Trainz the end of an era?

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johnwhelan

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I'm aware that content creators come and go but at the moment there seems to not that many left. Certainly in the UK scene.

There is a good basic set of assets but the new methods of creating using the FBX exporter and the new materials or even baking etc using the older methods seem to be daunting to the existing creators. I recognise that N3V makes money from payware sold through DLC but I wonder if the days of people being able to create content that looked reasonable are coming to an end apart from one or two skilled creators.

I'm not sure if it matters or if anything can be done to encourage content creation. The list of newly discovered "errors" on each new update is essentially disheartening.

Thoughts?

John
 
I/we have beat the topic to death but crowdfunding, or at least some form of monetary compensation is what I see future. Meshes need more complicated and detailed, and the textures, I would imagine the same.

EverTrainz said:
Out of all this the UK scene is lagging the most, and using expired stock. I think since SRS released his Class 37 back in 2016 there have not been any new diesel releases. Yes, considering the difficulty of CC'ing it would be near irrational to simply put out your hard work on modeling and textures for free.

Also if everyone in Trainz were to charge for their UK locos, when the equivalent is offered in Train Simulator which:
• Has more and longer routes
• More detailed stock to run the payware loco with
• More functionalities in what can be done with the loco

... why would anyone buy the Trainz version? There doesn't seem to be many UK routes that are detailed. Yes, I can create high-detail locomotives but I cannot simply run them on R3's "Porchester and Bulls Well" route forever. I quite like the Midshire Mainline route but once again how long could I run solely on a few routes for? ... The downside to monetizing Trainz content is that a major pull factor of N3V is that there is a huge quantity of freeware, thus those that bought Trainz for the free content would be turned away.

If the content creator could get compensated for the time and effort put into the loco, while still releasing it for free, there is still some hope left for the UK Trainz world. But if people aren't able to put their money forth then the existing UK users will turn to Train Simulator for their primary "visual/aural/physical" needs, and use Trainz as their building simulator, as the UK visuals and audio age rapidly. Which is what I am seeing lots of people doing now.

Most of the content creation ability and resources (mainly time) seems to be found in different countries. A possibility would be to donate (or crowdfund) to these creators and raise a certain amount at which the foreign creator would agree to create the stock.
 
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I suspect (hope) that the new methods and materials will be supported by tools that will make creating easier - especially if these same methods/materials are common in gaming as I would suspect they are. The same fears were raised when active industries and animated assets were first introduced into Trainz (2004??) many years ago but all it took was some time for the creators to get up to speed. I appreciate that the coming changes are much more significant, or seem to us to be more significant, than the changes back then and maybe it will need a new generation of savvy creators coming through to fill the gap.
 
John

You have listed just about all the things I've been silently worried about - in relation to my own future as a creator - for quite a while. Just a feeling of being unable to get on top of all the things a Trainz creator is supposed to know. It's just so laborious and tricky to make stuff now. I still haven't got around to understanding animation, baking, ambient occlusion, scripting etc etc. and now we have to absorb all the new stuff like PBR materials and FBX/trainzmesh. Even our esteemed toolmaker, PEV, seems to be struggling with the changes.
 
There is a good basic set of assets but the new methods of creating using the FBX exporter and the new materials or even baking etc using the older methods seem to be daunting to the existing creators.
Mostly in future FBX will be used.
A lots of tutorial around for PBR & Blender.
When the new game is coming, will be demanding more graphics 10xx series, also I doubt TANE's support will be gone.
It will take sometime to get hands on with new method.
More the new features comes, more time is going to be consumed. It took 10+ days to make a model, I am working on, still it have 10% of what I am thinking.

Remember old school game MSTS? Once upon a time, I had made a single complete model once in a day. It was easier.
 
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Well, Sumit, you are definitely a fast modeler! I started my last loco project 1 year ago and it's still in the works, but on the textures and materials.
 
