Atomic Systems

dorlan wrote:

trainmad wrote:

prairie4566 wrote: 47557 was a regular shunter at Radstock.

I'm under the impression this one was quite regularly fitted with a snowplough - having to have its front buffers removed?

And its rear buffers!
There's a photograph of it, complete with snowploughs, in Derek Huntriss' book, "Steam in Somerset", published by Ian Allen.

Hello,

Ivo certainly took many photos of it with ploughs on, none of those feeble-looking efforts as applied to recent BR diesels either!.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

Hello Kev,

She's looking good. The only points that I can see need altering are the overhangs on the cab roof.
In reality, the cab/roof interface was flush, although there were narrow gutters fitted along the sides of the roof.

She'll look good in dirty BR livery too,..

Any plans for this model to feature correct-for-the-S&D headlamp arrangements?.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

Of course, if the rumours that you will need to buy an expensive paint package to actually texture a RS loco are true, then the project may go on hold !!

Incorrect rumours I can assure you.

I've currently started repainting the default 47 and can do it in TheGimp (free), Paint.NET(Free) and PSP9 (cheap).

Matt.

NeutronIC wrote:

Of course, if the rumours that you will need to buy an expensive paint package to actually texture a RS loco are true, then the project may go on hold !!

Incorrect rumours I can assure you.

I've currently started repainting the default 47 and can do it in TheGimp (free), Paint.NET(Free) and PSP9 (cheap).

Matt.

Hello Matt,

Thanks for dispelling yet another rumour which has grown up around this sim.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

NeutronIC wrote:

Of course, if the rumours that you will need to buy an expensive paint package to actually texture a RS loco are true, then the project may go on hold !!

Incorrect rumours I can assure you.

I've currently started repainting the default 47 and can do it in TheGimp (free), Paint.NET(Free) and PSP9 (cheap).

Matt.

Thats good news, Matt! Are you using a plugin for the above paint packages or a separate program for the texture conversions?

Cheers,
Kevin

bristolian wrote:Hello Kev,

She's looking good. The only points that I can see need altering are the overhangs on the cab roof.
In reality, the cab/roof interface was flush, although there were narrow gutters fitted along the sides of the roof.

She'll look good in dirty BR livery too,..

Any plans for this model to feature correct-for-the-S&D headlamp arrangements?.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

Thanks for the info, Bob, the cab roof will only take a few minutes to put right.

Will have to do some more research about the other points. Main ambition at the moment is to actually get a model working in the sim.

Cheers,
Kevin

Right now i'm just using the technique that SteelixB identified for converting the tgdcpx files in to a DDS texture, and then I've used a Paint.NET plugin (free) to open the DDS texture and save as a TGA, then i'm using PSP (my preferred tool) to actually do the editing. When done it's just the reverse, save the TGA, convert to DDS via Paint.NET (see note below about why i'm using paint.net instead of just psp) and then convert the dds to the tgdcpx file.

SteelixB has himself completed a full roundtrip of editing already, he has screenshots of a GNER HST on the forums that he's done as a proof of concept.

The dev toolkit comes with a converter that converts the intermediate graphics format to the tgdcpx file - I believe the intermediate format is just our old favourite ACE file, perhaps updated a bit. But either way, even if that doesn't work out - we can just export a DDS file and make the TGDCPX file ourselves, the process looks a bit awry at the moment (hex editors etc) but it's dead easy and will be trivial to automate and build a DDS -> TGDCPX converter.

All the paint packages I listed have got DDS plug-ins, though PSP has difficulty with plugins on Vista, hence why i'm using Paint.NET to do that step, otherwise it'd just be in PSP.

So i'm really not concerned, whether RSD make it easy /cheap / free for the freeware community or not - we'll MAKE it easy / cheap / free.

Matt.

Thanks for the reply, Matt.

So, I can basically still use my old paint package (Picture Publisher 8, years old but does nearly everything I need) and then use Paint.net for conversions. Sounds pretty good to me

I may wait till someone builds a DDS -> TGDCPX converter. Used to dabble with (basic) machine code programming twenty odd years ago, but must be getting old now, as the thought of using hex editors is not quite so appealing these days

Cheers,
Kevin

We (the community) should have the tools to convert most image fomats to the appropriate format for the rollingstock packager in the dev tools before 12th Nov.

Nice model Kev

Thanks Paul,

Cheers,
Kevin

CaptainBazza wrote:

I'm under the impression this one was quite regularly fitted with a snowplough - having to have its front buffers removed?

Amazing, that's the first reference to a snow plough on a British locomotive I've ever seen. Hard winters must have produced snow conditions on tracks where a plough would have been a requirement to keep the lines open, yet I've never read anything on the subject.

That's a fine model of a Jinty, which incidentally was my first Triang electric loco way back in the late fifties and the first locomotive I attempted for MSTS.


Cheers Bazza

Baz,

The winter of 1948 was so severe that one S&D passenger train was over a day late, owing to being frozen in a cutting.

My dear old dad also tells me that in 1948 the sea froze at Reculver.

Snowploughs were/are not uncommon on British locos.

Nice Johnson, Kev!

Cheers,

Mike

Thanks Mike,

Another picture showing the model with some extra detailing added.



Cheers,
Kevin

Bazza

You have a PM.

Looking very nice Kevin.

That really is looking very nice now. I guess the only stumbling block you're going to come across is the cab view. I suppose you'll have to use a default one for now. BTW, I wonder if cabs and sounds can be alaised as in MSTS, or does each loco' need it's own?

Gary.