Tutorial 3: Make a Basic Locomotive from Scratch or Nearly...

 

Let's prepare our workspace before we start making that engine body!

First, go to the Left viewport. If you don't have one, go to the Right viewport, right-click and drag down on the word Right in the corner of the Right viewport. Drag down until you highlight Views, then drag move the mouse to the right and highlight the word Left.

Also, in each viewport, we want to be able to see the polygon edges. To do this we need to turn on Edged Faces. Right-click on the Viewport word Title and select Edged Faces in each viewport.

Let's hide those bogies and wheels.

First, click on the Blueprint cube in the Left viewport to select it.

Now, click on the Display tab and under Hide, click on the button labeled Hide Unselected.

If you did this right, the only thing that should be visible is the Blueprint cube

Go to the Create tab, and select the Box button. Under Creation Method, select Box. Under Parameters, go to the Length Segs: and put in 3.

Also, click on Generate Mapping Coordinates.

In the Top viewport, click and draw a box starting at the upper left of the drawing and drag down to the bottom right and click.

Now drag the mouse up while you look at the Front viewport. Drag the mouse until the box reaches the top horizontal line of the drawing.

Let's give our engine a MSTS friendly name. In the Create panel under Name, type in MAIN

Let's start to make the engine cab.

Click on the Modify tab and right click in the window under Modifier list. Select Convert to: Editable Mesh

Under Selection , click on the vertex icon. Click on the Move icon. Now, in the Top viewport, select the second row of vertices from the top.

 

Move the mouse over the yellow and green arrow of the move gizmo until the mouse pointer changes to look like the move icon.

Click and drag so that the vertices line-up with the front of the cab in the Top viewport. Now, grab the next row of vertice down and move that to the bottom of the cab.

 

We need to extrude the sides of the cab now. Click on the Select Object icon.

In the Modify panel, click on the Polygon icon.

In the Left viewport, click and drag a small rubber-band selection box between the two lines for the cab.

In the Modify panel, under Edit Geometry, click on the Extrude button.

In the text field to the right, type in 0.6 and hit ENTER.

From the Top viewport, you can see that the cab faces are now extruded.

Right now, it's getting hard to see the drawing with the engine geometry in front of it.

Let's do something about that.

Right-click on the Engine geometry in the Left viewport.

A contextual menu will pop-up. You'll see four menus, go to the bottom right menu and highlight Properties and click.

 

The Object Properties window should show.

Under Display Properties, click on See-Through and hit OK.

 

We should be able to see the drawing through the geometry now.

We want to put a curve on the roof of the cab. To make this curve a little smoother, we need to subdivide the polygons on the roof.

Select the Polygon icon in the Modify panel and click on Ignore Backfacing.

In the Top viewport Select the 3 Polygons on the roof of the cab. You can hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard to select more than one polygon.

 

Under Edit Geometry in the Modify panel, click on the Extrude button and in the text field to the right, type in 0.25 and hit ENTER

Select the Vertex Icon and click to turn off Ignore Backfacing.

In the Front viewport, drag-select the outer vertices on the left side in the second row from the top.

Hold CTRL and drag-select the outer vertices on the right side in the second row from the top.

Click on the Move icon and move those vertices down.

Look at the Left viewport while you do this and line these vertices up with the cab line.

Click on the Polygon icon. Slide down until you see the text field next to the Tessellate button.

Type in 0.0, then click on the Tessellate button.

Click one more time on the Tessellate button.

You should see more polygons in the cab.

This is a simple approach to subdividing faces and it works for this simple locomotive. In later tutorials, we'll show you a more advanced and more polygon optimal method of subdividing polygons.

Let's curve the roof now.

Click on the Modifier List Rollout and under Free Form Deformations, select FFD 4x4x4.

 

In the window under Modifier List, you'll see the FFD 4x4x4 listed, click on the plus sign to the left of it to open up the controls.

Select Control Points.

Were going to use this deformation lattice to help us make a smooth curve with these polygons. In the Front viewport, you can see the orange lattice and the square control points. Select the farthest control points to either side and move them down to meet the cab edge line.

 

Now select the middle two control points and move them up a bit.

 

Click and choose the Select and Non-Uniform Scale icon and scale the control points out until the polygon curve matches the curve on the drawing.

 

Beautiful!

Let's collapse the stack and keep this change.

Right-click in the window under the Modifier List, and click on Collapse All.

