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Gmax Locomotive Tutorial

Chapter 5. Front Hood

In this tutorial you will learn how to create the raised cab steps of a locomotive and texture them. The methods used to create the steps can be adapted to any Trainz item.

To complete these tutorials with the dimensions listed herein you will need the following setup
1. Open the "Preference Settings" from the "Customize" menu. Under the "General" tab set the system unit scale to 1.0 units = 1m
2 Open the "Units Setup.." form the "Customize" menu and set the units setup to Metric Meters.

The "Select and Move" tool will be referred to as the "Move" tool

The "Select and Rotate" tool will be referred to as the "Rotate" tool

1. Create and resize a box.

The first thing you need to do is create a box for the front hood of the locomotive and resize it to the following dimensions.

Parameter	Box1(FrontHood)
Length	1.75
Width	1.6
Height	1.35
Length Segments	1
Width Segments	1
Height Segments	1

2. Relocate the box

Once you have created the box we need to move it into location. Select the box and type in the following co-ordinates.

	X	Y	Z
FrontHood	0.0	-5.825	1.65

Figure 1 Results after resizing and moving box

3. Tapering the front nose

Now that the FrontHood is in location we can create a taper on the very front of the box. Convert the box to editable mesh and click on the "Edge" sub-object and then select the right front edge of the FrontHood. Type 0.2m into the chamfer box and hit "Enter". Then select the front most newly created edge and type 0.0m into the "X" co-ordinate box. Then select the left front edge and move it in the "Y" co-ordinate to -6.5m which should produce a result similar to figure 4

Figure 2 Results after first chamfer

Figure 3 Center edge relocated

Figure 4 Results of second edge move

4. Beveling the top edges

Now that we have the front nose tapered the way we want we can add the radius edge effect to the top edges. Select all of the top edges except the rear one as shown in figure 5. Type in 0.05 into the chamfer box which will give the result shown in figure 6. Without deselecting the edges type in 0.02 into the chamfer box. You should now have the result shown in figure 7.

Figure 5 Edges to be chamfered

Figure 6 First edge chamfer results

.Figure 7 Second edge chamfer results

Once complete use the "Arc Rotate" to move the viewport around so that the rear and the base of the FrontHood can be seen. Use the "Polygon" sub-object to select and delete the rear and base of the FrontHood. Add a "Smooth" modifier with the "Auto Smooth" turned on to make the chamfered edges appear rounded.

5. Texturing

Open up the material editor and add the Main_01 texture to the FrontHood. Now we can start the mapping of the textures to the FrontHood. Select the FrontHood and add an "Unwrap UVW" modifier to the stack then click on the "Select Face" sub-object and select the right side of the front hood, click on "Planar Map" and then "Edit" to open the "Edit UVW's" window and move the map into location over the labeled section of the Main_01 texture. Next select the top and radius edges of the FrontHood. Change the "Sub Object Params" to "X" and click on "Planar Map" and then "Edit" to open the "Edit UVW's" window. Drag the map for the top to the labeled location on the Main_01 texture. Change the "Sub Object Params" to back to "Averaged Normal's and select the left side. Move it's map into location using the red lines as a guide. Nest select the front and move it's map to the named location on the Main_01 texture. You should end up with the result shown in figure 8 and figure 9.