Welcome to TRS22 from the CEO

A good analysis Paul. I agree that the standards for creating content (specifically scenery, locos, trees, etc) has progressed considerably since "the day". I would also add (my theory) that the pressure for this change has come from both ends of the product - the consumers (us) who are always demanding more realism and better quality graphics; and the developer (N3V) who have to keep ahead of the competition. Add to that the obvious point that train simulators are very much a small niche market.

But at least us amateurs can still create and upload routes.

My thoughts.

Very fair point. But to illustrate the problem - I was interested in developing a UK electrified route (there is some very good track and catenary available), but I realised there were no modern loco models* (up to current standards) to run on it, so I've had to shelve it. Ultimately, we have to have train models to make it worth building routes - the egg does come before the chicken!

Paul

[*for me that means classes 81 through to 90.]
 
I got interested in modelling because of Trainz. Initially, I was learning the modelling itself through various Blender tutorials, then I tried to play a bit with "legacy" textures, and eventually decided to learn the PBR flow. I think it was a very good move. But I want to tell a bit about the difficulty of this flow.

From the perspective of the last couple of months, I see that PBR flow is not actually that hard to learn. In fact, if you start with simple objects, you should be able to achieve nice results after I don't know... maybe one or two entry-level tutorials. And further discovering of the features gives a lot of joy. I was extremely happy when I learned how to create a reallistic snow cover effect. It turned out that I had to use exactly the same technique I had already learned to apply dirt etc. onto the walls. Later, I wanted to have a mossy wall. I had a brick wall material, and I realized that I just need to use the same technique that I used for dirt and snow, and within minutes of expermenting with switches and sliders I had my nice-looking mossy brick wall.

And what was hard?

1. for modelling, you have Blender which is both free and powerful. For PBR, there is currently no good free alternative, and you have to put some money e.g. to buy/subscribe Substance Painter or similar tool. There is an open-source Armor Paint which is being developed. I tried it, too, but it's not that mature yet as Substance Painter. And SP comes with a rich library of ready-for-use materials. Without such a library, doing anything in PBR is a complex task.
2. lack of good video tutorials that show the flow step-by-step, and that are Trainz-oriented. Yes, there is wiki, but you need to spend some time to connect the dots. For example, the wiki article about exporting the model from Blender to Trainz assumes that you already have the model and a PBR texture. But it does not explain, how to create that texture in the first place. It won't show you that you e.g. need to firstly model the object, then create the UV map, and then cut it in a proper way, so that you could apply the materials easily in Substance Painter and this is how you get it. The articles about rendering optimizations are in yet another place, but you need to read them, too, to understand why it's generally better to pack everything onto one material rather than 7. Once you know the steps, things are easy, but it took me almost a month of trial-and-error and ~4 attempts to figure out how to do it right and finish my first PBR object.

The cost of tools (point #1) is something that we need to accept at this moment and everyone has to answer themselves "do I want to pay this money". But point #2 is achievable with the help of the community and people who already learned the PBR flow, and it could help people switch to PBR or attract new modellers.
 
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Thanks for this observation. I got involved in reskins which has brought me a lot of pleasure (and quite a few uploads), but I know this is going to get harder and harder in the future unless I get into Substance Painter. :(

Paul
 
As Amigacooke and Vern are trying to say, you keep TRS2022 forever, but after 12 months, you don't keep S20 forever (which I find a bit awkward).
I am also waiting on the Steam version in January, and, hoping S20 will make it into this trainz version.

Also, if the excuse is "S20 isn't ready yet", Why doesn't Tony just allow people to switch to a TRS22 beta stream on the standalone version and test it there? Why is it subscription-only? Wouldn't they need all the help they could get?
Good morning

well I'm really unlucky, I had taken out the train plus subscription, but I stopped this subscription, normally I kept TRS22 basic (without S.02), following a crash of my hard drive , I lost this version, so I went to Mytrainz to recover the basic version of TRS 22, and the surprise nothing, just my old trainz Tane, 17 ,19 , don't understand why I no longer have TRS22 basic, I still paid for it
 
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Good morning

well I'm really unlucky, I had taken out the train plus subscription, but I stopped this subscription, normally I kept TRS22 basic (without S.02), following a crash of my hard drive , I lost this version, so I went to Mytrainz to recover the basic version of TRS 22, and the surprise nothing, just my old trainz Tane, 17 ,19 , don't understand why I no longer have TRS22 basic, I still paid for it
I think you would need to subscribe to the 1-year plan to get that. I had trainz plus monthly for a bit, but I've canceled it now, and now I've lost TRS22 PE as well, and I'm back at TRS22. It makes sense that they would do it that way. Otherwise, people would just pay $7.99 to get TRS22 platinum and just cancel it, and no one would buy it for $69.
 
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