Railworks America

Hi guys,

I'm a Railworks novice and even newer to content creation (aside from editing aircraft.cfg and instrument panel files in Flight Simulator years ago).

I downloaded the free version of 3D Crafter to check it out, and I'm a little intimidated by it, probably because I'm used to Solidworks at my day job...naming of the tools is different, and modeling technique is a little different. So I guess like some people are modeling in Sketchup and importing to 3DC to texture/animate and convert to Railworks, I'm hoping to do the same from Solidworks (since we get home-use licenses). I think I've discovered a common file type that I can export from Solidworks and import to 3DC (.stl). I've imported a few models and it appears to work. My concern is polys.

I've been following this tutorial by "decapod":

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=92669&st=0&sk=a&sd=a&sid=df63bb09293942d3af0d292cd53be450&start=15

After getting the basic shape of the building modeled (up to the roof and overhangs), he reports 42 polys (later 36 after using a different technique).

Where do I check that? is that the number I see in the "Selection Details" tab of the "Properties and Information" dialog box? for my model imported from Solidworks, it says 40 faces (40 triangles), and 22 points. If that means I have 40 "polys", I'm encouraged by this experiment. I was worried Solidworks would throw extra junk in there and give me a gazillion polys lol. Remains to be seen with more complex shapes.

Thanks!
Ray

It seems (to me) that 3DCrafter makes faces up out of triangles, so for practical purposes they are the "polys" used in the game. It was confusing to me as well when I first came over from MSTs, as with Train Sim Modeler, 1 square plane = 1 poly. But in 3DCrafter, 1 square plane = 2 triangles, or polys.

I have 3DC 8.2 Pro, with all of Decapods plugins. In it, you check triangle count by clicking "Plugins" from the top menu, then clicking "Information", "Count Triangles". This may not be available in the free version.

I will say the 3DC is only an "adequate" program when it comes to making assets for Railworks. The most irritating thing about it is that the Boolean Subtract function is badly broken ( try it and you will see what I mean ), it has no Texture Baking ( for shadows and such ), and the IGS conversion sometimes does not work properly, meaning you will have trouble with Point-of-View disappearances of some assets.

1 square face = 2 polys - this has always been the case, it's just not noticeable on flat surfaces.

Thanks, and just came across the discussion in the "POLYS" thread (dunno how I missed that when I searched "poly"...)

I hadn't even heard of Blender until some searches a couple days ago, anyone think it's worth a shot? I'm impressed by the documentation so far (glancing through their wiki). Free sounds good too lol. As long as the Blender to RW conversion isn't too complicated. Can try 3DC Pro later if that doesn't go well for me.

Probably have to look into GIMP too.

Ray

From what I know though, Blender is pretty complicated. I tried it and couldn't figure it out.

Of course, some are able to learn it and others not so much.

I don't think it's complicated, it's just different.
Blender's interface is different from other program's interface, so may be difficult to switch from another program to Blender.
I started 3D modeling with Blender so I had no problem.

Hey guys. Fast question regarding 3DC that is somewhat related. 2 triangles = 1 square but if you use the merge faces plugin does it now become one poly or is this just to aid in texturing but the model still contains 2 triangles that just show up as one.

Has anyone ever seen the error "floating point inexact result" when trying to reload a model in 3DC? Does this mean the model is forever broken?

Well… I just have to thro in my two cents.

I’m a ‘die hard’ SU modeler and have been having great difficulty transitioning to 3DC. I too have been trying to follow Paul’s tutorial… but with little success. Case in point I cant get the roof overhangs on the example shed. Texturing…. That’s another whole different story



Mind you I’m experimenting/testing on the free version prior to jumping for the real thing. There are times however, when I thinking I should go for the ‘official’ version, because there seems to be inconsistencies between the free version and whatever tutorials or instructions one follows.

I’ve tried the SU/Blender/3DC route and still get bogged down with texturing the final version in 3DC (I am using alternate textures). The many faces on any given plane produce bizarre a result.



Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanx,
Bob

I will need to look again but I believe that the tutorials for 3DC are based on 8.x and lower and the current 9.x has had a number of UI and procedural changes. Everything is still there, but you need to hunt around for it.

Well... I think I'm finally starting to get a grip on this 3DC Monster.
This is still a far cry from perfect, but it's a good step in the right direction... finally.

Looking good