How did you learn to use gmax

K

klambert

Ca Plane Pour Moi
This is hardly an original post but I need some help;

I'm trying to teach myself how to use Gmax by using instructions on the net. But the problom is that they dont explain themselves properly, they just tell you to do it instead of how to do it. Gmax users how did you learn to use gmax? I'm at the end of my tether trying to use that program.:'( :(
 
What i did was just started modeling basic stuff (bollards etc) until I got the hang of it. I'll admit I'm still not great, but I'm still learning!


Regards,
Phil
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of content creation.

Gmax has an initial learning curve like a vertical wall. I had done a lot of CAD and figured it couldn't be that bad. WRONG! I couldn't even make a box the first time I tried but if you stick to it (and can resist the urge to occasionally put your foot thru the monitor) it comes together. Don't be afraid to try this-n-that (the undo button can become your best friend). As others have said do the tutorials and start with something small like a simple house or even an outhouse (no windows and a closed door). You might also consider getting a copy of the Gmax Bible. 852 pages chock full of Gmax info. Not all of it is applicable to Trainz but most of it is. Its not too expensive new and used copies can usually be found on E-bay. Then there are the Forums with oodles - heaps - and gobs of folks willing to help and answer questions. Remember - we all started the same way (confused, lol).

Most importantly - stick to it. Its more then worth the effort.

Ben
 
My advice

My advice is to do what dmdrake suggested and get that Tafwebs bank tutorial, it's what I cut my teeth on and is very good.
Another way is to make a texture map so is basically divided into 4 and put a different number in each section in front of a different coloured background. Then go into gmax and click the double square icon in the bottom right corner which should open up fully the Perspective View. Make a simple box in the centre where the dark black lines cross by clicking the Create icon (looks like a white shooting star) near to top left and selecting Box.
Change to the next icon right which is the Modify icon. Now you can change the size of your box in the left bottom by using the little arrows beside the measurements.
Practice making a box and once you are happy with it go top right and click the red ball called Material Editor. At the top of this menu click New then double click Standard in the new small menu. Move the cursor back over the Material Editor and click the square right of Diffuse and again when the new menu appear double click the top square called bmp.

*What I should have mentioned is that the square you created and put numbers in should have been saved as a targa file, sized at 256x256 and moved to a folder inside gmax/gamepack/Trainz called whatever you like, textures or source are 2 good names for it....*

After clicking bmp a menu called Select bmp image will appear, just navigate to the folder you put the targa file in and select it. The picture of it will appear on that menu. Choose Open and making sure your box is selected click on Apply. If your box just goes grey click the little blue and white ball as well.
Now click the block named UVWMap just above the open square in the menu on the left and run down to select Box in the Radio Button.
Then go up again and click on UnwrapUVW button.
Now the fun starts!

In the open square in the left hand menu click the black cross left on the UnwrapUVW and in the submenu choose Select face and then click on one side of your box.
Go back left and click on Edit.
Your box will appear in another menu. At the bottom on the left of All IDs is a little white triangle, click that.
Now grab one of the corner 'handles' and move that to a corner of one of the number square and then move the other 3 also to make a square of handles around just that part of your map to include only that colour and number. You can see the image change on the box if you move the Edit menu to one side.
Repeat by clicking another side and selecting a different section and so on until you have done all 4 sides, they should all be different or at least have a different number in them.
Keep going until you get this working properly and you get it right. You could make a dice of 3 numbers if you want, but just practice because this is one of the hardest things to learn.
To close the Edit menu click the red cross top right.

Hope I haven't missed anything, I probably have so anybody else can cut in and correct me.

Angela
 
Learn the basics first, like building a cube, simple house etc. and practice, practice and practice some more. There is a "Help" section in GMax, there are heaps of tutorials to be found, either the above links or use Google. You can also d/load tutorials from TurboSquid's web site to use or import into GMax.

Start off with simple items, get the hang of all that is needed to do these with some of the initially basic tutorials and progress on from there as you gain confidence, knowledge and understanding of GMax. Don't do what some people do when just discovering GMax and posting here, like, I want to make a Challenger or a Big Boy, how do I do that?

