Painted Urchin

The majority of time since the release of the VDA vans has been spent (other than taking a bit of a break) getting the ZCA Sea Urchin completed and ready for master shapes to be given the once over by the testers.

The model shown is just about ready for a final check before the different versions are created, all that's needed is the magic to make that tail lamp flash!

Speaking of tail lamps, this is now the fourth different model we've created and all by chance for this one. An offhand comment from one of the team following the preview of the original lamp modelled set in motion a fortunate series of events. 

The original comment was along the lines of "I hope we're going to include the BR flashing tail lamp" and received a reply of "That's what I've done". "Oh no", comes the reply, "They were bigger". Not a popular comment to make after the difficulty of finding enough references for (what's turned out to be) a mark 3 lamp!

By total chance in less than 24 hours an email arrived from the same team member that he'd got pictures and measurements of a BR lamp and everything that was needed to create the lamp in the screenshot. Now all that's needed is simulate the weight of the thing as he remarked "It was just as heavy as I remember them!"

Now, should we track down a mark 2 lamp just to complete the set ...?

It's good to talk

We've been having a look at the kinds of people who make contact with us and that we 'talk' to on a regular basis and it's thrown up a few gaps. As a result of this we've started to trial a couple of extra features to see if people want to take advantage of them to generally interact a bit more with us and each other.

We now have a (trial) forum which can be found at www.fastline-simulation.co.uk/forum it's all very quiet and empty at the moment as we'd really like you to be the people that form what you see there and how you use it - within all the usual boundaries!

The tone of the forum should really be about our products, RailWorks or Train Simulator 2012 (anyone get the feeling a subtle change of name is taking place?) and railways in general. Please do come along, sign up, make comment on what we've done so far, throw in your own suggestions and start a thread or two about something you want to get off your chest or fancy a discussion about.

As a companion or perhaps alternative to Facebook we're also having a look at Google+. If you've signed up you can track us down with a search or this link might even work: https://plus.google.com/117573473996055619592

Good luck with the big update that comes screaming through the ether tonight and don't forget to backup! We'll be checking out the bogie tanks in the morning and subjecting the VDAs to a final to test to make sure they're ok in the new version before building the installer.

Nice Body GUV

The last couple of days have seen some time put in on the generic GUV shape.

The body is just about complete now, some solebar area detail to add then it's under-frame and bogies time.

NVX Car Carrier - The Final Bits

With the VDA vans out of bounds while the testers put the scenarios through their paces and the Sea Urchin shapes out for test too there's been time to put some finishing touches to the Newton Chambers Car Carrier that will feature in our Night Capitals addon for Railworks.

The master shape has now gained all the final fitments to allow the creation of the NVV version (Vacuum braked with through steam pipe) and the NVX version (as the NVV, plus air brakes and through ETH).

Next up is the NXV to keep these company ...

Temporary Slow Down

Just a quick glimpse of a little something I've been playing with on and off this week. It's all flat textures at the moment so not looking too good but you get the idea