Sorry for the lack of updates. Real world getting in the way.
I have made some progress. Spent three days learning the art of texturing within blender and also with gimp. I am certainly no expert but I think I am starting to get to grips with it. I have also made 2 lods. The 1st is the full detail version. This is currently displayed between 0 and 30m. from 30m to 1000m the 2nd lod is displayed. The 2nd lod is very low poly. Only 44 triangles. Initial tests on my machine (which is suffering from a lack of a seperate graphics card) seem to indicate that their is no obvious performance hit from using them. It won't be until I get the OHLE in Leeds on the TPR route replaced with these new models that I will know if it makes any difference to FPS etc.
I have also added a Ambient Occlusion map to the model to give it depth.
I have one model in game working with the auto placement tool. I will be now adapting that model to make other variants with great reaches etc for different situations.
Here are two renders, front and back.
Front (note the white ID plate)
Back
In game
I also was contemplating making some sort of script to automatically make the stanchion ID plate automatically add the line of route, miles in the route and stanchion with that mile. In my pics this is the white sign on the post that has LS at the top (line of route - Leeds - Skipton), 362 (362 miles along the route) and 08 (the 8th stanchion within the 362nd mile). Now I expect that this won't be possible (probably because they are not track linked items. I also expect that it is not worth the effort but I thought I would ask anyway.
I know I will need a texture set etc but I don't want to start down the route of making all of the textures etc until I know if this might be possible or not. Ideally I would like the stanchions to talk to a milepost marker and work out the distance from the marker and how many stanchions are with the mile. Then it would be all automatic. I think this is going to be wishful thinking though
.
Any ideas / suggestions? Should I just can that idea?
Jim