Any problems and hurdles you will encounter you will find frustrating, don't give up, persist and ask lots of questions here when something is not clear to you. Books as stated above is another avenue to get knowledge from, Amazon Books or EBay have some amazing deals going, even getting some early older editions of 3DS Max books will help you along too if these are cheap as 3DS Max is the more elaborate sibling of GMax, which is essential a cut down 3DS Max version. The used GMax Bible (some 800+ pages) I bought from Amazon Books only cost me less than US$6.00, the mailing of it was more expensive then the purchase of it.

I discovered the 3D world when I was in my 60s (age), Angelah above is closer to my age and she only started recently with GMax and look at what she can do (and did) in that short span of time she is using GMax. If Angelah and I can do it, so can you. I never had a technical background and all 3D stuff was like the proverbial new barn door cattle encountered and hence not knowing what to do with it.

Now I can build locomotives (like the one in my signature picture below), bogies and can animate, most of it learned out of books and perusing tutorials like Phil_C's "WorldOfTrainz" GMax and 3DS Max tutorials and above stated tutorial links to some of these.

If I can do this, I guess most of you can do the same and the world will open up 3D wise where you will want to create most things encountered in it :hehe:.

Cheers

VinnyBarb
 
Vinnybarb

Yes, Vinnybarb is right, plenty of practice, that's what I did when I started. I made loads of mistakes but that didn't matter, I just asked questions on here, but preferably the Content Creation section because it is a dedicated one instead of a general one like this.
Play with gmax - actually TACS (Trainz Asset Creation Studio) - try creating each of the objects in turn and get used to manipulating them about on screen.
I work mainly in Perspective view but I do used the other Views from time to time, you will need to if you want to make a wall or road. But don't try that yet, just used Standard objects.

Good luck, and remember there is always somebody here to help.

Angela
 
klambert said:
This is hardly an original post but I need some help;

I'm trying to teach myself how to use Gmax by using instructions on the net. But the problom is that they dont explain themselves properly, they just tell you to do it instead of how to do it. Gmax users how did you learn to use gmax? I'm at the end of my tether trying to use that program.:'( :(
Click to expand...

Before making the commitment to GMAX read through Paul Hobb's tutorials on both GMAX and Blender first.

www.44090digitalmodels.co.uk

If you want to do more than make simple scenery items in GMAX you'll find his GMAX tutorials extremely useful.

Cheerio John
 
klambert.

When you download Gmax,make sure you download and install the help files. They contain all that the Gmax Bible does, sometimes in more detail. I found that the Gmax Bible was overrated and seemed to be just a rewrite of the help files.

The thing to remember is that whatever you want to do has probably been done before so don't blame the program if it seems impossible, just keep trying until it all falls into place.

One bit of advice, save your work frequently. Hit the Save As button, and then click on the + sign which will save your work with the same name but with an incremented number suffix. If something goes wrong, you can always go back to a previous version.

I started with Gmax in 2002 when it first came out when I was 71 and at 81 I'm still using it.

Peter
 
Hi,

If you are beginner with 3D software, I advise you not to waste time with gmax, but to use the blender software instead.

Gmax is a freeware demo version of the 3DMax software, which is very expensive. The development of Gmax stopped years ago, the downloadable version is of around 2003. If no miracle occurs, it will not be usable anymore in a few years time.

Blender, on the other hand, is freeware which continues to be developed by a non-profit organisation and has capabilities comparable to 3DMax. Its handling is somewhat different from gmax, which may need getting used to. But since you are a newcomer that will not matter.

Blender can be used for creating trainz content, there are all kinds of tutorials both on the Blender site as well as on the Auran server. You just have to search in the forum.

Cheers,

Konni
 
Don't do what I did and start of with a Rebuilt Merchant Navy. It's the best way to get very shouty very quick. Generally speaking I didn't use many tutorials other than a few animation ones, one for creating handrails from splines and one on how to create planes with diagrams on them. One thing that made things very easy for me was learning how to use splines and extrude shapes from them. I would recommend learning blender so you can create content to the new 2009 guidelines, and for that I would recommend Paul Hobbs tutorials which go through how to create a loco in Blender and get it into Trainz. As mentioned by other Gmax doesn't really support features that are useful to creating content to the new 2009 standards.

