Trying to learn GMAX....

[Engioc]

I've tried many tutorials on learning GMAX but I'm yet to find one single tutorial that doesn't end up not working out after just a few steps.

Example: http://www.worldoftrainz.com/Pages/Tutorials_TRS2006/GmaxLocomotive/GmaxLocomotiveChapter1TutTRS.htm

I'm currently at step 5.

I have done up to figure 9 in step 5 with the snap Endpoint and Midpoint turned on with everything else turned off.

I try moving my first box in place but no matter which corner I try to move it snaps to the corner but ends up looking like this:

Clearly the corners of my boxes do not match up with the angle of the MainBase object. I've tried moving the smaller box with each of the 4 corners, and to each of the 4 MainBase corners but no matter which way I do it I still end up with the wrong result. The box the guide refers to says yellow but the example and in my GMAX the box is blye/cyan, but not yellow.

With over 3 years searching I'm yet to find a single tutorial that doesn't present similar problems.

Apologies if I broke any rules by posting the image, if I'm supposed to do as a link or some other way tell me and I'm happy to chage it.

 

[VinnyBarb]

No need to apologize, you haven't broken any rules.

Actually there are different ways to achieve to get what you want in GMax (or its bigger sibbling 3DS Max). For example the object in your tutorial, once you made the oblong box, instead of snapping the corners of the 4 smaller boxes in place and do a "boolean" operation on it to make the cutouts on each corner of your main oblong box, one can "extrude" each end polygon of said oblong box by 0.0001 mm (I always work with 4 decimal points ).

Then each end polygon you just extruded can be scaled back length wise to get the end dimensions of the nib required like in the tutorial. Then one can extrude (important, not just pulled out) the just scaled end polygon out further as much as the tutorial shows, so you get the look of the piece your working on as it shows in figure 20. Pull the outermost vertices of the corners of the erstwhile oblong box back slightly to get the look of figure 28 and voila, no snapping to grid, no boolean operation etc. needed to get the same result as required. Boolean operations in GMax can be a messy affair as this introduces many extra faces, which sometimes are hard to UVW texture proper.

Just another way in GMax/3DS Max to get a similar result and I am sure, there are many more different ways to skin the cat.

Have fun :hehe:.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[AntonyVW]

The other thing I would look at if you are going to use the snap tool, is which corner you are selecting on the smaller boxes. For example if the small box is next to the larger one then choose the corner which is in the same position on the small box as the one where you want it to go on the larger one. So if the place it is going on the big box is top left, then select the top left corner of the small box to move and snap.

 

[VinnyBarb]

I forgot to add, do you have "Help" and the "Tutorials" for GMax? If you don't have these, you can get them from where one d/loads GMax nowadays. The point I am making is, one can experiment with scaling, extruding, pulling vertices, edges, slicing polygons, cloning, mirroring or whatever with Help and the Tutorials. Once proficient with handling and manipulating simple objects, one can get to more complicated ones.

Or if it is for Trainz you would like to create, start with simple objects like houses, shops etc., this way you get the knowhow to create and manipulate and texture objects and you can go on to more elaborate objects. The road of content creation in Trainz is littered with newbs and wannabees who came here asking of "how do I create a Big Boy" or such and with no idea of how to create and texture a single simple box. I am not saying you are in this category but all of us content creators here had to start somewhere. I learned my creating by making a letter box as my first object for TRS04, followed by houses, shops, hotels, shopping centres, farm items etc. from which I progressed to some WW II items like tanks etc., cars and what have you. Then and only then did I start to create my first TRS04 locomotive, the AN Class diesels, which no one had ever created before for TRS. My latest creation is the SCT Class locomotive on the DLS and my current WiP creation is in my signature picture.

By the above I mean, one has to learn to walk first before one can run.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

you base plate is on an angle -