Textures and How to Use Them II

This is the second incarnation of this post. The first was lost in the Blogger crash of May 11, 2011. Blogger lost this post, but made double entries for some of my other ones. I guess you get what you pay for.

End Rant.

In my first posting on “Textures and How To Use Them” I mentioned two good sites for free textures: Mayang’s and CG Textures. This post will deal with CG Textures.

To download textures from the CG Textures website, you have to sign up for a free membership. This is no big deal as I have not received any e-mail communication from CG Textures nor any spam that might be related to membership in their website. The free membership is limited to downloading 15 MB of textures a day. This is not a serious limitation subject to some caveats that I mention below. CG Textures terms of use are very generous too; you cannot repost their textures as downloadable textures, even if they have been modified. Otherwise they can be distributed in printed or electronic form (the latter as part of some larger product). Paying memberships are available, but the only thing that a hobbyist would gain from a paying membership is being able to download some of the textures at the highest resolutions.

CG Textures is something else. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of pictures on just about any conceivable stationary object found in the world around us. CG Textures mission is to provide material for creators of virtual worlds. Contrary to the title of the website, these textures are photographs of real items, and are not computer generated.

Here are just some of the features of CG Textures:

Tiles: Many of the photographs of items with repetitive patterns, like brick, come as pre-cropped ‘tiles’. Unlike Mayang’s where the user has to do the tile cropping and fitting for himself, CG Textures has many tiles ready to be butt-joined together into larger surfaces. Tiled textures even have a preview mode where the user can see how the tiled surface will look with 3x3, 5x5 and 7x7 arrays of tiles. Here's an example of a brick tile:



Tutorials: CG Textures has a series of reasonably advanced tutorials on using their textures with Photoshop. These are not basic lessons and are for the intermediate to advanced Photoshop user. However, their tutorial "10 Texture Photography Tips" is accessible to anyone.

Sky: CG Textures has a number of 360 degree panoramic sky views which can be adapted to form the sky above a layout. It’s here that the model railroader might be tempted to buy a premium membership to be able to download these enormous textures at higher resolution to create sky backdrops. A one-year membership, with a download limit of 100 MB a day, costs 49 Euros. In a year you should be able to download more skies than you can use.

However, before you do that, take a look under the heading ‘Skies Partial’. There are many good sky backdrop candidates under this heading. This is where CG Textures’ concept of ‘Sets’ is useful. Sets are a series of photographs that overlap. They can be downloaded individually, subject to the ‘free’ daily download limit of 15 MB, and stitched together to make a sky backdrop of whatever size you need. Two or three photos may be all you need for your scene. Programs like Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have a stitching capability; it can also be done with GIMP and the Pandora plug-in for GIMP, although this is tedious. You may never need a 360 degree panorama after you’ve stitched some backdrops from individual photos. Here's an example of a sky photo from a large set of photos - enough to make many feet of sky:



Decals: Decals are a fantastic group of textures, but difficult to explain. CG Textures’ decals are parts of other textures, like rust stains, leak stains and damaged, exposed concrete, that have been cut out of their original pictures and ‘alpha masked’ – that is put on a transparent background so that they can be overlaid onto another photograph without obscuring the underlying photo except in the area of the rust or leak itself. Thus they can be combined with other textures. Alpha-masked textures are indicated by having a faint gray checkerboard background.



Trees: Also in the alpha-masked category are trees found under ‘Nature-Trees’. These alpha-masked trees can also be overlaid over other textures or backdrops wherever they are needed.



Wood Floors: Under the headings ‘Wood-Planks’ can be found wood textures in tiles and sets that can be used to make wood floors, fences, etc.




Roofing: Roofing is another category with every conceivable type of roofing - except the asphalt shingles common in North America! However, there's still a lot of good material here. Most of the roof textures come as tiled textures. Here's a wood shingle roof:



Rust: Under ‘Rust’ you’ll find pictures of rust on things such as beams, panels, tanks, corrugated siding, etc. Her's what appears to be part of a rusty storage tank:



Roads: ‘Roads’ has some very good asphalt road textures that can be tiled to form roads of arbitrary length. Two-lane and four-lane roads can be created. Combine these with the ‘damage’ decals to make interesting surfaces.



Signs: ‘Signs’ has many useful signs, but the majority of material here is European in origin. The larger graffiti section in ‘Signs’ is, alas, almost all American. Unfortunately the graffiti is not alpha masked, so extracting it to put on an arbitrary background, like modern rolling stock, is going to take some expertise.



