Would SketchUp Make (Google) work for Trainz?
- Thread starter Chris750
- Start date
Okay, so it will end up as as 36x2=72 triangles in Trainz. 5 more then Blender :hehe:
.johnwhelan
Well-known member
Okay, so it will end up as as 36x2=72 triangles in Trainz. 5 more then Blender :hehe:
Now what we need is someone to do it in Sketchup with the right settings and get it down to 60 polys.
Cheerio John
Glad I was able to start a discussion/debate. It is great that some folks can use blender so easily, but I am not going to waste hours and hours trying to figure out how to make a 3D doorway watching confusing videos. I know, as with everything, some people find it easy, some find it hard. I find working on and diagnosing computers easy, my brother has trouble creating a desktop folder.
I was unhappy with my first elevator so redid it.
Added siding from the photo too
Closeup of siding taken from Google streetview
All in all I am happy with it which is what counts. Perhaps playing with SU will put me on the correct path to using Blender and things will be a bit clearer, but for now this works which is what counts. Just a note on Blender: when I created my building I created everything on top of each other just like in SU, I never even thought of creating seperate boxes and sticking them on top of each other. Now what the polycount is for this model I have no idea.
***BTW - what is UV mapping, is that for shadows and stuff?***
I was unhappy with my first elevator so redid it.
Added siding from the photo too
Closeup of siding taken from Google streetview
All in all I am happy with it which is what counts. Perhaps playing with SU will put me on the correct path to using Blender and things will be a bit clearer, but for now this works which is what counts. Just a note on Blender: when I created my building I created everything on top of each other just like in SU, I never even thought of creating seperate boxes and sticking them on top of each other. Now what the polycount is for this model I have no idea.
***BTW - what is UV mapping, is that for shadows and stuff?***
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If you make a cube in Blender, it has 6 faces, 8 vertices, 12 tris, and 12 edges. If you make one in Sketchup, it doubles it and turns into 12 faces, 24 vertices, 30 edges, and 12 tris. If the remove doubles tool is used on the sketchup cube, it turns into 8 vertices, 18 edges, 12 faces, and 12 tris.
UV mapping is moving parts of a model onto a grid that will dedicate where the UVs will sit on a texture. Here is an example:
The white parts are faces on the model moved around to fit on the UV Map. I'm horrible at explaining things, but hopefully this visual helps out.
UV mapping is moving parts of a model onto a grid that will dedicate where the UVs will sit on a texture. Here is an example:
The white parts are faces on the model moved around to fit on the UV Map. I'm horrible at explaining things, but hopefully this visual helps out.
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Hi Chris,
Gdennish has a great image of a UV map. Think of this as a fold-out of your model with the textures placed where they should go. The model program, and the Trainz graphics engine, are smart enough to put the textures back in their proper location. Another way to look at a UV map is to think of a decal sheet that you get with the old plastic models except all the decals are stuck on the model but placed on the sheet at the same time.
John
Gdennish has a great image of a UV map. Think of this as a fold-out of your model with the textures placed where they should go. The model program, and the Trainz graphics engine, are smart enough to put the textures back in their proper location. Another way to look at a UV map is to think of a decal sheet that you get with the old plastic models except all the decals are stuck on the model but placed on the sheet at the same time.
John
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Glad I was able to start a discussion/debate. It is great that some folks can use blender so easily, but I am not going to waste hours and hours trying to figure out how to make a 3D doorway watching confusing videos. I know, as with everything, some people find it easy, some find it hard. I find working on and diagnosing computers easy, my brother has trouble creating a desktop folder.
I was unhappy with my first elevator so redid it.
Added siding from the photo too
Closeup of siding taken from Google streetview
All in all I am happy with it which is what counts. Perhaps playing with SU will put me on the correct path to using Blender and things will be a bit clearer, but for now this works which is what counts. Just a note on Blender: when I created my building I created everything on top of each other just like in SU, I never even thought of creating seperate boxes and sticking them on top of each other. Now what the polycount is for this model I have no idea.
***BTW - what is UV mapping, is that for shadows and stuff?***
Be aware that streetview textures do not meet the licensing requirements for the DLS.
Cheerio John
Interesting, but I don't quite see the sense of it. What 'bonus' does the UV mapping give over a model not mapped?
Zeldaboy14
Owner of ZPW.
THE BEST TEXTURES IN THE WORLD!!!!! JK! It gives a more realistic look to the engine.
