Railworks America

I don’t know if this is the correct location…Bob, maybe a couple of new headers for 3DCrafter and Blender seeing as folks are getting more involved.

Returning after an absence of some time I decided I would try my hand at learning to model. I had an earlier version of 3DC and downloaded the latest ( 9.3 ) as it is geared and leaning towards baking.
I started with Pappas cube tutorial as being a “ newbie “ his work is very digestible and understandable for this old soggy brain to absorb. I can make the cube, texture it, name and do exactly what the tutorial describes but cannot export to igs by the trainworks or train wizard method. I can get to the “ NO “ part on the export LOD popup and after that 3DC just stops working, with no error code….Train Wizard does the same just as I select it.
I have uninstalled 9.3 completely several times and installed it with no issues. I have the pro version and it works fine. I decide to go back and try 9.22…same deal. My system is Win 8.1 Pro and I have never had an issue with any other software installs.

@ Mike Rennie…I see you used 9.22 for the FEF build, Could you please tell me what plugins you used as I also have a little problem with Pauls 9.22 or 9.3 plugins when building.

Any info / help will be gladly accepted and appreciated as I have spent 2 days trying to sort this issue out. I have posted on the Amabilis forum but am not holding my breath waiting.

Cheers,
Gordon.

I an using the latest 3dc without issue, however I am on Win 7.

I think there is a dependency on either vb.net or vbs (windows scripting). Win 8 probably come with newer versions of these or not at all.

Thanks for the quick reply Papa...I'm a little peeved as I expect something to work when I pay for it, not have to chase and sort out all the technical / fix stuff that is a little above my mentality and ability some times...

Cheers.

Well, after nearly 4 complete days of uninstalling, installing as admin, non admin....changing, modifying security, access and whatever else the great world of " www " had to offer, I am no better off than when I started. I did manage to get an export once using Decapods plugin ( alternative igs option ) but a couple of his scripts are causing me grief.
Also, sometimes when I fire up 3DC it reverts back to the freeware version.....
I am of the belief this version does not work correctly on my version of Win 8.1 Pro or 8.1 at all......and " no " I am not re-installing Windows, it works just perfectly for all the other 9 million programs I have running....
I guess I will go back to finishing some repaints I started and check in at the Amabilis site once every month or so...

Thanks Pappa and especially Mike Rennie for the pm's..

Sorry I am late to the party on this one.

I use 3DC 9.1, as it seems to be the last stable version. v9.2 ate the textures off of a completely wrapped GP40-2, so I chucked it, after pitching a massive hissy and leaving Railworks for a few months. V9.3 only adds texture baking, and that doesn't work due to the way the game processes change history.

Have you tried installing 3DC to your User folder instead of to the Programs folder? That has worked for me before when I had problems with installing it to the Programs file folder. The lost license code every few days is extremely annoying. I keep a text file on my desktop with the license code so I can quickly re-insert it.

Finally, Blender is your friend. Believe it or not, with the experience that I already had with 3DC, learning Blender has not been the huge task that a lot of people said it would be.

Thanks for the input Jerry, and also the compliment on the WC repaint.
Yes, I tried the user option to test my theory on the VirtualStore folder issue and it worked but I still have the same issue as above with trying to export igs.
The problem appears to be with MSVBVM60.DLL according to my event viewer and the fact of my 64bit OS system having a SysWOW64 and a System32 where this dll ( and I guess others ) should be.
Apparently from what I have read you can register that dll from WOW64 into the 32 system if the dll is the original 64bit..... That didn’t work either.
I have had a fiddle / look with blender, yes…it does look complicated. I guess you gotta crawl before you can walk.

Cheers.

Unfortunately, at the moment 3D Crafter's home at amabilis.com has gone AWOL. Meaning they didn't pay the hosting bill on time, or have gone belly up?

I think 3DCrafter's creator has been AWOL a long time now. The last I heard, he was working on a complete re-write of the program code for v10, but that was many moons ago. It's a shame. Some really great stuff has been created with 3DC, despite it's omnipresent flaws.

3DC is the crawl; when you are ready to stand, switch to Blender. Honestly, the hardest thing i've found about the program is getting used to the Shift-MouseRollerButton screen navigation. But the benefits far outweight the learning curve. With 3DC, i have to have a 2GB memory extender just to export one part of the GP40 without crashing the program. In Blender, I have a 100,000 polygon model that instantly loads when you start the program, and doesn't stutter even on my laptop. And the UV unwrapping is a dream come true compared to 3DC's crude tools. Honestly I dread even having to open 3DCrafter anymore and wait five minutes for it to load.

I''ll heed your advice and try to learn Blender. Any 3D modeling program is difficult to get started with. I initially bought 3DC for its train sim modeling tools and support back then.

Like Open Rails, Blender is open source, well supported, and has a future.