Railworks America

I tried to follow the tutorial at http://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?289889-TUTORIAL-Easy-SketchUp-to-RailWorks-Export-for-Simple-Objects/page2 and everything went fine until I got to the spot where I was to export the model to Railworks. The tutorial tells you to run the plugin "Train Simulator Wizard" however when trying to do that with the current version of 3D Crafter, I get the following error message.. "Selection not valid for this plug-in, Groups are not supported". Can someone help??

Maybe some of the tutorials listed here http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=129367 will help you.

I finally did realize that I had part of the model selected. The model exported but did not show up in Railworks. PapaXpress is trying to help me also, through a private message I made available to him the complete model and textures but havn't heard from him yet.

Yes, I made a blueprint for it but it would not show up in either the asset editor or in the actual route. That is my stumbling block. I can get simpler models to show up even ones that use transparencies for windows, but not this model.

At this point, I don't mind being told what may seem common sense stuff.

I don't know if you solved your problem with your asset not showing up in the game but, I ran into the same thing when building my Modern Coal Facility. What ended up working for me was because of the size of model was to take each individual model listed in the hierarchy and drag it into only one group. One of the step when running the Train Sim PlugIn is to select the main portion of the model so the PlugIn can group the rest together. I have found by manually grouping all of the models within the model together works for me and I have not had that happen since with misc other test pieces I have played with. If you don't know about manipulating the hierarchy then check out the tutorial on it. Hope this helps.

mdurdan wrote:Check your name in the right flyout menu and let me know if it shows up

Yes it does.

emdsd90mac wrote:I don't know if you solved your problem with your asset not showing up in the game but, I ran into the same thing when building my Modern Coal Facility. What ended up working for me was because of the size of model was to take each individual model listed in the hierarchy and drag it into only one group. One of the step when running the Train Sim PlugIn is to select the main portion of the model so the PlugIn can group the rest together. I have found by manually grouping all of the models within the model together works for me and I have not had that happen since with misc other test pieces I have played with. If you don't know about manipulating the hierarchy then check out the tutorial on it. Hope this helps.

I've merged everything into one group. I even tried naming it "Main" like in MSTS but it didn't help. There is something seriously wrong with the model. Oh, one thing that comes to mind is that when trying to see what was wrong, I exported just one of the windows and just one of the doors to see if they were the problem. The window exported fine and I could view it using the asset editor. The door exported OK but when I viewed it, it started out half in the ground even tho I had made sure to make the frame of the door the main group and that it was at 0, 0, 0. Also, even tho the door had two colors in 3DC, when I looked at it in the asset editor it only had the texture and no color. I suppose that I need to have different color textures to make that work.

Because of the help and the comments here I WAS able to get my model of the Dunsmuir Engine Shed imported successfully into Railworks! The only thing that I "THINK" I did differently was I went all the way back to Sketchup and selected all the groups and made them into a component. I then exported the model as a .3ds file, imported it into 3D Crafter, textured all the surfaces I could see, merged all the groups and meshes into one group, assigned textures to any surfaces that could not be seen, ran the "Train Simulator Wizard" up to the second screen and then finally exported the model as a intermediary geometry format. In Railworks, I created a new blueprint and exported it. In the Asset editor I was able to preview it. In the route I was able to see it.

However, there are STILL two problems with the model. One is not a deal breaker but the other one is!

1. The model when placed in the scene starts out sitting about half way in the ground! This can be adjusted, I suppose but I had set the X, Y, Z origin of the model in 3D Crafter to 0,0,0.
2. The model is not the proper size . In Sketchup I had made the model 151 feet long, 45 feet wide. Now, using the 100' turntable as a guide it looks like the model is only about 80 feet long and about 20 feet wide. This is a deal breaker.

You and I model using the same format SketchUp to Crafter and this is what I found you have to do with most models. Export from SketchUp as a .3ds like you have been. When importing into 3D Crafter the first thing you get after selecting your import file is a box similar to a scaling box; it's an import options box. For some reason or another, 3D Crafter will not import the full size of large objects from SketchUp. The default value is set to 1.0, I change it to 10.0 then press OK but do not press ENTER because for some reason that doesn't make the required changes. Once the object is imported, using the ARROW selection tool, select your object, right click and select SCALE-TO SIZE and look at your X,Y and Z dimensions and they should be close to what they were in SU. If not, then tweak them to what they were in SU and you should be golden. This is what has worked for me. When I was working with my Modern Coal Facility model I had this problem and this is what fixed it for me. A factor of 10.0 may be too much at first for you so play with the number a little bit until you get into the ball park. Or just try scaling it in Crafter to to appropriate dimensions that is was created in SU.

emdsd90mac wrote:................Once the object is imported, using the ARROW selection tool, select your object, right click and select SCALE-TO SIZE and look at your X,Y and Z dimensions and they should be close to what they were in SU. ...........

Thanks for this, this section of your post worked, I set the width to 45, the length to 151.5 and the Y to roughly 24. I was also able to solve the model starting out half in the ground. Now I have to solve one more thing. The textures seem way too bright. When in 3D Crafter, I set Diffuse to 20, Ambient to 40, and Specular to 1. Does anyone know how to tone down the colors?

I use 35,4,0,0. I have seen others use 50,1,0,0 but I have not compared them side by side.

PapaXpress wrote:I use 35,4,0,0. I have seen others use 50,1,0,0 but I have not compared them side by side.

I set my textures to those values in 3D Crafter and exported the model, created a new blueprint and the model still glows in the dark.... now what??

I had the same problem with my model and that is just how the game renders it I reckon. Did you do any shadow baking? From what I gather, that helps to fix some of this brightness but, I do not know how to do this just yet. I have been chatting with another user about this and hopefully this will help. But I don't think Crafter has this function so another program like Blender or Max will have to be used.

I found that in RW3 (i.e. Train Simulator 2012) the ambient setting has to be 0 or 1 to stop the building from glowing in the dark. I think that now I have solved all the issues and will attempt the next model that I need for this route. There is a water tower at Black Butte that is also still there today and I can't find a decent model that looks close enough to use.