Like all good modelers, it takes time to learn. Remember how everyone told me it'd take me a year to make a functioning steam loco and I proved everyone wrong within like 3 weeks? Determination is a key, even when learning. I know quite a bit thanks to a lot of you guys, and I've been told that i should try real steam locos. Seeing how i have murdoch being built, I may later modify it into one or more of the actual 9f classes. I want to actually create modern versions of Trainz Classic UK stuff, but i must first start with the 9f for many reasons.
 
Struggling here as well, my 3dsMax 10 can only export to an old version of FBX which means messing with Autodesks FBX convertor, which leaves me with Blender which even after a year I hate with a vengeance, horrible program that it is, takes me a week to do what I can do in 5 minutes in Max. Not giving up though, devoted too much time and energy, just have to knuckle down and get on with it.
Don't think paying someone else to create stuff is the answer though, crowd funding after the animosity created by the Kickstarter is not going to be on many peoples bucket list and any form of payware is not terribly popular.
Strongly suggest creators avail themselves of the chance to play with the TrainzDev build to try out the new materials and point out any pitfalls or problems before it's too late and we get stuck with them! It's just a basic minimal install no driver etc.
 
Struggling here as well, my 3dsMax 10 can only export to an old version of FBX which means messing with Autodesks FBX convertor, which leaves me with Blender which even after a year I hate with a vengeance, horrible program that it is, takes me a week to do what I can do in 5 minutes in Max. Not giving up though, devoted too much time and energy, just have to knuckle down and get on with it.
Don't think paying someone else to create stuff is the answer though, crowd funding after the animosity created by the Kickstarter is not going to be on many peoples bucket list and any form of payware is not terribly popular.
Strongly suggest creators avail themselves of the chance to play with the TrainzDev build to try out the new materials and point out any pitfalls or problems before it's too late and we get stuck with them! It's just a basic minimal install no driver etc.


Hi Malc

I don't know if you can access the AutoDesk Education versions of Max there. If you can, get either the 2016 or 2018 version.....comes with a three yr licence, no cost.
 
Hi John --

I sincerely hope not. I'm one of the parasites who takes the content of others and cobbles it together to make routes and model railroad layouts. Without the wonderful creations of all you guys I'm stuffed. Totally. I honestly owe you all a tremendous debt of gratitude.

I've seen some of the preliminary screen shotz and videos of the version of T:ANE that is under development. It looks absolutely stunning. I was hoping that that you content creators would be inspired to provide me with even better content. Please hasten to reassure me that will be the case?

Phil
 
John

You have listed just about all the things I've been silently worried about - in relation to my own future as a creator - for quite a while. Just a feeling of being unable to get on top of all the things a Trainz creator is supposed to know. It's just so laborious and tricky to make stuff now. I still haven't got around to understanding animation, baking, ambient occlusion, scripting etc etc. and now we have to absorb all the new stuff like PBR materials and FBX/trainzmesh. Even our esteemed toolmaker, PEV, seems to be struggling with the changes.

There is nothing overly difficult to learn mate. For animations, learn to use bones, lot easier than using just dummies. baking out normal, AO,
albedo, metal, emmissive and other associated PBR parts can be done inside Substance Painter and Sunstance Player to assemble them into the files that Trainz needs. Substance Painter can either be had by a subscription method of $24.90 AUD a month or an out right purchase of an Indie Lic for $149 USD once only. Substance Player is a free utility. FBX/trainzmesh is not all that different to using the old *.im format.
 
John

You have listed just about all the things I've been silently worried about - in relation to my own future as a creator - for quite a while. Just a feeling of being unable to get on top of all the things a Trainz creator is supposed to know. It's just so laborious and tricky to make stuff now. I still haven't got around to understanding animation, baking, ambient occlusion, scripting etc etc. and now we have to absorb all the new stuff like PBR materials and FBX/trainzmesh. Even our esteemed toolmaker, PEV, seems to be struggling with the changes.

Agreed, but I feel that all I need is one good tutorial to get me through the creation of an asset with PBR materials, especially the parameters texture. Then I should be able to continue to create simple buildings, which is all I aspire to creation wise. Exporting to .fbx is if anything easier than .im IMHO, except for the lack of error messages that were so useful in Torsten's .im exporter.

