What do you use Trainz for?

Dap said:
I like to build prototype routes, especially ones that are no longer in exisitence. I enjoy doing the research required to determine just where the tracks went and what industries were serviced. The cool thing with Trainz, is a route can be historically modeled. Every few months, move the calendar forward to when that next section of track got laid (or abandoned) or a short line railroad was purchased and merged into the route.

I enjoy developing the operations for a route. I use the Official Guide to schedule passenger trains and then create freight operations that might be appropriate for the period.

And, I like to switch cars. Yard operations, terminal railroads and way freights are a delight for me.

I figure I spend an equal amount of time in Surveyor and Driver.

I have yet to warm up to content creation. I have used CAD software for the last 25+ years and have found the the user interface for gmax & Blender to be so counter intutitive there is no enjoyment to be found. I have created a few things in CAD and have found a friend that can convert them to a finished Trainz compatable asset. And occasionally, I'll attempt to write some code.

Why do I do it? I like the challenge of learning new things - and with Trainz, it is a never ending process.
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Well if you using AutoCAD you should be familiar with Revit. Revit will actually export to an FBX file that can be directly imported into 3DS Max 2009.

This is how I've been learning content creation because like you I'm familiar with CAD, but I really wasn't able to get my head around blender or 3DS Max or even GMAX. But with AutoCAD and Revit and 3DS Max you pretty much have a direct import/export path for the most part. You can output from 3DS Max into DWG, you can link a DWG in Revit and you can export to FBX from Revit and directly import into 3DS Max:D

Now some of that can be a good thing or a bad thing, AutoCAD and Revit have some really nice components like Windows and doors etc. that look really nice but just have a ton of polys. But it's nice to be able to put something in the 3DS Max and learn to work with that within the program instead of just looking at a box and trying to figure out how to model it, it is for me anyway.

I found that if I just do walls and roof in Revit those components are no more polys than if I did them in 3DS Max. It's just a whole lot faster to create them in Revit.

My latest model I just did walls and floors and ceiling and roof and actually used the Boolean tool in 3DS Max to cut out the spaces for the Windows and doors and learned how to use 3DS Max to create those. They're not as nice as some of the stuff I can get in Revit, but they're a whole lot lighter in the poly department.

But anyway that's just one option you can think about, they have a free trial for Revit, 3DS Max 2009 is rather cheap now considering where it was new, you can pick it up for about 160 bucks many places. Lynda.com is an excellent source for training at 25 bucks per month you can quickly get a grasp of the interface and a lot of the concepts depending on how fast you learn you can do it for 25 bucks.

But I'm really enjoying creating content now. I'm not building locomotives not by any stretch, I'm building structures, and simple ones at that :hehe:

But it gives me something else to learn and explore and I'm finding that with 3DS Max really the sky's the limit, I haven't even scratched the surface of what this thing can do and it's mind-boggling to actually try to comprehend what it's capable of.
 
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dricketts said:
For me it's about bringing all the dreams you had as a kid about model railroading to life. Now I can build a route I could only dream of because of cost and space restrictions.

I can remember spending hours thumbing through Model Railroader daydreaming that someday I'm going to build a layout like this. Well now I can. Does anyone remember spending hours at the local model train or hobby shop walking the isles? I never came home with much but it sure was fun to look. Well now I can browse the isles of the internet looking for content, getting excited about the smallest piece because it's just what I was looking for. Then I can take it home right then.

I'm also working on a proto Frisco route from the state of Missouri. The route is now abandoned but runs through lands I spent a lot of time at as a kid with my grandparents and family. I have had just as much fun doing the research for the route as I have building it in surveyor.
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I've always said that about Trainz, it's the model railroad you always wanted as a kid but your parents wouldn't let you have and the one you always wanted as an adult but couldn't afford or didn't have space for:hehe:
 
dricketts said:
For me it's about bringing all the dreams you had as a kid about model railroading to life. Now I can build a route I could only dream of because of cost and space restrictions.

I can remember spending hours thumbing through Model Railroader daydreaming that someday I'm going to build a layout like this. Well now I can. Does anyone remember spending hours at the local model train or hobby shop walking the isles? I never came home with much but it sure was fun to look. Well now I can browse the isles of the internet looking for content, getting excited about the smallest piece because it's just what I was looking for. Then I can take it home right then.

I'm also working on a proto Frisco route from the state of Missouri. The route is now abandoned but runs through lands I spent a lot of time at as a kid with my grandparents and family. I have had just as much fun doing the research for the route as I have building it in surveyor.
Click to expand...

This sounds very familiar to me too. Trainz for me is a way to build the route of my imagination without the space requirements and cost.

My route, which is the virtual version, and much, much larger version of an N-scale model railroad that I started many years ago. When I got TRS2004, the spiders moved into the physical layout, and the virtual railroad was born.

The fictional railroad, known as the Enfield and Eastern, is about 190 miles long and consists of some mergers and acquisitions, some custom building, and some DEM-generated terrain, which I've taken license and put in some rails where none have existed.