This just scratches the surface of what is available on CG Textures. A word to the wise – websites come and go, Mayang’s and CG Textures have been around for a few years, but that does not mean that they will be here forever. Download the textures that you are interested in to your computer against the day that one or both of these sites may be taken down.

A subsequent installment will deal with manipulating textures to create things useful for our layouts.

Weathering Track

This post is long overdue. I was finally motivated to write it because I found the pictures that I took of the subject matter.

In 2008 when I was installing the bridge over the Cheat River, I weathered the rails with Badger Rail Brown and was not happy with the results. Badger Rail Brown produces a very orange-looking, fresh rust color; not exactly the color of rails as seen in nature or in period photographs.

Aha! let me try some of this craft store color called "Red Oxide", looks like rust to me. Well red oxide was too red, and because it was craft store paint, it would not stick to the rails.

While at one of the train shows held at the Dulles Expo Center, I spied this color called Joe's Rusty Rail Painter Dark Brown paint. No doubt, this would do the trick! Applied to the rail, this color was too brown.

Not only were the colors not right to my eye, but each paint was just that - a monochromatic paint that was too even and showed no variation in color or tone.

While pondering the situation after the failure of Joe's color, and with all three colors next to the track, I got a flash of inspiration (it happens, but not often). I poured out a dab of each paint onto a paper plate, took my brush and dipped into each color in turn and applied the brush dripping with all three colors to the rails. On the rail I wiped it on and brushed the backstroke, but made no attempt to even out the color.

One was too orange, one was too red and one was too brown; but all three together were just right. The three colors blended to for a very pleasing rust color; better still, the colors did not mix completely leaving a very subtle mottled color on the rail.




The photo above shows the technique after I perfected it (I encourage you to click on the photo for a larger view). First the ties and rail are given a coat of Floquil Railroad Tie Brown. After this has dried thoroughly, I begin coloring the rails. I dip my brush into the red and the brown paint with every refill of paint, but the orange I use only every second or third dip; otherwise the color is too orange for my eye.

By varying the order in which you dip and how much you dip, you have a lot of control over how the final product looks. Do not brush the paint back and forth along the rail, but only just enough to cover the rail. This will produce the mottled look by not homogenizing the paint on the rail.

As I paint the rail I make no effort to confine the paint to the rail proper; in fact, as the brush runs low on paint I make an effort to bounce the brush along the spikes and tie plates to get some rust color on those parts. The next photo shows this effect.



I keep some Q-Tips wet with water handy and if I get a little too much paint on the tie plates, I take a wet Q-Tip and draw the extra paint out into a rust stain as you can see on the fifth tie from the left on the track in the foreground (click on the picture to enlarge to see this plainly).

This final photo is the finished product.



I let the track dry thoroughly before I clean the tops of the rail. I do this so that the paint has time to bond to the rail. I tried cleaning the rail soon after application and it caused the paint to crack and peel off of the rail sides. This is more work than cleaning the rail right away, however.

There is nothing special about the three colors that I chose for this technique. Try different colors in the dark reds, browns and oranges to find a combination that might work better for you.

Is this more work that spray-painting the rail, using rail color markers or one of the dedicated rail painting devices? Yes it is, but I think that the effect is worth it.

Staging Progresses

The last two weekends, ending on April 24, I was building turnouts using the Fast Tracks fixtures. This weekend was devoted to begin building the ladder into hidden staging.

Here are a couple of photos showing what hidden staging looks like at this point. (Click on any image to enlarge)





It's not obvious in these wide-angle shots, but the two tracks nearest the aisle will not hold a train of any significant length. They will either be used for storage of equipment that I do not want to handle taking on and off of the layout or they will hold half of a train each that will be made up by a 'double dip' maneuver when the train is scheduled to leave storage.

Three turnouts are needed to connect to the three rearmost tracks and provide a leade for the two tracks nearest the aisle. The ladder was begun by fixing the center turnout, which feeds the center track, in place.



Roadbed, by the way, is Woodland Scenics foam. Next the turnout feeding the third track was aligned and connected to the first by pieces of rail cut to exactly fit the gap. These rails will have ties placed beneath them. (Next 2 photos)





Before the second weekend of turnout building, I bought a 1x30" bench top belt sander from Harbor Freight Tools. Although this is an el cheapo tool, it makes fitting rail a real pleasure; and I made some joints that are almost imperceptible as joints. I cut the rail to approximate size, but long. Then I use the sander, removing infinitesimal bits of rail, until it drops into place. It almost takes more time to explain than to do.

Finally, the turnout at the beginning of the ladder is put into place. Here is the ladder turned around, so that you are looking into staging as it were from the top of the ladder.



