New WIP - The African Queen

[Nemo]

Thanks guys

I'm quite pleased with how she's coming out, especially the textures!

I have built the engine, but it's only in NURBS so far, not yet in mesh. I'm going to rebuild it all in mesh later, and texture it. Rhino can convert NURBS shapes into mesh, but I prefer to build the mesh myself, even if it means, essentially, building the engine all over again. I have more control that way I find. This may take a while to texture!

[Dom]

Nice engine Sam!

I have built the engine, but it's only in NURBS so far, not yet in mesh. I'm going to rebuild it all in mesh later, and texture it. Rhino can convert NURBS shapes into mesh, but I prefer to build the mesh myself, even if it means, essentially, building the engine all over again. I have more control that way I find.

Actually, if you use the Detailed settings of the Polygon mesh > from NURBS object conversion tool in Rhino, you can have full control on the polygon mesh creation process. It often needs several settings and trials for obtaining the appropriate result (and you have the Reduce polygons tool after that as well, although the control is not perfect then), but it would be a pity to start again from scratch considering you've already NURBS modelled it.
Personnaly, I use both (but especially the first mentionned one), but afterward, I do the biggest work of polygons optimization once imported in Gmax (or 3dsmax) since the handling of the optimization process is more efficient and accurate there, at least according to me (and I do all the mapping, materials setting and texturing in max anyway, -with some adjustements in DeepEx), I use Rhino for all the modeling only).

Dom.

[Bartolomeus]

Nice looking engine!

[shewitt0]

Splendid one cyl engine it seems really nice and seems like it will have a nice stroke. i was wondering to control the speed will the reverser be able to be moved for reverse etc ? Also i can do some sound work for you mostly looping the engine if you so want good like with the old gal

[Nemo]

Thanks Dom!
I've looked into the NURBS to Mesh tools, but I've never been able to get it to do what I wanted to. Maybe I'll have to look into it more!

Thanks Marko and Sean!
Sean, I'll probably make the regulator move in game, so you can use it to control the speed I'm not sure what I'm doing about sounds yet, that's coming last XD

Here are some renders for you all, I'be textured the engine, and poly wise it's between 4000 and 5000, I can't remember the exact figure. Exuse the strange rendering artifacts on the mast and ropes, which shows where the texture tiles. I don't know why it's like that, but the lines won't be there in game! As you can see, she has two stays (needs two more), and has the benches in the stern in. The engine is "clean" texured at the moment, I spent a lot of the day meshing and mapping it, I can't be bothered making it dirty and grimy, I'll do that tomorrow! it looks too out of place. I also want to make the deck texture better, but I can do that later too. Enjoy the pics!


Click here to enlarge




Click here to enlarge

Edit: I think I gotta make some elements of the engine bigger, it looks too small. Damn! It's an easy fix (for tomorrow!) As our captain Charlie Allnut says "Never do today what can be put off to tomorrow"

[RobbyNeath]

Lovely Work Nemo!

Looking forward to sailing this beauty

[Nemo]

Thanks Robby! You can almost picture her chugging down the Ulanga-Bora River, the shrill whistle sounding, Mr. Allnut kicking the engine...!

[Sailorjohn]

Looks great, Sam. One suggestion...you might want to lower the engine a bit. The crankshaft you show ending just aft of the bearing is actually coupled directly to the propellor shaft, in a straight line. It's of course a direct-reversing steam engine. So the crankshaft should be at the same height as the center of the prop. On the AQ, the engine sits on a bed made of longitudinal stringers in the bilge. The cockpit decking would be cut out around the base of the engine.
BTW, VSF still has problems with animations, in that they don't change tempo with throttle. One option would be to make the moving parts of the engine as 'prop'.
I'm having a chuckle or two about this project; in our back yard here on Hudson Pond, in addition to canoe and kayak we have "African Queen", a 10' pedal boat complete with engine, boiler, stack, canopy, and mast with Union Jack. So wifey and I do the 'Charlie and Rosie thing' around the pond, much to the amusement of the neighbors. We even have a little wooden 'steam whistle'.

[shewitt0]

When i looked at the AQ she seems to use a set of gears in that box now im not sure if that was to mask the real diesel that was there or it used cogs. ether way is a neat idea ! well i will prep some sounds for you Nemo if you like them you can use them

Sean

[Nemo]

Thanks John
The engine has me confused about the placement, because if you stop the film at one of the few times you see the engine, the shaft is in a straight horizontal line, but the prop shaft sits lower then the crankshaft, which would mean the two aren't connected? I thought that it could simply be angled like you see on other steam launches, but both shafts are horizontal. I took a few screenshots from the film, and it appears the entire engine sits above the deck. In the second screenshot you can see that the crankshaft and bearings of the engine seem to be above the base of the boiler, which sits on the deck. Confusing!





The deal with animating is a bit of a problem, VSF animates depending on the speed the vessel is moving at, rather than the speed of the engine, right? Not a problem for ground vehicles where wheel rotational speed is proportional to the speed of the vehicle, but for boats where it's not.... I'm not sure what to do. I might do what you suggest, but it would be a shame to not have the entire engine moving.

It sounds like you certainly have fun in your African Queen! Do you get to kick the "boiler" much? (Any photos?)

To save myself making a double post, here's my next post which I'm adding onto the end of this one.

I've started to dirty up the engine, it's starting to look less out of place now. There's still a fair bit to do. I have also enlarged some of the elements of the engine so they're a better scale to the rest of the launch. I still don't know what to do regarding the placement of the engine.



I've done a little experimenting on animating the engine. I downloaded Bongo, which in an animation program that runs in Rhino (made by the same people who made Rhino). I only animated a few parts to test, and it came out ok. Animating the whole engine will require a lot more work though - now I know what Jon goes through when he animates his engines, especially the multiple cylinder ones!