John
 
Well I reckon I spent to much money, before Trainz. I was always looking for something to build with the computer. I tried a cad program and , wow thats too tough for me. I'd have to be a rocket scientest to do that. So I went along and bought Sim City. That didn't cut the ol mustard for me and too complicated. My search went on, with different sites with games and so fourth. So then I bought a download for Sid Meier's Railroad. Now that, I had a lot of fun with, but it was another game and basically, I'm not into games. Especially that one as it ends. Shifting back in reverse here, I had a big HO setup back in the 70s. I built it but never really knew how to run it with all the switches, I had to turn off, on different trains etc and was always wrecking them. So I figured, I'd go along and watch for an N scale package deal, as space is limited where we live at now and maybe I could actually run a layout, now that I'm old. So I was a buzzin around on fleabay, looking for N. Now to this day, I don't know how I stumbled onto Trainz, but there it was. 2010 in fact, so I was a readin along on what the product was and what kind of game it was, which really didn't tell me much about it,the feller's description that was. So I went and Googled it. BANG!!! I found the video for it. I was definately sold on it and had to have it and I bought it. The big reason here is, well when ya get old and wore out, ya gotta keep the mind a goin. You can't let that get like mush, like the rest of you're body. So here I am, tryin to learn about it and build a couple things. And like a lot of fellers said here, it's a boat load cheaper than model railroading. That's the great part.
 
macart52 said:
Well I reckon I spent to much money, before Trainz. I was always looking for something to build with the computer. I tried a cad program and , wow thats too tough for me. I'd have to be a rocket scientest to do that. So I went along and bought Sim City. That didn't cut the ol mustard for me and too complicated. My search went on, with different sites with games and so fourth. So then I bought a download for Sid Meier's Railroad. Now that, I had a lot of fun with, but it was another game and basically, I'm not into games. Especially that one as it ends. Shifting back in reverse here, I had a big HO setup back in the 70s. I built it but never really knew how to run it with all the switches, I had to turn off, on different trains etc and was always wrecking them. So I figured, I'd go along and watch for an N scale package deal, as space is limited where we live at now and maybe I could actually run a layout, now that I'm old. So I was a buzzin around on fleabay, looking for N. Now to this day, I don't know how I stumbled onto Trainz, but there it was. 2010 in fact, so I was a readin along on what the product was and what kind of game it was, which really didn't tell me much about it,the feller's description that was. So I went and Googled it. BANG!!! I found the video for it. I was definately sold on it and had to have it and I bought it. The big reason here is, well when ya get old and wore out, ya gotta keep the mind a goin. You can't let that get like mush, like the rest of you're body. So here I am, tryin to learn about it and build a couple things. And like a lot of fellers said here, it's a boat load cheaper than model railroading. That's the great part.
Click to expand...

Well it depends on how much you can learn or are willing to, and just how deep in the rabbit hole you really want to go:hehe:

Because Trainz is great, surveyor's a blast, but if you want to kick those into overdrive you got to have TransDem, that'll be the best 30 bucks you'll ever spend. It has a little bit of a learning curve but if I can learn it anyone can.

When it comes to content creation you can go the free route with user written tutorials. Or you can put out a little cash for a copy of 3DS Max 2009 and go to Lynda.com for 25 bucks a month and learn and it didn't take me the full month to go through what they had but it's very good material.

So it's really what you want to do actually because they can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
 
Heres something different!

I use Trainz's chat feature to make friends! It sounds weird, but it works! I just add everyone to my buddy list, and when they're online, drop them a message. Sad, really, isn't it.:hehe:

The reason I use it that way is thast I am guaranteed to talk to someone who shares my passion for trains, which can't be met in the real world. I only know 4 or 5 people in real life who like trains as much as I do, but there are many more people here!
 
mrscsi said:
Well it depends on how much you can learn or are willing to, and just how deep in the rabbit hole you really want to go:hehe:

Because Trainz is great, surveyor's a blast, but if you want to kick those into overdrive you got to have TransDem, that'll be the best 30 bucks you'll ever spend. It has a little bit of a learning curve but if I can learn it anyone can.

When it comes to content creation you can go the free route with user written tutorials. Or you can put out a little cash for a copy of 3DS Max 2009 and go to Lynda.com for 25 bucks a month and learn and it didn't take me the full month to go through what they had but it's very good material.

So it's really what you want to do actually because they can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for the Transdem info. This is exactly what I'm looking for. It's the wee hrs of the morning now and have to get to work, pushing some fill later across the road, as we have a lil ol farm here in MO., but I will definately look into this more.
 
I use Trainz as a way of killing my boredom. From creating hilarious scenes to testing new locos and roling stock I do that sort of thing.
 
CMTMSystem2 has not been adapted to TS12. It was written for 2010. WHen the bugs are fixed in S12, I'll take a look at updating CMTM2
 
I use trainz as a therapy, I am an amputee on a pension and it keeps me sane.
I use a modified version of the old Austral Bay 5a, get as many industries setup as the computer can take then get as much rollinstock running as I can.
I have had up to 50 trains running at one time, I get so busy I forget to stop for food sometimes.
Oh and then I m a rollingstock junkie, have to download it in case I want to use it some day......
Cheers,
Mike
 
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