Battling the exporter

I managed to get an early draft of the 86 Class into Trainz for testing, and so that I could see what needed to be done to tweak the textures. This picture has a very rough texture on it for the moment.

So I started tweaking and moving things around, re-exported the model, and now it wont show up in any of Surveyor, Railyard, or Driver, in TS2009, despite showing up fine in Asset-X, Pev's Mesh Viewer, and even in CCP. There are no errors in CCP or even in the export process, and this has me stumped. All I can do is keep tweaking the textures and hope that the exporter begins to co-operate. I was even able to drive the one pictured here, but now - nothing.

Each time I've exported a model I've found the exporter to be very picky, especially about materials. At one stage it would just crash Max to the desktop if I renamed one particular texture to the standard .m.onetex naming convention. It exported just fine without that extension. Other times, it has crashed to desktop for no apparent reason, but every time it has been related to the materials.

These exporters have been around for over three years. One would think that Auran (N3V) would, from time to time, update the exporters - patching bugs such as these, but unfortunately Auran seem to be of the impression that you can release a piece of software once, then just forget about it. Not so with their flagship product though - they've released 3 or 4 versions of Trainz since the exporters were last updated. They seem to understand the concept of software development only when its directly connected to making them money, but without the exporters, where do they think the content would come from? Without content, JET is just an engine. It does nothing on its own.

Still, I press on. I keep tweaking the textures on the 86 Class, hoping that I'll hit that elusive magical combination that will cause the exported model to show up in Trainz - after all that's what its all about. In the mean-time, Im fiddling with a few side projects that are still in the modelling phase. I don't need to export them just yet so I can model happily without any problems.

Here is a shot from inside the cab. This is the low-res cab that is a part of the body mesh. You will see it through the windows in DCC mode. I tricked the camera to place it inside the cab on a multiple unit set. I've been trying to get the shiny stainless steel effect the way I want it, and I think its getting pretty close. The first thing that struck me about the real cab was how shiny it was. As you can see, there are still parts of the cab, and body that are untextured at this stage.

I've put the 86 Class aside for now and as I mentioned have been working on other things.  One of those things is a route. I want a route that is a) Unmistakably NSW, and b) appropriate for the 86 Class and the Tangara, so I've started putting something together. Ive always been impressed by the detail in the Wadalbavale line, and the sheer size of Pine Ridge, and Razorback, and I'm hoping to eventually come up with something inspired by all three.

I've started with the mountains - inspired by Lithgow being the former home of the 86 Class locomotives. At the highest point the rail is 600m above sea level, and Im gradually working my way down to sea level with some 2 and 3% grades to give a bit of a challenge, and to make good use of the dynamic regenerative braking in the 86 Class. This will be a coal run, down to the port at sea level.   I havnt started on any other sections but there will be other areas to explore as well, and of course commuter trains, which is where the Tangara comes in.

One major thing Im missing is decent Cityrail stations, so Im currently building one that I can throw in there for the time being. I'd like to expand on that and make a series of stations, but that is for the future.  I'd like to build something generic and have options available through scripting, similar to Andi06's station kit.

The Tangara is waiting to be converted to Max. I figure since TRS2006 is no longer supported there is no reason to keep it in Gmax.  The conversion process is a bit bumpy so I've been putting it off, but I hope to have an update on the Tangara in the next post (and some pics).

I'm not going to bother right now with the poly counts that I used to add to my posts, suffice to say the 86 Class in the pictures is about 18,000 polys and will use LOD by the time its ready for the final export.