3D Modelling

I swear I'm not starting new threads just for the sake of it, I genuinely believe after viewing some of the things in the 3D Printed thread that there could be interest yet for something of this nature.

This is a thread for people to show off what they're 3D modelling, to ask for questions and help or just to lurk like many of us do from time to time.

I'll start by posting some of the better things I have 3D modelled in the past as well as some of my projects to get people interested, so to speak.

I used to use Google Sketchup a lot when I first started into this way back in 2011 I think it was, thought now I mostly use Blender. Both are free, both have ups and downs and so I do still use both as the needs vary. For example, I generally use Sketchup for things to be 3D printed or where measurements are important to me, whereas Blender I use for flowing shapes such as cars and planes. I haven't successfully finished a train in Blender yet but I have gotten close.

Warning: Picture heavy!


A hopper based on the ones used on private coal railways in NSW.


Something I was making for a 3D printed model train competition which I gave up on. It's an overscale version of the NSWGR x10 crane tanks designed to fit around a Hornby 0-4-0 chassis, but the chassis and motor made the proportions of the squat loco difficult hence why I stopped.


3D version of a train from a 1936 colour cartoon called 'Play Safe'. It's available to view on Youtube for those interested.


Recreated a scene from the TUGS episode 'Pirate' using models I had on my hard drive from 3 years ago with some extra bits re-used from a school project because why not.


An E2 in BR Ultramarine depicting if Sodor was a region of BR I suppose. I did a version of this with the BR markings and numbers too but I let this one render longer so it looks better. Wheels were copied and pasted from my J50 because I was lazy.


This is literally the best I have ever done modelling wise and ever since then I've never finished a train project. I took an older version of this I did and gradually remade almost all the parts over a 2 week period (my school holidays which i should have actually used to study because i nearly failed) to produce a trigger's broom type thing.


An absolutely awful character trait of mine is being spiteful or jealous from time to time over minor things. Someone was taking several days to make a locomotive shed of subpar quality and posting a picture in a discord server pretty much every time he added a vertice. This bothered both myself and nearly everybody else to the point I said I would make a better shed in 12 hours and did so. If this makes you think less of me then I don't blame you, because it makes me think less of myself as well.


Rendered the shed with two of the j50s and a lorry i made for a friend a bit earlier.

Now, onto the hard stuff   my Blender models.


3D version of the iconic Thomas face used on most pre-1984 merchandise packaging.


I like my movie cars as much as the next guy, and given how obscure it appears (probably due to the generic film title) I decided to try my hand at making the car from 'The Car', a simply awful movie with some good stuntwork and a sick car.


An LNER Thompson A2/3 because I find something likeable where nobody else apparently does. Highly unpopular because of design choices like the cylinders being between the 2nd and 3rd axles (between the second small wheel and first big wheel) and even more unpopular because of their designer but trust me he was just misunderstood.



Something for the Australians of us here, even more so the New South Welshmen (and Welshwomen, equal rights) it's a C32 because I love my NSWGR trains and miss them dearly since moving to the horribly underdeveloped state that is South Australia. No offence to anyone else that has to live here but I genuinely dislike it.


Spitfire Mk 1 because my friend said he wanted to learn how to make planes in Blender so I started a screenshare call over discord with him. I got pretty far into it before he decided he was going to make a VW beetle instead so I don't know that I will finish this given how generic the Spitfire is (don't get me wrong, I do love it, especially the Vb/trop) and how common 3D renditions of it are.


People probably saw this in the 3D Printing chat but I made this to test out my new Resin printer and I was surprised that it actually worked given how little effort I actually put into making it printer friendly.


Another one for the Australians on here, an XG falcon ute because I have one and it's been a solid car since I left high school and didn't have to care what people thought any more. Mine isn't blue though, it's white.


Another one for the Australians on here, an XA falcon ute because I have one and it's been rusting since I bought it in 2015. I can't afford to fix it at the moment but I'm saving up for repair panels and this model will be to get an idea for what I want the finished one to look like. that and they are a popular car (the XA-XB-XC falcons) and so I could turn it into little keyrings or hot wheels sized toys for people that own them. My actual one is a mix of brown, white, old tyres and a fat 302 V8 which just sounds so good.

So yeah, lots of stuff from the past and present and I hope to see other people posting their 3D modelling escapades in here or even asking questions etc.

- Tree

3D version of a train from a 1936 colour cartoon called 'Play Safe'. It's available to view on Youtube for those interested.

I remember that engine as Montana from Casey Jr. & Friends (and later The Railways of Crotoonia). Needless to say, this face looks MUCH better than the original.

I like my movie cars as much as the next guy, and given how obscure it appears (probably due to the generic film title) I decided to try my hand at making the car from 'The Car', a simply awful movie with some good stuntwork and a sick car.

 NO. It can't be! I just so happened to watch the film, so I was astounded to see this when I scrolled down. As bizzare and twisted as the film's plot was, I thought it was awesome. Whenever someone cursed the Car, it would get infuriated and kill its victims without any driver. I still feel sorry for Lauren (and those poor cyclists at the beginning). Even the reflective texture makes it look just like the real thing.

"We'd like to see what you look like. I'd like to see what a creep like you looks like!".