 

Click and choose the Select and Non-Uniform Scale icon and scale the control points out until the polygon curve matches the curve on the drawing.

 

A Warning dialog box will pop-up, click on Yes.

Hey, now that's a smooth hood!

Now, we're ready to shape the body some more.

In the Modify panel, click on the Vertex icon. In the Left viewport, drag -select the vertices to the far left.

 

Make sure that the Move icon is activated at the top of the screen.

Move those vertices to the second black line to the right.

 

Now, drag-select the vertices to the far right and move those in to the second black line to the left.

 

Finally, drag-select the vertices at the bottom and move them up to the black line for the bottom of the body.

 

Let's make the taper at the front and back of the main body.

In the Modify panel, select the Polygon icon.

Click the Select Object icon at the top left of the screen to activate it.

In the Front viewport, drag-select in the middle polygon to select both the front and back polygon.

 

Let's extrude these polygons to make the nose.

In the Modify panel, under Edit Geometry, click on the Extrude button. In the text field to the right, type in 0.6 and hit ENTER.

 

Click on the Select and Non-Uniform Scale icon at the top-middle of the screen.

In the Front viewport, move the mouse over the yellow arrow with the X, then click and drag down until the nose polygons have shrunk to match the inner black lines.

 

Let's make the floorboard now by making another box.

Go to the Create tab and select the Box button. Make sure, that under Creation Method, Box is selected and under Parameters, Length Segs: = 3 and Generate Mapping Coordinates is selected.

In the Top viewport, click and drag a box to match the drawing.

 

Click and drag the mouse up while you look at the Front viewport.

Drag the mouse until the floorboard top meets the bottom of the engine body.

Click to finish making the box.

 

Let's make it so we can see through this geometry also.

Right-click on the floorboard geometry and click on Properties in the contextual menu.

Under Display Properties, click on See-Through and click on OK.

Once again, we want to do some vertex editing so go and click on the Modify tab. Right-click in the window under the Modifier List window and select Convert to: Editable Mesh.

Click on the Vertex icon. Make sure that the Move icon is activated at the top of the screen. In the Left viewport, move the inner vertices to align with the edge of the wheel wells.

 

Drag-select all of the bottom vertices and move them up to the bottom of the floorboard in the drawing.

 

Now we're ready to extrude the hump for the bottom.

Click on the Polygon icon and select Ignore Backfacing. In the Perspective viewport, rotate the view so you can see the bottom faces of the floorboard.

Now select the middle-bottom polygon.

 

In the Modify panel, under Edit Geometry, click on the Extrude button. In the text field to the right, type in 0.4

Click on the Select and Non-Uniform Scale icon and in the Perspective viewport, move the mouse over the Y arrow until it highlights as yellow and the mouse pointer turns into the scale icon.

Click and drag the mouse down to scale the polygon to match the drawing in the Left viewport.

 

We're almost done with our model.

Create 2 boxes in the Top viewport and line them up to the front and back stairs in the drawing.

Make sure to turn the Length Segs to 1 and select Generate Mapping coordinates.

When you click the Vertex icon, make sure that the Ignore Backfacing is off.

 

Convert both of these boxes to Editable Meshes.

Select each box and Move the bottom vertices up to match the drawing.

 

Make one more box and use the previous steps to align it with the drawing.

 

We're going to optimize the number pf polygons in our model, just to get you into the habit.

The BIG thing to look out for are any polygons that we think will always be hidden or covered-up. There are four prime examples here: the top polygons for each of the boxes that we just made and the polygons at the bottom of the engine body.

We'll never, see these, so let's get rid of them!

Click on the Polygon icon in the Modify panel and click on Ignore Backfacing.

Click on the top polygon of the box that you just made.

PIC

In the Modify panel, click on Delete.

Do this for each box. Remember: to hit the Polygon icon to unhighlight it so you can select another box.

 

Now, rotate the Perspective viewport so you can see the bottom of the Engine body.

Go ahead and select and delete those bottom faces.

 

The last step is to attach all of these new pieces to our main engine body.

Click on the Polygon icon again to unhighlight it. Now, click on the engine body geometry in any window.

In the Modify panel, under Edit Geometry, click on the button labeled Attach List.

A Attach List dialog box will pop-up. Select all objects except for the Blueprint object and click on the Attach button. Go ahead and save your work by selecting Save under File on the menu bar. We need to texture map our engine now.........