Baking a Building for Trainz

I just exported my RWS Skarloey Shed from Google Sketchup to 3ds Max, but I want to know how to give it some good baked textures and export it to Trainz without having any texture problems.

Any good advice can help.

I have 3ds Max 2012 with the Trainz export plugin and TrainzImporter and Trainz Simulator 2010

This tutorial here will tell you.

Lennard

Lendorf said:

This tutorial here will tell you.

Lennard

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Thanks, but how can I create a huge plane?

If you don't know how to create something as simple as a plane in 3DSMax, then anything more complex, such as following that tutorial will be a hopeless task. You need to spend time learning the basics of Max first.

Dinorius_Redundicus said:

If you don't know how to create something as simple as a plane in 3DSMax, then anything more complex, such as following that tutorial will be a hopeless task. You need to spend time learning the basics of Max first.

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Either that or I need to use an older version of 3ds Max, such as the 2009 version.

I just started using Max 2009 myself. I don't know if it's any easier than Max 2012, but I can at least repeat in Max what I had already learned in gmax. I'm yet to master texture baking - tried to apply that tutorial to a building I made but it failed miserably. Old dog, new tricks as they say. Maybe you will have better luck with it.

In my opinion, baking the textures turn an otherwise realistic looking object into an object that LOOKS like a computer model.

I tend to agree Dave, but I think baking could be 'valid' for structures that use tiled images. Shading added to the source image would also be tiled with it - in most cases this would not put it in the right place to represent self-shading of a structure. One alternative to baking for tiled textures is to put graded shadow planes just in front of the surfaces so it looks like the shadow is part of the texture. I've seen that done on one of Gawpo50's mine buildings.

Apart from all that, I am just frustrated that I haven't yet mastered a technique that every other modeller seems to have learned. I mean, I got it to work on an artificially simple model, but could not figure it out for a more complex 'real world' asset. It seemed as if that tutorial was missing some vital step or fact, but of course I have no idea what that is. Perhaps there are other tutorials out there that give a more fool-proof description for dummies like myself.



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Dinorius_Redundicus said:

I am just frustrated that I haven't yet mastered a technique that every other modeller seems to have learned.

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What technique are you talking about Deane?

Render-to-texture, as described in Mick1960's tutorial on the Wiki. It's how you get the 3D model software (3DS Max in this case) to put shadows on the textures according to the geometry of the 3D object and the direction of any light sources. Maybe I'm confusing that with 'baking' which could be something else, I'm not sure. It's just that Lendorf quoted that tutorial in relation to the question about baking textures.

Although I don't use Max I'm sure that Mick's "render to texture" is the same as "baking". Basically what you are doing is taking all the procedural textures, shadows, ambient occlusion, etc and "baking" them to a single image (or texture). The mapping should relate to the baked image so you can then discard all the procedural textures, etc and just use the baked image with the UV map.

I haven't yet mastered a technique that every other modeller seems to have learned.

I'm not entirely convinced that many modellers have that skill. There is a curious lack of tutorials, other than Mick's. I have been working on various techniques, including some advice from Jan(anton) to come up with a Blender version and I think it is hard work. Ken Green and I have been mucking around for about a year trying to develop a repeatable process.

Cheers

Well, I don't feel quite so bad then. If super-intelligent, experienced guys like you and I [ ] have trouble with it, imagine what a novice to Max would make of it!

SI3D uses the baking technique when they build there engine's in 3DS Max.

pcas1986 said:

Although I don't use Max I'm sure that Mick's "render to texture" is the same as "baking". Basically what you are doing is taking all the procedural textures, shadows, ambient occlusion, etc and "baking" them to a single image (or texture). The mapping should relate to the baked image so you can then discard all the procedural textures, etc and just use the baked image with the UV map.

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Scratching head ??????.

Thank you pcas1986. That comment explains to me perfectly why I can't complete a "simple loco" in Gmax or get further than a cube in Blender. I guess I will have to resign to the old adage "you can't teach an old Doug new tricks" .

Doug.

Dougea said:

Scratching head ??????.

Thank you pcas1986. That comment explains to me perfectly why I can't complete a "simple loco" in Gmax or get further than a cube in Blender. I guess I will have to resign to the old adage "you can't teach an old Doug new tricks" .

Doug.

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Sorry, it wasn't my intention to confuse. Perhaps this might help:

These shots show a cube in Blender. The first shows a simple cube with several materials of different colours "assigned" to different faces. These are colours created by Blender. The UV editor, shown on the left, has a blank image of size 1024*1024 with the cube mapped to that image.





In the second image I have baked those colours using the textures option to the blank image using the UV map. I then saved that image as a targa file (raw) with a filename of bake.tga.




I then saved my Blender image as 1.blend and then saved it again as 2.blend. I deleted all the materials (red, blue, etc) and created a new material called test.m.onetex and created a diffuse texture of type image and loaded bake.tga into that texture. Because the UV image still exists in Blender it will map exactly to the colours in the bake.tga file.

This is the new material and texture in Blender:




Here is the cube as a scenery asset TANE's Preview Image utility:




In my example I have just used simple colours provided by Blender. But you can paint on to the mesh using texture paint with a simple brush or even a stencil using an image. These techniques I am still exploring. I did create a tutorial on this process and gave it to a couple of people to try out. It needs work!

Painting onto a cube is relatively simple. But painting on more complex meshes becomes more difficult with the detail of the mesh. A house, such as Mick's example, is not especially difficult but locos...

(Edit: A point of clarification: when using a brush to paint on a mesh, the "paint" is applied to the texture in the UV editor as well so painted parts do not need baking. You can still bake shadows, ambient occlusion onto that paint.)

Then there are the issues of adding staining, weathering, etc.

I'm still learning this stuff. The more I learn, the more I realise I don't know.

p.s. I'm an old dog as well.

Cheers

Wow, that little blender tutorial might help me with a later project involving baking different texture's.

pcas1986 said:

Sorry, it wasn't my intention to confuse. Perhaps this might help:

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Hi Paul. No need to apologise, my message was about my short comings and I am sorry if it came across otherwise. There is no way you could confuse me any more that what I was before I read your post . Thank you for going to the trouble to make it easier to understand Blender, I appreciate that and I will try to work through your instructions.

pcas1986 said:

p.s. I'm an old dog as well.

Cheers

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Well, it appears that there might be hope for me yet.

Doug.

I managed to bake the textures for my RWS Skarloey Sheds, but it appears the back of them has black Textures.

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/GTPS2/ttte/Trainz/trainz_mesh_texture_error_3.png

Is there a way to fix black texture errors?

Add a light to the inside?

Zeldaboy14 said:

Add a light to the inside?

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How can I do that?