I am taking a little time out from the Canberra to do this for a friend - who will hopefully soon become a Blender User and BA member. He inspired me to look at this:
…and model it in Blender, so here is my first render in basic material form, I have spent around 8 hours on it so far and have the drivetrain all rigged. Now its down to more detail and I will make the basics of the tender to go with it for my next render. This is far from finished, but critiques are always welcome - I only have one photo to work from so some guesswork will be necessary.
EDIT: Here is the latest Render - 500 samples 80% compression, I need to deal with the fireflies…
If you look at the link you will see that you can buy the real thing as a kit to make, along with a motorised under-frame - I might even buy the model…
Hmmmmm - no feedback - I guess I chose the wrong time to do “SteamCute” when everybody else is doing “SteamPunk” - oh well such is life. Maybe we could start a “SteamCute” or “Rowland Emmett” theme here along side SteamPunk?
These renders are at 300 samples - I will up this a bit once I have the scenery in place, now I need to learn how to do grass and plants…
I think I have the basic train in place now - I will also be doing a short video of the train running around a curved track, to show the rigging. :spin:
The train is now all rigged, so the wheels stay on the tracks and rotate as they should, and the bodies swing out on corners, and the links all line up, and the buffers compress or expand as the train goes on to and around a curve, or the track lifts or falls… :spin:
I think I have every eventuality covered, here’s a shot of the train going onto a curved section of track:
I take it you are going to animate this then? Its an absolutely charming piece of work. When my son was much smaller he was a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, and this is making me feel very nostalgic.
I enjoy your wonderful progress, especially the rigging sounds really promising! The concrete in the last image is a stand in, I guess. It’s structure is too much of a real life and not a toy scale. I’m not that experienced with building vegetation, but I’ve been using the sapling addon in the past, and currently it should be working under 2.74 ( but there seems to be a trick: https://developer.blender.org/T44135 )