I have had several requests lately from various creators to build engineers for their locomotives.  There also has been interest in creating more "figures/characters" for the world of Trainz.  In response, I have decided to post a gmax file that contains several body parts for those interested to download and use for their own creation of characters.  The gmax file contains several parts that can be mixed and matched to create a figure. 

The parts contained in this gmax file can be used by anyone who so wishes to create characters.  As a word of caution, building a human model in my opinion is fairly difficult and I recommend that you should be familiar with gmax before attempting this type of creation.   If you use these pieces to create your own models, please acknowledge the use of my content as the basis for your model. 

The gmax file contains:

1. Two torsos that have been "mapped" in gmax.  This allows you to see how textures can be placed on the torso.

2. One head that has also been "mapped".

3. A set of arms.  (Note the arms are "instances", so make a copy of one if you wish to bend or change one of the arms.  If you wish to animate the arms, you must "detach" the lower arm from the upper arm.)

4. A set of legs, the legs have been separated into upper and lower legs so they can be bent or moved for animation.

5. Two different hand types.  One has a thumb that is bent and of course has more polys as a result.

6. There are four types of basic shoes that I have created.  They start from the simplest and lowest poly count nearest the character's body progressing up to the most complex farthest from the body.

7. There are also 3 types of basic hats. 

8. Finally a bandana as would have been used by cowboys as well as some train engineers from the old days.

Below is a picture of the pieces contained in the gmax file

Figure Tutorial

This short tutorial is basically designed to help you "map" a face onto the head of the figure.  For those that have used gmax and are comfortable with gmax this will be pretty self explanatory and should not take too long to figure out.

1. To begin with you need 2 pictures of the person that you wish to model.  I suggest using your own face to provide the world of Trainz with more faces for more variety.  For the best results, take the picture in a well lit room or outside and avoid using a flash.  The flash tends to create shadows on the sides or edges  of the face and provides uneven lighting which makes blending the various pictures together difficult.  This will be more obvious when you start working on your head. 

   One of the pictures needs to be taken from the front, and the other from the side.  Try to make sure that the lighting is very even.  Next you want to take the two pictures and cut them as necessary and past them on a 128 x 128 size texture.  Try to place them in a similar fashion as they are placed in the picture below.   The below picture was done very hastily and shows obvious differences in the color, which you want to avoid.  You only need to show a little more than 1/2 of the front view of the face.

   

   Important Note:  After reviewing the mapping process that I did for this tutorial, I realized something.  Map the texture on the "right" side of the head, or the opposite side that you seen in all the following pictures.  This will be easier trust me.  If you do not do this, you will have to select all of the verticies in the edit UVW's screen and "flip" them with the "mirror horizontal" button on the 2 sides and back mapped columns of the head.  This is extra work and an extra step, so save yourself some time and apply the texture to the "right" side of the head and make your adjustments and changes on it.   

   The picture below shows how to "mirror horizontal".  Select all the verticies that you are working with in the edit UVW screen then click on the button circled. 

2. The next step is to apply this texture to the head.  You will note the head is cut into 2 halves only worry about applying the texture to one side and delete the other half for the time being.  This head has already been mapped for a texture that is laid out like the one above and will probably look somewhat like this next picture.  That is the face will probably appear properly on the head, but will be blurry or not look right.  You will need use the "unwrap" function to re-map the head to get the face to fit properly.

3. The head is 1/2 of a 8 sided cylinder that is 4 segments in height.  I purposely "cut" the edges between most of the verticies.  This does seem to help make the cylinder look more rounded.  The half of the head is mapped into 4 vertical columns.  The first column is the front of the face, the second column is the from the edge of the face to about the middle of the ear.  The third column is from the middle of the ear to near the back of the head and the final column is the back of the head.  The next 2 pictures on the right show the first column and the second column and how they should be mapped.

   Tips:  See the below picture

4. Next map the first column and then edit it so the front of the face fits on the cylinder as shown below.

5. Then map the second column to the side view of the head on the texture and stop at about the middle of the ear.  See the picture below.

