Gmax

[johnwhelan]

Gmax doesn't take ages to learn. I managed make trees for TRS2004-TC3 using PDF tutorials. Have also made some buildings, the 1st was fairly simple, but the 2nd was more complicated with steps, veranda railings and complex roof shape. The PDFs I used were mostly from tafweb and vulcan also Paul Hobbs. I was able to make these within a couple of weeks of starting Gmax. I also have Blender but haven't used it because of the lack of PDFs available for making the things I'm interested in, trees and buildings. I reckon a lot of people probably give up on making content because they want to make steam or diesel locos straight away instead of learning to do the simple stuff first. If I could have got good tutorials for Blender I probably would have used that instead.
Anyway that's my 2 cents worth. if you want to have alook at what I've made check kuid:441444 in TRS2004 Buildings and Terrain Features. Not too bad for Gmax beginner.
:wave:

I agree there are more specific Trainz tutorials available for GMAX than Blender but hopefully more Blender specific ones will arrive in time. We haven't been using Blender for quite as long as GMAX and has been noted there are only two Trainz specific Blender tutorials at this point in time, ie ones that show you how to export to Trainz and only one of which is in .pdf format. I'm lumping the Paul Hobb's tutorials together here as they follow on from each other.

Meanwhile have a look at the latest Vinnybarb scenery content. In particular the TS2009 items using normal mapping I think he has a few TRS2004 level ones as well. Normal mapping adds detail but without the associated poly overhead. There are techniques to create in GMAX with normal mapping but is far easier in Blender.

Cheerio John

 

[fullsteamahead]

I have just completed my 20th tutorial and discovered one very effective tool in Blender - SET SMOOTH. Hopefully this means no more segmented wheels on locos in the future
Andrew