Creating Hungarian Locomotives in 3ds Max & Substance 3D Painter

Marcel Haladej talked about the workflow behind the MÁV project, shared the texturing process, and gave some tips to beginner artists.

Introduction

My name is Marcel Haladej and I come from Slovakia. I studied at Slovak Technical University, which I finished with a Master’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. After that, I started to work as a 3D Senior Generalist at a small Slovak studio called Alien Studio and I freelance for Bipolar Studio or Capsule Studio.

I am working mostly on commercial and game trailers. I can mention Farming simulator 2022Warhammer 40k: Space Marines 2, and Porsche Electricity project.

The MÁV Project

A few years ago, I visited the city of Lviv with my wife. There is a nice railway station, where I instantly got an idea of this railway station with rainy morning atmosphere. I took several photos there to have some references for modeling.

I also used Google Earth for some base measurements of the real railway station hangar. I then switched the trains there for the Hungarian version (MÁV).

The main locomotive V43 has a funny story behind it. In addition to virtual trains in 3ds Max, I collect real ones in model scale H0 – 1:87. I mostly focus on Slovak trains but I also want to have trains from our neighboring countries, like Hungary. That V43 model should have been released in 2021. Because of the component crisis (yes, in the world of model railroads too,) it was postponed until 2022 or later. I decided I wouldn't wait and created my own virtual version of it.

The Locomotives

The locomotives are created in a classic poly modeling way. The problem was to find a nice blueprint. I only found a very simplified version on the internet.

During modeling, I realized that this blueprint doesn't work well, it was a bit off in some parts. I had to use a lot of photos to model those little details and get the correct proportions.

When I finished the model, I moved it into RizomUV, which is a really fast tool to get nice, not stretched mapping divided into several UDIMs. 

The Environment

The environment models were created in the same way as locomotives. A lot of photos as references, poly modeling in 3ds Max, mapping in RizomUV, and texturing in Substance 3D Painter. For the people in this scene, I used the great Chaos Cosmos library. For scattering garbage, rocks, vegetation, or cigarette butts, I used Forest Pack.

Texturing

For texturing, I prefer Substance 3D Painter. It is a really great and pleasant way to texture 3D assets. I have been using it for the past few years, I prepared several smart masks and smart materials for dirt or rust, which can save a lot of time and are easily modifiable to get a new unique look of weathering. My workflow in Substance 3D Painter is always to create a base clean version of an asset, then add the various weathering effects as the second layer. 

The only disadvantage is that you need to prepare a nice mapping for each object. If you have overlapping UV islands or mapping divided into hundreds of UV islands (automatic mapping,) you will have to use way more UDIMs to get crispy details, which take a lot of VRAM, slow Substance 3D Painter down, and will take a lot of RAM during rendering. If you plan a large-scale scene, it is good to have nice and efficient mapping, it can save a lot of resources later.

The ground texture is really simple: the material only consists of a diffuse texture. It is a combination of Megascans' surface and a custom-painted crack texture. To break the tilling effect, I use the VRayTriplanar texture with UVW Randomizer.

A good displacement map is key, it creates all those nice reflections. I made the puddles the old-school way: 3ds Max's noise texture loaded into the Displace modifier and an extra plane with a water material.

A high-resolution displacement map for the concrete needs a lot of samples and a longer render time to get a nice clean result.

The render time for the 10k render was about 6 hours. Most of the render time was spent on that reflection area in front of the locomotive.

Lighting

The lighting is super simple here, it is just a cloudy HDRI loaded into V-Ray Dome Light. I added some extra lights over the scene to have a nice balanced blue/yellow/red lighting.

It is also the base for getting this kind of mood. All materials boosted the reflection level and roughness to get a wet look. 

Conclusion

With my work and two kids, I don't have much time to do my personal work. This project took me about 2 months to finish. That was the main challenge, to find time to finish it. One advantage of such long projects is that you can think about it during work: you might get some fresh ideas, think about what would improve this project, and you are not limited by deadlines. 

My advice would be, don't give up when you start a project and after some time you are not satisfied with it. Just put it off for a couple of days and then come back with a fresh look.

Marcel Haladej, 3D Generalist

Interview conducted by Arti Burton

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Comments 2

  • Anonymous user

    awsome work
    thanks for the information.

    2

    Anonymous user

    ·a year ago·
  • Anonymous user

    Great work! Looks like a more professional version of my project.  Thanks to your comments I will be able to improve my future works

    0

    Anonymous user

    ·a year ago·

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