We've come a long way since the early Rail Simulator models with their low poly counts but with the changes made to the graphics engine and with people having more powerful computers these days it allows modellers to get busy with their rivet guns and as long as good use is made of LOD levels then it shouldn't bring users computers to a grinding halt.
Explanation for those who are not 3D model litterate:
Poly - Short for polygon, and simply used to show the number of flat faces used in creating a model. Early RS loco models were about 15-20,000 polys. Now it's possible to exceed 100,000 if done in the right way, which brings us to..
LOD levels - This is simply a way to tell the graphics engine to stop showing something when it's X distance away. So for example you might make the rivets on a loco stop showing at 30m from the users camera - they aren't visible to the eye at that range anyway and telling the graphics engine to ignore them saves it from wasting resources. Sometimes you might also replace an object with something simpler, so for example a goods shed that looks detailed close up can be shown as a simple elongated cube with a rough texture on the side once the user is 500m away. The key to getting it right is testing at a high resolution to make sure you don't get pop-up, which is when the change/appearance/disappearance is too close to the user and you can see the LOD change happening.
So in light of these advances and my working knowledge of optimising the LOD's it's inevitable that the Q1 was going to get detailed, and detailed good!
Here is a work in progress picture showing the old model and the new model alongside, which really speaks for itself...
Next time I'll hopefully have a completed loco model to show and can then turn my attention to the tender.
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