cascaderailroad
New member
If everyone created assets using Sketchup, the FPS in Trainz would come to a standstill, of near single digit framerates ... Sketchup is plainly a bad high poly creation program
How do I create a spline?
- Thread starter Nicholas018
- Start date
Zeldaboy14
Owner of ZPW.
When I started Content creating for trainz, I used sketchup. I later got over the learning curve of blender, and found it MUCH easier to do modeling, as you can get about anything accurate. Here's a picture of what the first loco was for trainz that was sketchup made - Blender finalized:
Actually it is the other way around. GMax and Blender have a much higher level of control over the mesh details and the textures that are applied. What you call freedom in Sketchup is surrendering that control for a simple interface. Being a GMax user and never having gotten past the initial screen of Blender, I cannot give a side by side opinion on the various aspects of each program, I'll leave that to others.
Zeldaboy14
Owner of ZPW.
I can give a shed of light on a Gmax to Blender compression as I have used Gmax on a few occasions for practicing. Gmax is old, but is used by many here in the trainz community, one person that I know off the top of my head who uses Gmax is Dragonharh. Blender, on the other hand, is used also quite a lot in the community. I am one of the many who use it. My preference is to use Blender. It's as good as 3DS Max, the problem being the learning curve to get over. Once you get over it though, you can build about anything you want.
In order to display a picture, you save the picture to a hosting site and then create a link in your message to that site to display the picture here.
That can be a public image hosting site or if you have your own website you can use that. Often ISPs will give you some space on their servers to create a small website. You could use that.
That can be a public image hosting site or if you have your own website you can use that. Often ISPs will give you some space on their servers to create a small website. You could use that.
Is that why when I add a track-mark it ends up on a fence or in the trees or, really, anywhere but on the track? Makes pushing consists around more exciting, too.
I'm not sure that Blender is as good as 3DS Max else Autodesk might be out of business. But it does have the advantage of being free and has a world wide network of enthusiastic supporters. While I've never bothered to learn GMax, I suspect the interface and the 3D modelling concepts behind it, are equally as difficult to learn as Blender. Unlike GMax, Blender does have the advantage of being supported which is why I chose that path. But I will never disparage GMax users. Frankly, I don't know which program is better.
Choosing a supposedly "easy" path by using Sketchup does come with penalties which have been widely documented in these forums.
I'm not at my Trainz computer to test but would not the tag "istrack 0" prevent those behaviors?
This can be a major problem when the overheard power cables (catenary) are directly over the track because you often do not know where the trackmark ends up. At least if it is on a fence you have a chance to see it is in the wrong place. When it ends up on the catenary you only know when you send a train to the trackmark and are told there is not route to the trackmark. This has come up as a problem on the ECML for TS12 where about twenty trackmarks are misplaced as described in this thread:
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?117205-ECML-help
Yes! I had the same issue way back on an electrified route I created. I had AI drivers going nuts, and I fired all of them one day out of frustration and rebuilt their schedules again thinking I messed something up. I then did a walk along the ROW myself to see what was going. In one particular area I thought the tracks might be weird and decided the tracks should be relayed. It was then I discovered my track marks and direction markers floating on the catenary and not sitting on the tracks. It turned out to be not just this location, but many, many of them along the ROW that somehow ended up being messed up.
I reported it here in the forums and even Windwalkr and maybe James Moody were quite interested in the problem. This was right after the change in splines to tracks, so maybe this is something that was repaired in the code in TANE. I say this as I don't hold my breath and wait for it to happen.
John
Did the track marks spontaneously move from the track to the catenary or was it when they were placed that they attached themselves to the wrong spline? If so, that is a good place to use layers. Place the catenary on another layer and then freeze it. Then when trackmarks are placed, they will not be able to attach to the overhead wires. Placing signals and switches on their own layer also helps in placing and fine tuning them without worrying about disturbing anything else in the area.
Martinvk - The small routes I build do not normally have catenary and overall I like to keep things simple with all objects and splines on the route layer and only consists and industry setup on the session layer with the occasional extra trackmark for a particular session going on the session layer. This way I know I am not going to have the problems that some seem to have with things disappearing between sessions. The only time I have seen a problem with trackmarks on the catenary instead of the track has been on the ECML in TS12 and on that route it is a bit late to start changing the layers. However, I think I might start looking at different layers for some items like those on platforms where I can get a bit fed up trying to move a sign or chair and end up moving the platform.
All the layers I was talking about for trackmarks, signals, switches, etc,. are on the route side of the ledger so that are always available no matter what session is selected. If no specific session has been made for the map yet, start by editing the route. If you already have started a session, always edit the session and then change to the route layer once the map opens to continue to add objects there. No more lost or disappearing objects.
Once you get used to layers, there is no going back. The only thing you have to keep in mind is which layer is currently active or you'll be placing objects on the wrong layer, a real PITA. I really wish there was an on screen symbol to indicate the active layer.
Once you get used to layers, there is no going back. The only thing you have to keep in mind is which layer is currently active or you'll be placing objects on the wrong layer, a real PITA. I really wish there was an on screen symbol to indicate the active layer.
I can't remember. This might have happened when the fences and catenary were updated to tracks during an update, which would explain why things went awry for me suddenly. Now that I'm aware of the problem, I make sure things are in the right place before moving on.
I do the same. I've used various layers for things like this, for example, putting crates on a warehouse dock, setting up streets with buildings, people, cars, etc. I've actually hidden layers so I can put down other details and move other items. It's too bad that layered items can't be selected and added to in a list form instead of adding items individually. This would make things so much easier and actually faster. Old 3ds R4 worked this way even with lots of objects in a scene.
I always keep my track-related stuff on the route layer and put trains, etc. on the session. I have never put track marks on a session layer or did any kind of route editing in a session edit. I keep the two modes separate as it's easier to keep track of where things are. It's a good idea though to put things like the catenary on a sub-layer associated with the route layer. I'll have to give that a try. I agree once you get used to the layers there's no going back. The interface though takes some getting used to.
John