Thinking of getting into content creating...

[Jay]

Hello, hope everyone is well!

I'm quite interested in content creating for Trainz (hoping to create trains if I can master content creation). I just want to ask anyone who's has experience at content creation, what is the best program to use? Also is there any other advice you could give?

Thanks in advanced for any advice!
Jay

[Nexusdj]

Most of us cut our teeth on Gmax , some progressed onto 3ds max and others went down the Blender path . I think these 3 are the only currently supported mesh creation programmes in Trainz and it looks like the oldest (Gmax) will be dropped completely at some stage in the future .
There's also Sketchup but that is to be avoided simply as it generates meshes that have a huge amount of Poly's and in Trainz less Poly's is better .

3ds Max currently costs a lot of money to purchase on a yearly basis :
https://www.autodesk.co.uk/products/3ds-max/overview
current cost £1,740.00 !!

Blender and Gmax are both free :

https://www.turbosquid.com/gmax

https://www.blender.org/

There are numerous "how to" video's on YouTube and there a few "how to" documents on the Trainz wiki
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Main_Page

My main advice is follows the instructions , I ended up being mostly self taught in Gmax and it shows as I picked up a few bad habits along the way .

[Jay]

Hello Nexusdj.

Thanks for your advice. I think with 3ds Max costing so much a year, I think I'm going to have a crack at Blender. I'm going to watch the "how to" videos and read the "how to" documents on Trainz Wiki, just before I start with Blender. I think I'm going to start creating small objects before working my way up to trains.

Once again, thank you for your advice,
Jay.

[clam1952]

There is also 3d Crafter, which supports im and fbx exporting a lot cheaper than 3ds Max, in fact I think the free version will do the exporting now.

[gds]

If starting from scratch Blender might be the best way to go as it is completely free. Paul Hobbs had some great tutorials that take you through creating a loco from the ground up.