photos of the real thing to use

So.. I imported the model into OpenBVE...


Whoops?



I'll keep trying.

I like the overall idea
i'm really excited to see the finished thing : )

Thanks.

I'm not sure why the model is totally screwed up, or why there's no textures.

I've realised I might have made it on the wrong angle too so it's going to need rotating.

I hope I don't hit a wall with this...

Don't give up! Keep working on the model, and once you have it right you'll have learned quite a lot about developing for BVE. Keep up the good work, it looks promising!