Plans To Make A GP40-3

[RailfanKyle]

I want to make a freeware GP40-3, what kinds of programs do I need to make it??

[Chacal]

Oh boy.

[Ryan93]

Honestly if you have absolutely no experience with modeling, you should start with some very basic items. A lot of time, knowledge and hard work goes into creating a locomotive. Before you can get to that, you have to understand the basics such as naming conventions, LODs, shaders, texture slots, blueprints, etc. it takes time to get there but my advice is to start small and work your way up from simple objects as you get more comfortable with the process of getting them into TS.

That being said, I use blender. It is free and it is a very powerful modeling software. For textures I use gimp. I have been working on a piece of rolling stock for over a year now. I started when I had no real understanding of naming and poly count which resulted in hours and hours of wasted time removing unnecessary vertices and such. Also, over a year later, I'm not close to being finished (I am a perfectionist though.) my point is that I have poured a lot of time and a lot of effort into this piece of rolling stock and I still have a lot left to do. i couldn't imagine the time it would take me to create a locomotive (everyone is different though.)

There are some very good tutorials to run through here:
http://thegradecrossing.blogspot.com/20 ... s.html?m=0

They are for 3D crafter, but you can still follow along and mix them with a few blender-specific tutorials to get you moving along in the right direction. I am by no means trying to discourage you and I'm sorry for the long winded post. Best of luck to you!

[RailfanKyle]

Honestly if you have absolutely no experience with modeling, you should start with some very basic items. A lot of time, knowledge and hard work goes into creating a locomotive. Before you can get to that, you have to understand the basics such as naming conventions, LODs, shaders, texture slots, blueprints, etc. it takes time to get there but my advice is to start small and work your way up from simple objects as you get more comfortable with the process of getting them into TS.

That being said, I use blender. It is free and it is a very powerful modeling software. For textures I use gimp. I have been working on a piece of rolling stock for over a year now. I started when I had no real understanding of naming and poly count which resulted in hours and hours of wasted time removing unnecessary vertices and such. Also, over a year later, I'm not close to being finished (I am a perfectionist though.) my point is that I have poured a lot of time and a lot of effort into this piece of rolling stock and I still have a lot left to do. i couldn't imagine the time it would take me to create a locomotive (everyone is different though.)

There are some very good tutorials to run through here:
http://thegradecrossing.blogspot.com/20 ... s.html?m=0

They are for 3D crafter, but you can still follow along and mix them with a few blender-specific tutorials to get you moving along in the right direction. I am by no means trying to discourage you and I'm sorry for the long winded post. Best of luck to you!

Thanks for the info

[JerryC]

To add to what Ryan said, I don't want to discourage an up and coming artist, but i'm not going to sugar coat it either. If you have never 3D modeled before, your first effort is going to be garbage. Train-simmers are a nit-picky lot, and near perfection is expected, so starting out with an ambitious project may not be the best thing to do. Locomotives are the ultimate creation in TrainSimming, even harder to make than a route. You may want to start out with simpler stuff such as a car, signal, house, or a tree. Those do not take long to make and will get you some idea of your basic skill set required to do a locomotive.

The tutorial that Ryan referred to was written by me, and the locomotive that was created there is the garbage I was referring to. I thought at the time it was the greatest thing ever, but looking back on it now there is so much that I did not know at the time.

[ryan9550]

If you really want to make a locomotive, then I say go for it! But just so you know,be prepared for a lot of frustration. If that doesn't stop you then you'l need the Blender 2.6x TS20xx exporter. Which located at: http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.p ... owfile=263

But take it from me, it's best if you start with some scenery items. I say this because I started making the locomotive that I'm working on with out trying to get some simple scenery items into the game first.

I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just letting you know that there's a lot to learn before making a fully working locomotive.

So if all of this doesn't discourage you, then go for it. I bet most of us will look forward to seeing what you create!