Help finding depot

[rwk]

Can someone help me find a depot that looks like this with a unique roof design? It's at a tourist railroad (Everett Railroad) in central Pennsylvania and looks like a replica PRR depot. I think they built it new several years ago for their new steam tourist train. I have a small cream colored PRR depot by gfisher but it's not exactly the same, and is missing the baggage double doors on the left side, it should be longer. I want to build a recreation of the Everett Railroad using a DEM map from the DLS.

 

[Forester1]

Looked through hundreds that I have. Nothing that quite hits the mark.

 

[rwk]

I found Old West Passenger Station which has that roof design, but the door and window placement is off and I can't change it. If I could figure out a 3D modeling program I would make it myself. The other end of the station has two windows spaced apart and the back has three windows.

 

[Forester1]

DaveSnow has done quite a few Depots, and he should be able to do this one. He generally claims he doesn't take requests, although he has helped a couple of people lately. Maybe if you caught him in a good mood....

 

[rwk]

I asked him to make US style hotels like you find off of highways one time and he did wind up making a Holiday Inn Express on his own. About a year ago I imported some hotels from 3D Warehouse into Trainz with that Ruby TMIX program. But, it costs $299 a year for the professional version in order to download the right files from the 3D Warehouse that will import into Trainz. RubyTMIX is free. The cheaper SketchUp version for $119 doesn't let you use it on your desktop like the pro version. How can I avoid that high fee if I want to import more 3d Warehouse models into Trainz? Also, Paul pcas86 made a Wolfeboro, NH station at my request, because jfweaver made a payware one over 12 years ago and he had a bunch of other payware stations on a site but they are no longer available and he passed away. I'm going to use the Old West station for now with a few texture modifications on a cloned version, the slats should be horizontal not vertical.

 

[schweitzerdude]

Downloading Sketchup 3D warehouse models and then putting them on the Download Station using RubyTMix is the main reason Sketchup models receive so much negativity on these forums. Why? They almost always are way too detailed for use in games - just look at the poly counts of models on the 3D warehouse. And I believe currently, N3V requires LODs for any model with over 500 polys, which requires learning how to do this.

So I think your plan is doomed due to changes made by N3V (Trainz) for performance reasons, and Trimble (Sketchup) for $$$ reasons.

Nothing is preventing the OP from using an older desktop-only version of Sketchup (I have used Sketchup 8) with RubyTMix, learn the program, (or learn Blender, etc) and make low poly models inspired by the high poly models seen on the 3d Warehouse, or elsewhere. This can be for your own use, or once you become skilled enough, placed on the DLS if under 500 polys.

Someone more knowledgeable than I on this topic, please comment.

 

[rwk]

What are LOD's? Are those modeling programs free? I wonder what Dave Snow uses to make buildings. I'm a dummy when it comes to 3D modeling, or even complex reskins of locomotives and rolling stock. There are some buildings on 3D warehouse that are low poly, I think I uploaded a Hampton Inn to the DLS a couple years ago which looks low poly. Then there was this Embassy Suites on the warehouse with a detailed interior and I think it was thousands of polys. I didn't convert that one. I had Dave make me an Embassy Suites more recently and it doesn't have any interior. It's probably low poly.

 

[OddRails]

Don't quote me, but I believe LOD is Level Of Detail. If the asset is close to the camera, a full detail version is shown. But the creator is asked to make a somewhat less detailed version that would be further from the camera. And a third version with minimal details to represent the asset seen from an even greater distance.

I believe someone mentioned there is a tool that can make the lower detail versions, but I haven't ever messed with any of this so my writing may serve as a crude intro text rather than any type of reference.

 

[Frank_Dean]

What are LOD's? Are those modeling programs free? I wonder what Dave Snow uses to make buildings. I'm a dummy when it comes to 3D modeling, or even complex reskins of locomotives and rolling stock. There are some buildings on 3D warehouse that are low poly, I think I uploaded a Hampton Inn to the DLS a couple years ago which looks low poly. Then there was this Embassy Suites on the warehouse with a detailed interior and I think it was thousands of polys. I didn't convert that one. I had Dave make me an Embassy Suites more recently and it doesn't have any interior. It's probably low poly.

A simple explanation of LODs.
If you create an object for Trainz 2012 (build 3.5-3.7), you don't need to create LODs. Your object won't have LOD errors. Some authors use this workaround to upload their objects to the DLS without errors. Even without LODs, the game will struggle and may not perform well with many of those objects.
Starting with Trainz TANE, if your object has a build higher than 4.2 and the mesh has more than 500 polygons, you must create LODs.
If you create an object with 4000 polygons, for example, that would be your first LOD, or LOD0. Then, to create LOD1, you need to reduce the polygon count by at least 20%, and so on until the final LOD, which must have fewer than 500 polygons.
Lod0 ................4000 polys
Lod1 4000-20%: ......3200 polys
Lod2 3200-20%: ......2560 polys
Lod3 and last one less than 500 polys
Note that Lod0 is the one that will be seen in the foreground, Lod1 may be visible from 100 meters or more, depending on the configuration, and Lod2 and Lod3 will be very small and almost invisible.
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