Awesome! There's quite some detail in there!

Well, I wouldn't want that rolling over my foot, that's for sure, it looks to be a really solid piece of kit!
Great job!

Crazy detail down to the nuts & bolts. Too bad it won't be seen often on the finished model. But that's not what the challenge is about, is it? ;)  I wonder how long it'll be 'til we get to see the engineer's controls done?

any more progress?

Sorry! I realise that I haven't posted anything for sometime, but real-life has stuck it's ugly head up in my face again. I hope to do more in the next few days.
I have actually attached the bogey to the loco and I'm ready to start building the suspension system for the main wheels.
I promise to post more asap! Thanks for keeping the faith!

Cool, no prob. Real life stuff sticks its ugly head up all the time lol, i know what its like.

Yeah, real life keeps getting in the way of us all, great work Chris, the level of detail is fantastic.

Do you own a Cray super computer, your majesty?  Or, are you a real human?  Or, does Martian air enhance "attention to detail" in all mortals?

This is unreal awesome.

I think bryster lives in a flying home that keeps him hidden on the night side of mars where temperatures drop severely, allowing his computers to calculate faster without overheating. Kinda like liquid nitro overclocking without the liquid nitro. I suspect he's used the same principle to allow him to over-clock his brain.
Only downside is that he has to wear an ultra-sonic vibration suit to keep his body in a constant fast-moving state in order to have it generate enough bodyheat to survive and not freeze. It also requires an intravenous red-bull injection of several liters per hour to sustain his bloodsugar levels and keep his brain stable in its highly overclocked state (the caffein and taurin enhance concentration levels).

LOL @ Rayraz

All of the above!! LOL
Seriously, I use a 2.2ghz Celeron, Windoze 2k sp4. 512g Ram (Burned out the other ram stick a while back) 300gig, 160gigSATA & 20gig HDDs. 128meg graphics card.

Oh! And I have patience of Jobe.

To speed things up, I set the wireframe to as low as I can (16), plop render a lot and keep my MATS as basic as possible until final render time.
I also have coffee pumped intravienously to save time.

Most of the stuff I've done so far on this project takes at most 5mins to render. At premium rates it takes no more than two hours.
Look out for another WIP in the next couple of days.

I found out that as it's my birthday soon my son is building me a new machine! My family couldn't keep it a secret because they needed to know what I thought of the specs they had decided on for me.
So, hopefully, a dual-core machine with 4gigs of ram, a 500gig hdd, a 256mb graphics card and a very fast burner is coming to a desk near me soon!!!! (Pants with excitement!)

haha sounds cool! show us a photo of the new monster when it arrives wont u?

Quote - , Windoze 2k sp4. 512g Ram (Burned out the other ram stick a while back) !)

Holy smoke that's a lot of RAM Chris, and you used to have a terabyte before the other stick burnt out!!!!!!   How did you persuade windoze to break it's 4g limit?? 

:b_stunned:

:lol: TYPO!!!!! Sorry! That should read 512mb of ram. I had 1gig of ram but burned out half of it!

But you'd wish you could have a TB of ram. :lol: Who wouldn't?

just reading the data allocation tables would take 2 minutes :-P

Very nice Chris, it's coming along really well!

awesome, this gives so much of a hint what the final version is guna look like!

Needs more steam. I'm not feeling any enthalpy for the project just yet. :tt2:

Keep on it, we don't want to see Bryce 7 to show up before this monster project sees completion.

:lol:  ENTHALPY .....I had to look this word up!
You probably won't feel any either. I'm thinking of putting this in a museum setting!

OK!! I'm back on the case now. Since the accident I've not felt like doing much of anything, but I got my act together and will start working on the main wheels suspension system. Watch this space!

wow u get rearended with 50mph and hardly a few days after ur back at the 'puter again! time to admit it bryster, ur addicted :-P

Yeh, but my head still hurts...........and my neck............and my chest..........and my...well let's not go there......

ouch... make sure u give your body enough time to heal! lol

Your are amazing.

*" Driving wheels leaf spring WIP"
*Is that a part of  the train or a medieval see-saw???

Hope you are feeling better. Don't overdo it mate. Jen

;-)

Are leaf-springs on a trains straight? I thought leaf-springs were curved? Or are they just curved on cars?
Other then that it looks great though!

Looking really cool!
I'll never forget my first and only encounter with a car leaf spring. I went to get something out of my trunk and I was dumbfounded by this big metal thing sitting in it. I kept thinking 'who the hell put this in my trunk? what the hell is it?' It had me freaked out, cause I was the only one with keys to my car at the time. Finally I discovered that it was attached below my trunk and had busted thru. It also explained the mysterious knocking that I was hearing in my trunk every time I drove over a bumpy spot in the road.

Ray: They are only curved when loaded....and I don't mean drunk! (Actually,I didn't feel like booleaning out squashed cylinders....)

Ang: That just  has to be a 'blonde moment' story....;-)

I knew a guy whose wife spent 25 years driving without making the connection between petrol and petrol tank. He always filled the tank for her and it wasn't until she was out driving and ran out that she understood why he took her car out on friday evenings.......

Hey Bryster, I know a woman that actually gets panic attacks if she has to fill up her car at the bowser and it aint because of the $$$'s! It takes all kinds to make up the world I guess.

It's looking sharp!

Cool stuff.

oooh thats nice! glad to see some new progress :-D

wicked! u even rounded off the edges!

This bit's a p.i.t.a.
I just can't get close-up reference shots.
Thanks for the comments! ;-)

whats p.i.t.a.?

Pain in the arse. Yes, I'm still lurking, watching this thread. Nice work Bryster.

Sorry to hear you've had an accident and hoping your're back up to speed.  I was in a nasty one once and I know how bad you ache after the fact.  You just need a someone to walk on your back to get the kinks out.  I can handle that if you need :)

Back to business...your model is looking amazing.   I would have taken a lot of shortcuts by now but you are making everything as accurate as possible.  Hats off to you sir :)

You just need a someone to walk on your back to get the kinks out.  I can handle that if you need :)

LOL! I'll e-mail my phone number...

Thnks for the comments, guys!

Yup - still looking good. The modeling is fantastic. I could walk on your back too, but I might break it. Unless of course you like pain :P

Hi, Ang! Long time - no speakee!
Love pain. I've always loved pain! Giving it that is..........;-)

:P