Until there's a good tutorial, I feel there is no point in me spending the time and effort to understand it all. But I'm optimistic that it will happen.

And don't forget that being a Trainz creator is not that far away from being a creator for the big video games. That's not something that every Tom, Dick and Harry expects to do without serious study and effort.

Mick
 
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Mostly in future FBX will be used.
A lots of tutorial around for PBR & Blender.
When the new game is coming, will be demanding more graphics 10xx series, also I doubt TANE's support will be gone.
It will take sometime to get hands on with new method.
More the new features comes, more time is going to be consumed. It took 10+ days to make a model, I am working on, still it have 10% of what I am thinking.

Remember old school game MSTS? Once upon a time, I had made a single complete model once in a day. It was easier.

Can you direct me to one that produces a model suitable for export to Trainz?

Thanks,
Mick
 
It may even be safe to say that younger people are at an advantage at creating content. I, being 18, paid exactly $0.00 for my copy of Substance Painter through an educational license.

All you need is a high school/college ID card, you will automatically get a free copy of Substance Painter and Substance Designer. Hint hint nudge nudge to all those elders with high school or older grand/children ;) .

But I think it’s rather risky and potentially frustrating creating PBR content without it. I don’t think there are many other programs that allow you to see the development of your PBR textures on the mesh in real-time. Also allows you to weather in 3D and accordingly edits the roughness, metallic, and albedo channels.
 
Hi Malc

I don't know if you can access the AutoDesk Education versions of Max there. If you can, get either the 2016 or 2018 version.....comes with a three yr licence, no cost.

Difficult as being retired it's a bit difficult to pass as a student, have tried though and it wanted my education establishment.
 
As a person that has left the scene I can go into great details on why content creators have left Trainz. However I won't bore everybody with those details. Simply put, there is nothing to keep content creators here anymore. That is the one good thing about RW, the learning curve stays consistent. It may be consistently hard, but never the less it stays consistent and doesn't change too much. NV3 keeps making more difficult to execute or even understand what it takes to create up to date content for Trainz. Add the fact that you have to deal with the embarrassingly slow DLStation...why would anybody stick around? What the heck are PBR Textures? This is a new one to me!
 
Struggling here as well, my 3dsMax 10 can only export to an old version of FBX which means messing with Autodesks FBX convertor, which leaves me with Blender which even after a year I hate with a vengeance, horrible program that it is, takes me a week to do what I can do in 5 minutes in Max.
D.



I can appreciate your hatred of blender after using max as its very different. i did start learning blender and had a mental block with it at first, but i watched a series of Lynda tutorials from my local library ( for free ) and this made things much easier for me . Then I decided I just did not have time to make models and build routes as well so I stopped going further.
if you can access these tutorials I can recommend them, they were much better than books .
 
Difficult as being retired it's a bit difficult to pass as a student, have tried though and it wanted my education establishment.

I was even at a school where we had 3d max, thought I could get a copy to learn at home, our license didn't cover it , no home use ! I downloaded an education version but never could get it to install for some reason as the files split into two zips which seemingly could not make connections to each other to properly install. once the first part installed I could never get any further.
Now retired so cannot get a copy although I still have a teacher registration.
its always have been VERY expensive software and you cannot seem to be able to buy secondhand copies either.
Perhaps if you register as a home schooling tutor you might get away with it :)
 
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It may even be safe to say that younger people are at an advantage at creating content. I, being 18, paid exactly $0.00 for my copy of Substance Painter through an educational license.

All you need is a high school/college ID card, you will automatically get a free copy of Substance Painter and Substance Designer. Hint hint nudge nudge to all those elders with high school or older grand/children ;) .

But I think it’s rather risky and potentially frustrating creating PBR content without it. I don’t think there are many other programs that allow you to see the development of your PBR textures on the mesh in real-time. Also allows you to weather in 3D and accordingly edits the roughness, metallic, and albedo channels.

See, I'd never even heard of Substance Painter/Designer until I read this thread. The money side of it doesn't bother me. $149 for a copy is really nothing - one of the advantages of being older.
 
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