Railworks America

I have no idea where to start though.

Could someone point me in a direction?

What sort of 'stuff' are you wanting to do? Modeling, repainting?

Modeling.

There are a lot of posts in this section of the forum that talk about how to model, but unfortunately I don't recall there being a specific guide taking you from A to Z (question to the Wiki Ninja's... is there a wiki page for this?)

Ok after looking for modeling software:

Out of these three which ones have perks/disvantages?

Blender
G-Max
3D Canvas

Blender -> Freeware - some people say it's harder to learn, some others say it's easy
3D Crafter/Canvas -> Payware (around $70) - there is a freeware available, but you can't export to Railworks with freeware
3DS Max -> Payware $3495

I'd try out Blender and Canvas and then decide, unless you have $3495 left somewhere.

Thanks Mike

And unfortunately, G-Max is already out of the question.

Unfortunately G-Max only works for MSTS, it's not compatible with Railworks.

I would advise 3D Crafter Pro.

Here's something I was building on it, something I plan to finish once I get my modeling computer repaired.

I'm still a basic builder with Canvas/Crafter, but I know a good bit about the program to give you a boost if you needed some decent explaining on how to use it.






Sincerely jpetersjr

If your going for a show of what a program can do then here-



- That's Blender. The boxcar took less than two weeks to model.

Or if you want to look at it another way, the most coplex steam model for RailWorks (In terms of what the engine can do) http://store.steampowered.com/app/65222/ Was made in Blender.


That's not really how you want to go around looking at though. I used to use 3d Canvas Pro, but the I switched to Blender. I would recommend Blender, it is quite a bit faster than 3D Crafter, and I feel it is better. One of the reasons I feel so, is that you can map a texture to a model a lot more accurately than in 3d Crafter (Which is very important, for reasonably complex models, I feel). You do also get shadow baking, a nice plus. And did I mention it's free?

jpetersjr wrote:And unfortunately, G-Max is already out of the question. Unfortunately G-Max only works for MSTS, it's not compatible with Railworks.

http://gtraxsims.com/ ->Support->Tutorials->Modeling

Well, you convinced me to look at Blender.

High frustration with 3DC had me chucking the whole idea and giving up. Maybe I'll try again.

Looks like you are making good progress. Keep on plugging. You can't hold a good artist down!

Pete's come over to the dark side!
Pete's come over to the dark side!
Pete's come over to the dark side!

Hiya, I do have to say, that the exporter will only work for Blender 2.49b and 2.48, so you will have to transfer your files to that to export, unless you build in 2.49 natively.

That tank car looks good.