I used fewer ties than would be needed if these turnouts were out in plain sight, but more ties than were strictly needed for structural integrity. The ties were attached to the Fast Tracks turnout 'skeleton' with epoxy and Gorilla Glue. I used the Gorilla Glue when I ran out of epoxy and I will not use it again. It foamed all over and required a bit of cleanup. I don't know what Gorilla Glue is good for, but fine work is not one of it's uses. None of the ties will be stained as these turnouts will not be seen.

I need to build one more turnout to connect to the last two tracks in staging. I had been breaking up Micro Engineering (ME) O Scale code 148 flex track to make these turnouts. I believed that I had run out of ME flex track when I found one more piece. One piece along with some scraps that I have for guardrails and the frog points should be enough to make one turnout; however I haven't been able to pull this off yet. I'm going to give it a shot because ME flex track is sold in lots of 6 sections at more than $60 with shipping, ME rail is sold in 99' bundles at over $130 and Fast Tracks does not stock ME code 148 for sale as individual pieces. On the other hand if I'm wrong, it will delay the finishing of staging by at least a week, maybe more.

S-Curves II

The occasion of Jim Lincoln's visit to my layout made me clear away all of the construction detritus and make the layout presentable. Also, I finally finished the decoder installation into Q4b 4470 after the third attempt (the connectors that I used between the loco and tender on the first two attempts were too large); video on that installation to come.

While waiting for Jim and with the layout clean and the 4470 up and running, I decided to make this short video. Nothing spectacular, this is an update of the "S Curves" video which was one of my first posts on Nov. 9, 2009.

Try clicking the full screen icon on the play bar for full-screen playback (press "ESC" to exit full screen). Click the HD icon to get the playback in HD only if your computer has the horsepower for it (dual core processor, etc.)



During editing this video it occurred to me that if I had painted the walls of the basement green, they would have acted as a 'green screen' and I would have been able to overlay any picture that I wanted onto the background. Maybe that's an idea for an experiment with a green mat that could be held behind the track.

Textures and How to Use Them

There has been a lot of discussion on recent episodes of Model Rail Radio about photo backdrops, how to make them and how to use them. 'Textures' is a topic related to photo backdrops that can help you build or detail a photo backdrop.

"Textures" are photos and/or computer generated patterns of brick, stone, wood, windows, doors, grass, roads, etc. Anything that could be used in a photo or CG (computer generated) composition.

There are many texture sites on the web; many are pay sites, some are free sites. Two of the better free sites are:

Mayang's Textures

CG Textures

At Mayang's you can just download the textures. At CG Textures, you must sign up for a free account. CG Textures' free account limits you to 15 MB of downloads per day, which should be enough for all but the most hard core texture junkie.

The use of doors, windows and such like architectural details should be self explanatory; although it will take some familiarity with Photoshop or GIMP to extract these details from their backgrounds and size them to your scale.

Some of the most versatile textures for model railroads are the brick, stone and rock textures. With brick and stone textures, you need never have to buy brick paper for scratchbuilding. While each individual brick texture is a small sample, you can use it as a 'tile' to make brick walls of almost arbitrary size.

Mayang's has the best brick and stone textures inasmuch as each photo is taken with very flat lighting so the sun angle and shadows are not an issue. Start building a sheet of bricks by making a canvas of the size that you want in Photoshop (or GIMP). Select the brick texture of your choice, copy it to the clipboard, and start pasting copies into your workspace. Fit the tiles together using the 'nudging' technique to align the mortar lines of each tile vertically as well as horizontally; using magnification greater than 100% will help.

After fitting a few tiles you will begin to notice that repetitive patterns will emerge in your new brick wall because you have used only one master tile. To prevent this, start manipulating newly inserted tiles by rotating each one 180 degrees, flipping vertically, flipping horizontally or combinations of the above to make each tile a little different.

When your new brick wall has reached the size that you want you should save and print a sample. Save first. As each tile was added into Photoshop, it was added to it's own layer. If you do not flatten the file the only thing that will print is the last tile added. This had me baffled until I figured it out. Saving the file to JPEG format from Photoshop will flatten the file into a single layer. Once flattened all of the previously added tiles are frozen in place.

Here's an example of what can be done with a single tile and some time:

From Textures

You can download this file by clicking on it and then clicking on 'Download' when you get to Picassa - WARNING this is a large file (11+ MB).

Unless you are very lucky, when you print the brick sheet the individual bricks will not be of the proper size for your scale. You can fix this in one of two ways. Measure the bricks and figure out how much smaller (or larger) they need to be to fit you scale then use Photoshop's or GIMP's 'scale' tool to size the master file appropriately. If you do this be sure to lock the proportions or aspect ratio of the picture or it will scale in one dimension only.

