There seem to be all manner of helpful people online at the moment, so I take the opportunity to pop a few more questions (bare with me, I'm a newbie still).
I love creating landscapes/routes, but have trouble finding the right kind of houses and things like that. I'd love to make some of my own to get around that problem, but that creates another: HOW?
I've tried to read about Gmax, but it's more confusing than helpful. By the way, it said somewhere that "Gmax ships with the retail package of Trainz"? Huh? I have Trainz 2006, but haven't seen Gmax anywhere around my computer?? From what I've read and seen here and there, Gmax is probably too complex for me anyway.
On the other hand, I just discovered Google's SketchUp 6. Wow, is that nice! It's a snap to create models! Made several already. There are also a multitude of very pretty models avaiable from all over the world to download. Now these would be perfect to use in a landscape!!
I did read an earlier thread here bout SketchUp, but that one seemed to die out in April, and didn't really answer my questions anyway.
I have the free version of SketchUp, I'm not about to pay $500 for the Pro.
So here are the questions:
Is there some way one can transfer/transform the models (kmz files) from SketchUp to whatever format will be importable into Trainz?? If one succeeds in doing so, will the scale be the same?? Will I still have to rework those files in CCP (that I'm not familiar with as yet)??
And most important: Am I just wasting my energy here? Do you really have to be an expert in something like Gmax (and from what I've read so far I don't understand half of it) to make some plain houses and stuff??
Anybody out there with some answers to this?
I love creating landscapes/routes, but have trouble finding the right kind of houses and things like that. I'd love to make some of my own to get around that problem, but that creates another: HOW?
I've tried to read about Gmax, but it's more confusing than helpful. By the way, it said somewhere that "Gmax ships with the retail package of Trainz"? Huh? I have Trainz 2006, but haven't seen Gmax anywhere around my computer?? From what I've read and seen here and there, Gmax is probably too complex for me anyway.
On the other hand, I just discovered Google's SketchUp 6. Wow, is that nice! It's a snap to create models! Made several already. There are also a multitude of very pretty models avaiable from all over the world to download. Now these would be perfect to use in a landscape!!
I did read an earlier thread here bout SketchUp, but that one seemed to die out in April, and didn't really answer my questions anyway.
I have the free version of SketchUp, I'm not about to pay $500 for the Pro.
So here are the questions:
Is there some way one can transfer/transform the models (kmz files) from SketchUp to whatever format will be importable into Trainz?? If one succeeds in doing so, will the scale be the same?? Will I still have to rework those files in CCP (that I'm not familiar with as yet)??
And most important: Am I just wasting my energy here? Do you really have to be an expert in something like Gmax (and from what I've read so far I don't understand half of it) to make some plain houses and stuff??
Anybody out there with some answers to this?