March 2025 Newsletter
Happy March, everyone!
I've got nothing witty to say this month as I'm just trying to survive the remainder of this miserable winter we've been having 🤪 so let's just get down to business!
What's New?
44Willys sent the P&B back to me this month with some PBR texture updates which are lookin pretty dang good. While his texture work and choices are great, there are still a few that I'll be replacing with textures I commonly use myself, but that's yet to come. I'm hoping to get to that later this month or next, but this update at least will be a little PBR preview. I'm going to keep the kuid separate until textures are finalized. The ultimate goal, as mentioned before, is to fully retexture the route with PBR and upgrade it to HDT.
The New York Cross Harbor route is also coming along nicely. I got into a nice build groove recently and covered a lot of the background area. I'm aiming to have this project wrapped up by the end of April/May but I don't want to shortchange the route on details, so we'll see. I should be able to squeeze out a couple more videos (if I can find the time) just to cover some of the final detail work and loose ends. I did skin up a few NYCH loco's for myself but I don't think I'll be able to release then 😔
As far as the N Scale NYCH goes, I'm still working on that NW2 paint & decal project. There was a bit of a mix up with the NW2 I ordered that I didn't notice until after I began painting the body. It turns out the cab and main body of the loco I purchased are of an NW2 but the hood and nose section were actually an SW7. Not sure what happened exactly but when I contacted BLI they pretty much told me the one I ordered has been discontinued and towards the end of the run some of them shipped with NW2 cabs and SW7 bodies. Why they wouldn't specify that somewhere is beyond me. That aside, I ordered a new NW2 from their most recent run so hopefully when that shows up it'll be a correctly matched cab and body. Not sure what I'm going to do with the NW2/SW7 Frankenstein unit.
Patreon Benefits
Executive: NYCH and PB v2.1a will be available for download later today. I'm interested in any feedback on the PBR textures on the P&B as well as any performance issues with the NYCH.
Dispatcher: The monthly livestream will be Wednesday March 12th at 7pm EST.
Project Manager: This months asset will be a pretty sweet NYPD police car. It's been a royal PIA to get into the game and I still need to create a LOD for it, so it's going to be a bit delayed. Expect it in the next week or two. There's a few other police car models that'll follow the following month as well.
Station Agent: Hangouts continue on Wednesdays as normal.
Model Railroader: Again, due to some unforeseen delays the video and posts I was planning for February have been pushed back a bit. Hope to get to them this month! In any case, you can expect an NW2 video, car card and waybill system post and some others in the near future.
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That just about covers everything! Hopefully I can get the NYCH Trainz build wrapped up and out to you guys soon so I can move on to other projects!