The other method involves using your printer's enlarge/reduce function to adjust the size. The print size adjustment will be located somewhere in the printer's settings, accessible from the print menu. Not all printers have a size adjustment, but many do. So as an example, if your bricks are 4x too large, you'd set the printer to print out at 25% of full size.

You can use the brick sheet above to experiment with either of these two methods.

Mayang's and CG Textures both have terms on how these free textures can be used. The terms are generous for both personal and commercial use. You should read these terms and abide by them.

I'll cover CG Textures in a subsequent post.

O Scale at the 2010 NMRA National Convention - National Train Show

Here's a short video of O Scale at the 2010 NMRA National. There was not much O Scale there and not many trains were running when the National Train Show opened, so I don't have much. I even forgot that I had these clips until I was cleaning up my old laptop preparatory to moving to a new one.

My video hosting service has recently made a change to their player. Now all embedded videos are standard definition by default. If you want HD (and have the bandwidth for it) click the "HD" on the player bar at the bottom of the screen.



The truck side frames on the passenger cars, seen from the oblique angle that I shot them from, really stand out as too wide. This has not been obvious to me on the Atlas (and a little MTH) 2-rail equipment that I have. But this video may sensitize me to their appearance.

New Life for an Oldie

The All-Nation B&O B18 Ten Wheeler that you can see on other posts on this site is an 'old school' O Scale loco that I bought in the '90s and the loco was probably 40 years old at that time. This specimen of the B18 has a sand-cast bronze boiler that dates it to no newer than the late 40's or early 50's.

Since these were produced as kits and assembled by individual modelers, the running characteristics of each example can vary greatly. This one had sub par running performance. Since this one of the few models of B&O steamers made, I wanted to salvage this one for use on my layout.

I decided to go all out and see how well this loco could be made to run and I invested more money into upgrading this steamer than it is worth.

For starters I obtained a Faulhaber coreless motor from Micro Loco Motion (www.micro-loco-motion.com). The ball-bearing Faulhaber 2342 12CR motor will deliver 17 watts of power with a recommended torque of 16 mNm. The motor is 23 mm in diameter and 42 mm long with a 3 mm shaft 10 mm long. The motor had one quirk, the mounting holes are on the opposite side of the motor from the shaft.

I sought out Joe Foehrkolb of Baldwin Forge & Machine (home.comcast.net/~omodeller/) known for his 2 rail to 3 rail conversions and upgrades to 'classic' O Scale. Joe had reservations about the coreless motor, especially with it's non-standard mounting; but he decided to take the job anyway. I provided a backup motor to Joe should he not be able to make the coreless work.

Joe solved the problem of mounting the coreless motor by fabricating a brass sleeve into which the motor fits and is held in place with a cap set screw. See the pictures below:





The gearbox on the center driver is a new Northwest Short Line Mod 0.6 ball bearing gearbox. Joe also fabricated a coupling utilizing rubber tube and two sleeves bored to fit the two very different diameter shafts.



The loco worked well after remotoring, but I thought that it could be more. The next step was to add a BEMF DCC decoder; but not any DCC decoder would do. The decoder had to be compatible with coreless motors and that meant high-frequency drive. Lenz, ESU and Zimo fit the bill as explicitly stating that they are fine for coreless motors. I generally use Lenz, but for this installation I choose an ESU unit. The Faulhaber motor draws less current than many HO locos, so an HO decoder was all that was needed.



I also installed an NMRA 8-pin wiring harness so that I could swap out any other 8-pin decoder in future. While I was at it I installed a warm-white surface mount LED into the heretofore unlit headlight.

After tinkering with CVs the loco ran better, but still had a tendency to hesitate. I figured that it was bad contact and resolved to fix the problem by replacing the tender, which I was going to do anyway, and use tender-mounted pickups for both rails. Recently I have discovered that it was simply the old, oxidized drivers that was the source of the problem and cleaning them up with a sanding sponge has just about eliminated the stalling. The loco will still get a new tender as the original tender has no rivet detail!

I find it ironic that this loco now has a motor, DCC decoder, and an LED headlight (surface mount no less) that were not even conceived of when this model was manufactured. Was it worth it? Economically, no; I could have had one of any number of modern die-cast steamers for the money that I spent on the original locomotive and the upgrades. However, I now have a model of a B&O locomotive that can join my fleet of DCC-equipped motive power and have another decade or two of use on my model railroad.