Now the week is over, I've been experimenting and can produce a 71 poly model, to match those on the previous page, using Sketchup (ignore the proportions in the models below- I was experimenting with the blocks and principles, rather than trying to mimic the model exactly). I had to export to Collada and then import into Blender to get a triangle count, but it does prove the point that Sketchup is capable of producing models that are low poly. The key is to model each element of the building separately, and make it into a component. The importance of doing this is that Sketchup doesn't automatically merge the geometry of components, which is what creates the unnecessary polygons. After you've modelled each part of the building, and deleted any faces and lines that won't be seen, select all connected, right-click, and then select 'make component'. In the case of the grain elevator, I broke it down into the main block, including the clerestory, the side loading bay, the extra bit to the side of the loading bay, and the transverse bit on the top of the roof.
The components in Sketchup:
sketchup by rumour3, on Flickr
The triangles in Blender:
blender by rumour3, on Flickr
Hope this helps the Sketchup users out there to make more efficient models.
R3
The components in Sketchup:
sketchup by rumour3, on Flickr
The triangles in Blender:
blender by rumour3, on Flickr
Hope this helps the Sketchup users out there to make more efficient models.
R3
A mesh always needs to be mapped, that's how the sim knows which part of the texture should be displayed on each poly. Sketchup does this as well but does it badly and you can't optimise it (at least you couldn't, maybe it's changed now).
UV mapping in Blender is really easy, the grain elevator would take about 10 seconds. I really must do some video tutorials sometime.
Paul
All models for Trainz using an image as a texture need to be UV mapped- it's how the game knows how to position the texture(s) on the various faces of the model. Efficient models use as few textures as possible, which (with current versions of Trainz) can use quite large images, and different parts of the model can be 'mapped' to different parts of the image. The benefit of this is that you can incorporate shadows and other detail into your texture, which looks much more realistic than a simple uniform texture when seen in the game. Sketchup is actually UV mapping your texture, without you having to worry about what it's doing, but the downside of it is that a basic tiled texture will never look as good as a carefully UV mapped, larger texture incorporating shadows and other detail.
Edit: Paul beat me to it! (again...)
R3
Boy you guys have really got me confused now eh, geez. All I know is I want to create my Richardson Pioneer Grain facility and I was having too much trouble with Blender. As for poly counts and UV mapping I will say----uh, ok. Maybe once I get the RP into my layout I will see what happens, does it cause stuttering (although just about everything does in Trainz12) or does it look like crap.
As for SU componets, can't you just build it without doing it each piece separate, select all, right click and select 'make model component', will this not do the same?
As for SU componets, can't you just build it without doing it each piece separate, select all, right click and select 'make model component', will this not do the same?
Doing it as you go along with the separate bits of the model keeps the polygon count down because Sketchup doesn't add extra polygons where the bits of the model join up. Doing it at the end won't do anything useful to help the performance of the model because the extra polygons have already been created.
An individual high poly or inefficient model is unlikely to be too much of a problem for TS12, but a scene with loads of them will grind the system to a halt. Always better to model efficiently, but if it's your route and it works for you then good luck to you- whatever works for you.
Regards
R3
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johnwhelan
Well-known member
Now the week is over, I've been experimenting and can produce a 71 poly model, to match those on the previous page, using Sketchup (ignore the proportions in the models below- I was experimenting with the blocks and principles, rather than trying to mimic the model exactly). I had to export to Collada and then import into Blender to get a triangle count, but it does prove the point that Sketchup is capable of producing models that are low poly. The key is to model each element of the building separately, and make it into a component. The importance of doing this is that Sketchup doesn't automatically merge the geometry of components, which is what creates the unnecessary polygons. After you've modelled each part of the building, and deleted any faces and lines that won't be seen, select all connected, right-click, and then select 'make component'. In the case of the grain elevator, I broke it down into the main block, including the clerestory, the side loading bay, the extra bit to the side of the loading bay, and the transverse bit on the top of the roof.
The components in Sketchup:
sketchup by rumour3, on Flickr
The triangles in Blender:
blender by rumour3, on Flickr
Hope this helps the Sketchup users out there to make more efficient models.
R3
Could some one add this to one of the wikis either the N3V one or the wikibook one http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz
Thanks John
johnwhelan
Well-known member
You might do better to restart in Blender.
pcas1986 has created a python script to make a house in a few seconds. Put a couple together and you'll be close.
Cheerio John