Hey blender community and fellow modelers:
I have been all over the forums questions which are railroad related and now this is my final question. When you look at a steam locomotive, if you look at the particle simulator, every time a chuff is heard, there is a new particle system (in a blender standpointed view) Is there a way i can use one particle system in a similair fashion?
If you’ve never seenan example of this, there is a video attatched below.
ok let me redifine this a little: is there a way that i can use one particle system to replicate the effect of smoke multiple times like a steam train in the video shown above
wouldnt you need a slow array or something?
Just a thought if you put a keyframe on the tangent and oscillated it, it may give you the pulsing you wanted. In the graph editor you can add a modifier to the that did the pulsing for you.
just a though
how do i add the pulsing you speak of?
how about scaling the emmiter?
well, the problem with that is scaling in the emitter doesnt exactly get the chuff-chuff-chuff effect i’m looking for
well you need to get the timing right. i cant try it because i dont have access to blender (my comp died) but i think with the right keyframe timing, you should be able to get that powerful puff of smoke. maybe keyframing the normal accleration will add to it.
Try this. Set a low amount of particles and then a high amount of child particles play around with the child settings for roughness and clumping etc and the particle lifetime to suit your needs. See my quick attempt attached
Bill
Train Smoke.blend (1.61 MB)
that is perfect! thank you so much!
Actually the chuff sound and smoke are not linked. Coal in the oven burns constantly and the smoke is just random. Randomness is caused by wind turbulence and other factors.
That chuff sound is linked to the steam output.
crud, that’s right. because you have the smoke that’s just leaking out.
so would i need two particle systems or still just that one?
zelif:
I thought they were not connected also, but I did some research. The steam that is exhausted after moving the piston which moves the wheel goes to the smokestack, which also helps draw the air into the fire. The chuff sound is linked to the steam output ( your last sentence) and the steam output goes to the smokestack.
I was surprised to learn this as I thought they were not connected. But where else is the steam going to go once it has transferred it’s power? So the chuff sound is directly linked to the speed of the loco, and the smoke coming out.
See more video of steam locos to understand better.
i’ve worked around steam locomoitves since i was a kid so i know alot about them
Maaaan trains were my favorite thing when I was little. Especially Thomas the Tank Engine (thought Toby the Tram was my favorite).I look forward to seeing what comes of this.
it’s going to be a movie eventually, just in time for christmas too. i just need to figure out how to model humans and then it’s texturing, animating, baking the smoke which will take forever -_-, and rendering (thank god i know the secret to rendering)
Having done a lot of animations that involve reciprocating steam-driven equipment, I have never found it necessary to be concerned with the (technically valid…) fact that a locomotive employed some of its output to drive the draft of the fire. This is, I think, “a difference that makes no pragmatic difference in terms of the saleability of the final visual effect.”
i see. i’ll experiment around with it alittle thanks
Try makehuman its open source and there is an exporter for blender you will need to enable the imported on blender tho …I am doing a wee short with trains for jethro tull song locomotive breath its taking a lot longer than i anticipated tho as my hard drive died ( should a backed up) on rout. I look forward to seeing your movie tho!