Trainz 2009. Decisions Decisions!

I finally managed to get myself a copy of the new version of Trainz! The focus of this version is on high quality models, and the old polygon limits that I was so worried about, are gone! That isn't to say that I can add as many as I like - Im still keeping count, but it allows me to do things like add a few poly's here and there to improve the sharpness of the texture :)

I wasn't aware, until yesterday, that Auran have dropped support for Gmax, and have released new exporters for 3DS Max. I know that you can still use Gmax, but the old exporters do not support a lot of the new features that allow you to increase the resolution (quality) of the model without decreasing the perfomance of Trainz. I have always intended for my models to be high quality, so I have been wrestling with the decision to either leave things the way they are and release the items that Im currenly working on as TRS2006 assets, or to convert them to 3DS Max and take advantage of the new exporters to make them look even better in the game.

Converting to Max would take time, as there is no direct conversion process, and every conversion tool I have tried always seems to corrupt the model in some way. Fixing the corruption is time consuming, for example, in one model that I converted recently, several vertices (just a few here and there) were out by 16mm and had to be nudged back into place - it took about 2 hours find and fix them all, and that was just a simple building.

I know a lot of you have been waiting for my models to be finished and available for Trainz, so I don't want to delay them even further by putting them through a long and tedious conversion (and repairing) process this late in the day, but at the same time, I want to take advantage of the latest features in TS2009.

I'm already using the old 3DS Max exporters in Gmax, so there was originally no advantage to using Max - I can do normal maps and specular lighting in Gmax just the same. The only real difference was not being able to render a high quality image of the model in Gmax. No big deal, and certainly not required for Trainz! Now, with the extra features of TS2009 being enabled by the way the new exporters work, it's a much bigger deal.

After thinking about it for some time, and having converted the building mentioned above, Im leaning towards conversion. The Tangara is more complex than the 86 class, and already has a lot of textures in place, as well as several areas where the mesh is very fine. It would easily be corrupted and require a lot of time to fix before I could finish it off, so I have decided to continue working on the Tangara in Gmax, and release it as a TRS2006 asset.

The 86 Class on the other hand, is close to my heart. Its sad to see these locomotives go into forced retirement, and in a way, Im trying to do my part to preserve what made them special. There are some parts of the 86 Class that I had always planned to make in 3DS Max from the start, but at the time, there didn't seem to be any reason to build the rest of it there too. The model is almost complete but the mesh is simpler and it only has a few textures applied so far, so I'm going to take the risk to convert it, and export it as a TS2009 asset.

I may release an update to the Tangara in the future, making it a native TS2009 model, but for the moment, at least I will have one item that I can finish off, while I am rebuilding the other.

Leave me a comment and tell me what you think.