By the way I started in Gmax but upgraded to Max a few years ago. Tried Blender myself but struggled in adapting my build methods for the program.

Rob
 
Konni said:
Hi,

If you are beginner with 3D software, I advise you not to waste time with gmax, but to use the blender software instead.

Gmax is a freeware demo version of the 3DMax software, which is very expensive. The development of Gmax stopped years ago, the downloadable version is of around 2003. If no miracle occurs, it will not be usable anymore in a few years time.

Blender, on the other hand, is freeware which continues to be developed by a non-profit organisation and has capabilities comparable to 3DMax. Its handling is somewhat different from gmax, which may need getting used to. But since you are a newcomer that will not matter.

Blender can be used for creating trainz content, there are all kinds of tutorials both on the Blender site as well as on the Auran server. You just have to search in the forum.

Cheers,

Konni
Click to expand...

GMax is NOT a demo version of 3DS Max, as Peter (narrowgauge) already stated as answer to your silly statement in another thread, it is a "cut down" version of 3DS Max4 and although its development stopped now, this does NOT mean that suddenly it stopped working to create and is no good anymore for 3D work.

On the contrary, as it is free and does most of the things needed for content creating in TRS/TS, why would one suddenly not use it anymore? A lot of content creators for Trainz (as well as modding for a lot of other games, Quake among some of these) use GMax and look at the magnificent content we have here, freeware or payware.

I use 3DS Max 5 myself but I had used GMax in the past and just because my version of 3DS Max 5 is several years old and now we have 3DS Max version 10 or so around (at least some 7 new versions since 3DS Max 5 including versions 6, 7, 8, 9, 2008, 2009 and 2010, again this does not mean my version of it is too old. On the contrary, I might not have ALL the bells and whistles the current version of 3DS Max 2010 has BUT my version of 3DS Max does everything I need to do 3D creating wise for TRS/TS.

Exactly the same it is with GMax.

If starting out with 3D creating, by all means look at any 3D software that works and creates for Trainz, look at their interfaces etc. and whatever floats your boat, meaning whatever you think is easier for you to learn and to use, stick with it. That way you only learn one particular way of how to use that instead of trying to work out, is this the command or shortcut to do what you want it to do. Or is the other way as you learned somewhat a half bit of each but collectively get confused of what sequence of ways to use.

Cheers

VinnyBarb
 
Hi,

It would certainly help the discussion, if some people would be more careful about their manners.

There is no doubt, that gmax used to be very useful for trainz content creation. Auran is, however, developing its train simulator further, which is making content creation more and more demanding. Because of that, gmax is no longer supported by Auran for 09 and 10 content creation.

This may be bitter for content creators with years of experience in content creation with gmax. I realize, that there are ways to move around this, but that should not distract from the sad fact, that content creation with gmax is a dead end road.

From this background, I am wondering whether it is good advice to a beginner to go into gmax. It might make sense, if you are prepared eventually to go to the expense of buying 3DMax, which may be the reason why gmax is still available as freeware.

There are, of course, numerous 3D drawing software around. To use them for trainz content creation, you need an exporter. Auran used to supply one for gmax with the Trainz Asset Creation Studio for gmax and supplies another for the various versions of 3DMax.

Blender is usable for trainz content creation since there are some altruistic people around which troubled themselves to write an exporter for blender.

I understand that Auran is supporting development of exporters for other 3D drawing software, by supplying essential information to interested parties. I am curious to hear about exporters for other 3D-software and where to get them.

Cheers,

Konni
 
It's probably better to say that certain effects now supported by Trainz, and strongly encouraged by Auran are not possible using the standard GMax and Content Creation Studio (i.e. normal mapping). It's quite possible to make TS09/10 compliant content (including things like mesh stitching) with GMax though. That being said, if you haven't spent time learning any 3D software, the smart money seems to be on Blender these days hear of anyone getting fully to grips with it and then going back...

For the record, I still use GMax, but intend one day to have another go at Blender - with tutorials this time...

Paul
 
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