6. Now move to the third column mapped and fit it to the texture as shown below.  Note the side views can be a little tricky to map at first.  I suggest using the "resize" function and reducing all of the selected verticies to the approximate size then move them all to the approximate position and then adjust the individual ones as needed to get the texture to fit the cylinder properly. 

7. Finally map the back of the cylinder and adjust placement so that the hair line on the back of the neck looks ok. 

8. Congrats, you have mapped one side of the head, now for the easy part, simply select the "copy" function and make an "instance" of the head.  You will now have a mirror image of the first half of the head.  At this point, you find that the face may look funny from the front.  This is where you need to do some fine adjustments.  See how the nose is too wide, adjust the verticies near the nose until the nose is the right width.  Now adjust other individual verticies until things start to look right and the other features are positioned as they should be.  Note:  This is where having the "constant update" box checked will make things very easy as you will be able to see the subtle changes in the position of the texture on the head with each movement of a verticie.  

Working with other Body Parts

Mapping the torso is similar to mapping the head and you can create whatever textures you wish to put on the torso.  Take a look at the 2 torsos and the textures that are placed on them.  The torso can be more difficult than the head and you can study the textures included to see what is possible. (Note that I created a new torso from the ones that I have used on my previous models that is lower in polys.  So the mapping I did was very hastily done and not even complete on the torso with the blue texture) 

The legs should be pretty easy.  You can see the cloth texture that is applied to the upper and lower legs notice how the texture is bigger and smaller on the top and bottom  you can see how this is done by looking at the next 2 pictures.  The same concept can be done with the arms.

The arms should be done similar to the legs.  You may choose a texture that matches the texture of your torso for the arms to make it look like the character has a shirt or a coat on. 

As mentioned above there are 2 different hands, 1 has a few more polys than the other and probably should be reserved for engineers and fireman.  Try to use the low poly feet and hands for static scenery models as these will not be seen close up and the small details will not be noticed. 

There are different types of shoes etc to choose from and as with the hands, try using the low polycount feet for static models.  You should "delete" the polygons on the bottoms of the shoes as these will not be seen in most cases and will save a few polygons. 

This is a tough part.  The head has a flat bottom and flat top.  Adding a cylinder for a neck does not look good, of course a cylinder that is 3 or 4 segments in height could be shaped to connect to the bottom of the head in a more natural fashion but should be reserved for those models that will be seen close up such as locomotive engineers.  I have not fully tried this yet but it should be fairly easy to do.  The bandana has a few polys, but looks good for cowboys and train engineers, so if you want a neck, you will have to make one yourself. 

As mentioned above, the top of the head is flat and needs something to cover it.  It is entirely possible to add a half of a sphere and shape it to fit the top of the head, then add hair to match if you don't want a hat.  There are 3 hats provided for you to look at and try.  The cowboy style hat and the bill hat are low poly.  The engineers hat has a few polys but will look good for an old time locomotive engineer.  Of course feel free to make your own hat and shape it as you wish.

Final Notes

To open the gmax file, create a new folder and unpack the zipped file into it.  Then unpack the zipped files that contain the textures into the same folder.  When you open the file in gmax, direct gmax to look for the textures in the new file that you just created.  The figure should then load with all the textures.  Note some of the pieces do not have textures added to them yet. 

The pieces contained in the gmax file can be used to make very good looking characters.  The drawback to these characters is that they will be rather high on polygons.  An average figure will have about 400-500 polys once completed.  This count can go up considerably if you add more pieces to the character.  If you have the skills and wish to animate the character for a locomotive engineer,  I recommend redoing the arms with 6 sided cylinders for better detail.  The arms in the file were created from 5 sided cylinders.  Also try to delete polys on parts of the body that will not be seen such as the bottom of the feet and tops of the legs and on any other parts that you may create yourself. 

Also remember that characters created for static models will be very small in proportion to most things placed on your layout so if you create models, try to make them as basic as possible because high details on these models will not be seen.

Any other comments about this file or tutorial, please let me know and I will try to fix them or explain things in better detail.  Unfortunately I will be out of town some over the next few weeks and I have a very busy schedule and may not be able to help you or return your emails quickly.  After the 1st of September I will have more time to help those of you that need it. 

Gmax Character File  Gmax Character File Textures