In my next adventure in modeling content for TSC, I'm looking at making power lines, some call them transmission line or even high voltage lines. While there are many different examples of these towers all over the world, my focus will be on the older medal types used in the US. The first four models are models I made for Trainz a while back. The rest of this pack will be new models. I'm looking to make about 10, maybe more if I can get good reference pictures. I am a bit concerned about the polys counts on these monstrosities. I'm looking for any content creation thoughts, tips or tricks folks might have on the topic. Lod levels? Overall poly counts? Texturing tricks? The first model on is always the hardest.
The first powerline model has been cleaned up and it is ready for exporting into TSC. While I still need to do some testing on this model, I have the tower model set to come in the game at 4 levels of LOD. The main outline of the tower will pop in view at 1000m. At 700m the straight crossmember will be drawn. At 550m the diagonal crossmembers will be added. At 450 the insulators will be drawn. This may all change after testing. This power line will have 6 main wires and 2 smaller wires on top. In the research I've done on the topic of power lines, I'm told the top 2 smaller wires are for protection against lightning strikes, and serve no other purpose. I also found out that you can count up the insulators on any given tower, each insulator is equal to 11KV of power. Count up the insulator to figure the total KV power in the wires that the tower is carrying. I never knew that. More soon.
I am looking forward to seeing these pylons. I have your other streetlight / telephone pole packs and am busy installing them on my route. They look great. Thanks! Wayne
I was successful in getting the first power line into TSC by using the same blueprints as the power poles. I did make a thicker wire for these powerlines. I made a few adjustments. First, I was able to get rid of 3000 polys on the model. There was an edge on each insulator that wasn't needed. She still is a hog at 47,000 polys however. The good news is there are not many towers in any particular scene...unless you are at some kind of electrical sub-station. I'll worry about that later. I also lowered the LOD levels even more than I originally suggested. It look like I might be able to lower them even more... if needed. Too my surprise, when I imported the model I found that the normals (faces) on the insulators where backwards! How and when did that happen? Anyhow, I'm going to call this done for now. Next up "Big Bertha".
Round #2, Big Bertha has arrived. This is my biggest tower to date. Poly count on this monster is 27,328. About 10,000 less then the first tower...go figure! Like the first tower, this tower was re-worked (cleaned up) for it's export into TSC. I also set up the LOD levels the same as the last tower. It should be good to go. If you look hard you can see the farthest tower in the scene is missing it's cross members.
Powerline #3 went pretty fast...how about that tubular type of power line. I first remember seeing these in the early to mid 1970's.
Here is the fourth powerline in my collection. I seen this power line pop up in a lot in pictures from the 1950's in this area. So why not model it. I believe it was used to get electrical lines over hilly areas. For some reason the original model was messed up and the lattice work didn't match up. I decided to rebuild all the lattice work. It took a while but it was worth it. I also added long concrete footers to the bottom of the tower for those hilly areas. This takes care of all my previous powerline models that I made in Trainz. The next 6 will be new models.
This power line will be target #5. It appears to be "Big Bertha's" more contemporary and smaller mini me. I am having a problem with the shape of those bug antennas at the top, but I'll figure it out.
Power Line #5...Not too bad if I say so myself. All that is needed now is the wire connecters and the textures. I should have this wrapped up by tomorrow.
Powerline #5 is finished and in the books. I'm halfway along in finishing this powerline pack. The next powerline is back to some good old fashion lattice building. More soon.
Here is Power line #6... I actually started on another tower but found this one. This looks like a more interesting build. This will be ground up-scratch built model, inside Blender 2.7. I like the identification tag on the top of the tower. I wonder if there is a way to replicate that in TSC? It would need some kind of editable tag on the tower. If somebody can give me directions on how to make something like that, I would surely give it a try.
Power line 6 of 10 is coming along nicely. I built from ground up and as I got to the top area of the tower, I noticed that the proportions didn't seem right. However, once I widened the tower size, it looked just about right. For a second there, I thought I may have to start over. Disaster adverted! I'm hoping to finish this up soon.
I'm not sure specifically how to do that, but if it would be anywhere, you would find the information here: TSC Dev Docs
Thanks, I will be looking into how to make a editable sign in these docs. I may need too learn that process for some possible future projects.
that amazing work. quick tip when building tall buildings place a small cube or plane below the object at the same Hight in blender. so if object is 50 ft tell then you place cube or plane -50ft. reason is in tsc game when you have camera near the object that tall the object disappears or flicker on and off.
I'm not sure of the height of the tower. I did add a 6ft man into the Blender scene so I can eye up the over all measurements. I did start by measuring the base of the tower in Google Earth and started with a plane of the same size to get the footers in the right position. It was still off by a little bit. Once the tower is finished, I can adjust it's overall measurements.
ah ok, i made a lamp post and i think the Hight was 3.96 meters tall. so i made a plane object and move it below to -396 meters. here a pic i made the plan bigger to show but it doesn't matter cause it underground in tsc. but for me it stop that flickering of the lamp post when moving the camera around the object in tsc.
Oh, I see what you are saying now. I want to check to see if I get that flickering...I never noticed it before. I'll report back on this.
I tested and I don't see any flickering what so ever. Usually flicking is an indication that you have model faces occupying the same space as each other. It also could be your game settings or maybe even the shader you are using to import the model.
Looks like this power line is finished...now for some texturing. I'll take one least look to see if I missed any cross members...there were a lot of them!
