This is the heaviest file I've ever worked with—it took months to complete and led to countless computer crashes. I used a reference from Andrew Averkin, who created his work back in 2013; he's truly a master in this field, but I chose to develop my own style instead of replicating his approach. I started by modeling and unwrapping the entire piece in Maya on a GTX1650, despite the frequent crashes, and then moved to a 3060 for further unwrapping and texturing—managing to work with over 230 UV tiles in the process. I textured the model using Substance Painter and Photoshop; however, due to the heavy file size and limited VRAM, changes took a long time to load. Even simple actions like pressing Ctrl+Z were delayed, making it hard to know if the adjustments were effective, so I ended up taking before-and-after screenshots to track the changes. When Maya struggled with the high number of UVs and the dense poly count, I shifted to Blender to combine objects, only to face further UV loading issues and crashes. Finally, I imported the model into Unreal Engine, where I encountered pool size errors because of the limited VRAM, along with various bugs during the mesh import. I rendered the model on a mobile 3070 Ti, which still crashed occasionally, and then completed the composition and grading in Photoshop. Despite all these challenges and setbacks, I managed to complete the project, staying true to my own style throughout the process. This project wouldn’t have been possible without the unwavering support of my mentor and friends, who encouraged me every step of the way. I never aimed for a purely realistic look; instead, went for a blend of fantasy and bit realism. Above are the cinematic shots taken from UE5.
This is the UV snapshot of the green train model, featuring a 5x5 UV tile layout.
Here’s the UV snapshot of the red train, showcasing a 7x7 UV tile layout.
Here is the UV tile for the bogie section, arranged on a 5x5 grid. This layout features a total of five bogies—three rendered in red and two in green.
These are exhibit renders, showcase the model and textures I created. Additionally, there are more props that aren't inlcuded in these exhibit renders but are featured in the cinematic shots.
The entire scene was crafted in Maya and rendered in UE5. It features a UV layout with over 230 tiles and an impressive poly count of 22,445,757. Despite limited RAM and VRAM—which led to numerous crashes, fatal errors, and several hard shutdowns—I managed to pull it all together. I hope you guys like it. Cheers!