15 miles on the Erie Canal

Started by sboerner, January 25, 2018, 11:05:04 AM

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ajcgi

Keep going! This is an excellent project!  ;D

luvsmuzik

Looking grand! Successful modeling techniques and texture shader work for sure!

sboerner

Thank you, all. I appreciate the encouragement!

bobbystahr

#138
WOW...nuff said as it's all been said B 4 and I agree.
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

Hannes


luvsmuzik

Wabash Erie Canal Days Festival July 7&8 Delphi IN  :)

sboerner

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Just a quick update. Spare time seems to be at a premium this summer (too many distractions between real work, the yard, and baseball) but this project has been proceeding in fits and starts.

Many changes since the last post. More contemporary (c. 1916) photographs have turned up and allowed me to nail down the location of buildings and the electric railway, which was in the wrong place before. It's been moved several meters south and a siding and passenger station have been added.

Poles and wires have been added for the railway. The tall power lines on the right side of the tracks carry 60kv AC power to substations (none in this scene), which in turn convert it to 600v DC and feed it into the conductor lines, on the left side of the tracks. These power the passenger cars via contact with the trolley pole and wheel. Other poles in the scene carry telegraph and telephone wires. No other power lines; this was before rural electrification.

All of the temporary trees have been removed to enable placement of the rail and power lines. The new buildings still need to be mapped and shaded. And a couple more need to be added. Once that's done I can start on final revisions to the terrain (there's some wonkiness going on in the left foreground) and adding vegetation. Looking forward to that!

bobbystahr

Quote from: sboerner on August 10, 2018, 11:51:04 AM
[attach=1]


Looking forward to that!


As are we all...Impressive additions...
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist

sboerner

Thanks, Bobby. I used the painted shader to tweak some of the displacements, the first time I've used it extensively. Really powerful tool, you can use it to make very precise adjustments. Unless I'm missing something, though, there's no way to make it respond to the pen pressure on my Wacom tablet. That would be really sweet.

bobbystahr

Quote from: sboerner on August 10, 2018, 12:47:03 PM
Thanks, Bobby. I used the painted shader to tweak some of the displacements, the first time I've used it extensively. Really powerful tool, you can use it to make very precise adjustments. Unless I'm missing something, though, there's no way to make it respond to the pen pressure on my Wacom tablet. That would be really sweet.


Yeah, as wacom user I always found that irritating...
something borrowed,
something Blue.
Ring out the Old.
Bring in the New
Bobby Stahr, Paracosmologist


sboerner

Thanks, Luvs. This has turned out to be a good project. I seem to remember reading somewhere on this forum that replicating an actual scene is the most difficult thing to do with Terragen. I'm not sure I agree – there are too many of examples of difficult (and beautiful) fictitious scenes posted here. But I would say that replicating a real scene forces you to a) do your homework, and b) insist that Terragen does exactly what you want. That second part is the kicker. :P But a good way to learn, at least for me.

masonspappy

Those are some beautiful models!    Hope you get the time to complete this - can't wait to see what the final image will look like!

DocCharly65

Quote from: sboerner on August 10, 2018, 11:51:04 AM
[attach=1]
... The new buildings still need to be mapped and shaded. And a couple more need to be added. Once that's done I can start on final revisions to the terrain (there's some wonkiness going on in the left foreground) and adding vegetation. Looking forward to that!

Impessive and beautiful so far! Courious how it will look in the next iteration ... so: Looking forward to that, too! :)

sboerner

[attach=1]

Good progress over the past few weeks. Buildings are placed and shaded, railway positions corrected, utility poles and rail fences placed. There are more models to build but first I wanted to get all the foliage placed. Working on treelines now, with more diversity and ground cover to be added. Great fun to be working in TG and SpeedTree now instead of modeling. Needed a break from that.

Matching the historical foliage is interesting because so much of the area was clearcut in 1916. We often don't appreciate how much second-growth forest has been restored to the U.S. northeast over the past hundred years. I've decided to sacrifice a little accuracy for esthetics here, and will include more trees than were actually present.

Beginning to settle on a camera angle and time of day, which is now set at daybreak on September 24, 1916. Thinking about including a low layer of ground fog as a final touch, but that's a few weeks away.