I'm acutely aware of the Montana character, mainly because people pointed at mine and called it so when I first uploaded pics. Didn't sit well with me but not much I could do about it. This wasn't helped by the fact someone re-used the character again for a more recent series made using MMD with a range of other sentient train characters that really shouldn't belong together.

Here's the original cartoon for those interested. As is expected with older 2D animations, certain views don't match up. From memory there were 6 separate 2D views, each depicting varying levels of detail and various general dimensions so I picked those I thought best.

Pretty cool stuff there FFF, you are obviously far more advanced and skilled in 3D design software than me, although I put that down to just lack of use/practice so far

[Super]

I like how the program allows you to have lighting effects and direction.

Okay, so this thread looks like it will be my personal dumping grounds. I recently downloaded a beta version of Blender which features an amazingly fast rendering system called Eevee. What would have taken me a couple of hours to render with Cycles (2560x1440, 720 frames @ 48fps) took about 4 minutes with Eevee. Colour me impressed!


There are also some other cool features for rendering in general such as bloom which you could use to make that typical soap opera style lighting etc.

This is going to be the RHDR's No. 3 Northern Chief as on a recent trip to the UK, where I was fortunate to meet up with two of my friends, we visited the KESR together and the day after with only one friend we went to the RHDR and Northern Chief took us along the line for the whole day, even after getting off and on again several times. Eventually I will 3D print it in OO scale (so it will be closer to an N gauge loco than anything else probably)


I tried my hand at some photogrammetry programs hoping it would ease the process of making car models a little bit. It doesn't seem to like the input images I feed it, but considering this was reconstructed using only 4 pictures it is pretty good. Not good enough to try and fix/clean for a proper render quality model though.


Here's a goofy idea I had back when I was still at school which I always wanted to render but with minimal effort (understandably, it's not exactly something I want to pour hours of time into at this stage). The model came from a mobile game called CSR Classics.

The original idea was to make a boat with the upper half representing a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona which as you got further down the body would roll under and form a more conventional hull shape than the floorpan of a car. My mind being a superb wordsmith sealed the deal by naming it the Dodge Daytuna. Hardly clever, but it was still something I wanted to visualise. I intentionally used the wrong car for this render, a 1970 Plymouth Superbird, because I like the nose cone more and the Road Runner it was based on could be ordered as a convertible - for safety, as I wouldn't want anybody to be trapped by a low roofline/windows in the event of a roll over. It could be worth looking into further just for something different.


Test rendering in the beta Blender using what I have so far of my XA Falcon Ute project.


After a sleepless night I decided to start another new project. For this, I needed some good quality track. Using a GCR bullhead rail engineering drawing, looking at images of UK track and viewing some reclaimed UK sleepers for measurements yielded this quite convincing (IMO) model.


And of course I had to complicate things for myself. This is going to be a 1:1 scale 3D model of Broadbottom Station and the associated sidings, with a total length of 0.65km being modelled. I was extremely fortunate to find a high quality scan of a signalling track diagram, split in two parts and stretching in total roughly 3.2km. Using images of the real station in the 50s/60s I can approximate things missing from the drawing such as a 5th track which has either a goods or loco shed over it. My plan for the finished map is to use for more convincing renders than just plain backgrounds/transparency as with all of my previous renders.


And yes, that really is the same track model being repeated hundreds of times as well as the rails which I separated from the main model.


Please let me know what you think.

Okay, it's worth a double post to show that I did get the photogrammetry program working fairly well with pictures I took of my own car. I assume it worked better due to more data being in the files as opposed to those ripped from videos on youtube (where the other part of a white ute came from)
one of the many images taken


after a little wait (the program does everything after you select the settings)


then a teeny bit of cleanup


and rendering with a lot of bloom to hide the lumpiness of the model


Honestly I think it may just be down to how few images i took and the lighting because I have seen people get great results with cars elsewhere. either way, its a learning experience

new thing from me as a stress relief i guess because work is oof




from season 3 of TTTE it's one of the buildings from the Arlesburgh harbour set seen in episodes such as Donald's Duck, Percy's Promise and the music video for Night Train. the rendered images are quite large so i won't post them here but leave links instead

https://puu.sh/CblZl/17e9c04830.png
https://puu.sh/CbmQm/b8b52552ca.png

it doesnt show very well but i've been experimenting with making textures and bump maps etc and this building was also to test some out and get practice. it doesnt show very well in the renders but when you put a light source up against it, the bump map comes into effect nicely



also working on what will become a Robinson O4 / J&A Brown ROD with as much detail as i can think to add



not much but it's a start. this will eventually run on the track layout i posted above somewhere for animations.

theres also this video i made walking around my j50 model in Blender 2.8 Eevee render engine which is amazingly quick compared to cycles. not quite as good for still image renders but for getting a feel of how a model might look in a game it's perfect. excuse the music but it's the first thing i picked, feel free to mute and play something over the top.




thats all

- Tree

Decided to do some modelling again after a while because work makes me want to die and there's a lot more of it coming up so i needed to distract myself

[Super]

That looks cool. Are you going to go all the way with the build?

Question:
Is this image created from real specs? I ask this because of the way the engine mounts to the down tubes and those tubes are only bolted in the frame. I my uneducated amateur engineering mind, it looks like the torque of the engine is only as good as those bolts...Just asking as I am curious.