Where is a good place to start!

[calleighpark]

Now that I am retiring and have gotten hooked on the trainsim world, I would really like to start drawing a few buildings etc that will work in Railworks. There are so many 3d drawing programs out there. What would be a good program that won't take my retirement savings and is user friendly to use. How does 3d Canvas stack up. Thanks for any help!

[rgarber]

When it comes to Railworks you don't really have much choice when it comes to modeling programs. If you got the money for 3d Studio Max, that's the best way to go but the cost is fierce. 3D Canvas is affordable and doable and once you get the hang of it, you'll like it. But you really don't have much choice in the matter as of now so it's just the way to go.

Rich

[calleighpark]

Rich:
Sorry about the double post!. Do you happen to know if 3ds max 2009 will export to Railworks, or just the new 2010. Thanks for the good advice. Mike S.

[Bananarama]

I don't know about 2010, but I believe there are Max plugins for all versions between v5 and 2009.

[rgarber]

What I heard from RS.com a couple of months ago was they use v9 but they are saying "unofficially" the exporting tools work with 10 (as far as they know). It's easier to blow $70 on Canvas to me than $3500 so I stayed with Canvas. It gets the job done. The downside is it allows Marc for a little while longer to keep telling me how much better he is at this than I am. - Rich

[Derek]

Hiya,

Max plugins are from 5 to max2010 that are confirmed. I also think the 2010 plugins work with max 2011.

regards

Derek

[snakeyez503]

How about working with alias Maya? its alot of program but its the most intuitive 3d modeling program Ive used. Is there a work flow i would use? I know about the nvidia photoshop plugin. I used it for coustme skinns on cars in dirt2.

[rgarber]

Is Maya pretty good?

I think no matter what you use you need to end up being able to export to 3d Canvas and then export from 3d Canvas into Railworks. So, please correct me if I'm wrong, if Maya has a 3D Studio Max export function I would think 3D Canvas can pick it up and then you can export from there to Railworks.

Rich

[PamBrooker]

Maya was the absolute pinacle of spline modeling. Alias however was bought by Autodesk, and Discreet was re-absorbed. I dont kow what the new maya is like, but for sure, Max isnt like the max i started on many years ago ( no, i'm not good, i just started on it many years ago ). Over all, maya was several times harder to work with than max.. its about as intuitive as a nuclear plant.. if youy want to use spline modeling, then Rhino may be worth looking into ( http://www.rhino3d.com/ ) Its an extremely good Nurbs modeler, but i do not know if it exports to anything Railworks can use..

[PamBrooker]

Is Maya pretty good?

I think no matter what you use you need to end up being able to export to 3d Canvas and then export from 3d Canvas into Railworks. So, please correct me if I'm wrong, if Maya has a 3D Studio Max export function I would think 3D Canvas can pick it up and then you can export from there to Railworks.

Rich

only .3ds files which dont retain animation or groupings very well.. the max format itself is almost impossible to open in another application, even applications such as polymorph which needed a pluggin for max to function at all..
BUT, lets see..
5000 dollars for max and we dont know if theres a pluggin, or
70 dollars for the pro version of 3D canvas with enough rail simulator/ railworks pluggins to make a madman happy..
Personally, i think the choice is pretty clear..

[Trainguy76]

BUT, lets see..
5000 dollars for max and we dont know if theres a pluggin, or
70 dollars for the pro version of 3D canvas with enough rail simulator/ railworks pluggins to make a madman happy..
Personally, i think the choice is pretty clear..

Except there are some things you can't do in 3DCanvas that you can in 3dsMax.

[PamBrooker]

Ahhh.. yeahh, that would figure..

[Bananarama]

I believe the retail price for Max is slightly lower than your claim, Pam. Also, and FWIW, there are plugins for Max from version 5 onward.

[rgarber]

This is an important issue as it's the backbone of our hobby. With MSTS we had several choices of modeling program. Railworks has us pinned to two. To me, this is one of the big reasons why this hobby suffers. RS.com did address this issue at one time and somehow coaxed the Paul G into doing something he apparently didn't want to do, fix the exporting plug-ins for 3DCanvas for Raiworks. My guess is they paid him. But now 3DC isn't supporting Railworks anymore with their 3dc 8. I believe we all have to still use 3DC 7. Correct me if I'm wrong, this was something I read a few months back. The guy who did Blender's exporting tools for Railworks just recently re-released his version but I don't know that he's updated his exporting tools for Railworks as his was released back in the days of RS. In my opinion, it isn't so clear a choice. I think we're flat out stuck and for awhile. What makes me mad is I keep spending my money as fast as I make it rather than saving up for 3DMax. I think the cost of Max is ridiculous. And oh, there for awhile even that wasn't a super choice because RS.com uses version 9. They say version 10 has been tested to be compatible with Railworks though.

Rich

[Trainguy76]

Blender has an updated .IGS exporter, not for .IA though.
3DCanvas 8 can export to RailWorks,
3dsMax 10- I think it does work for RailWorks.