Help making locomotives in blender

[Railfanphil]

I'm modeling a ATSF U30CG for Open Rails using blender I finished modeling it and tried to export it with the Import/export MSTS addon, but it gives me an error "Main not found in scene collection" even though I have the main object named main and the bogies named bogie1 and bogie2.

[rt35ge]

I'm modeling a ATSF U30CG for Open Rails using blender I finished modeling it and tried to export it with the Import/export MSTS addon, but it gives me an error "Main not found in scene collection" even though I have the main object named main and the bogies named bogie1 and bogie2.

I don't know how it works for MSTS/OR. For Railworks I name the the main part of the model "main" the bogies are named bo01 and bo02. Might try that and see what you get. Main reason I gave up on Blender was the export would always come back saying there were errors and I could never figure it out. I'm using 3D Crafter and it works for me even though most people feel it's a out dated program.

[R. Steele]

These blender tutorials may help you >>> http://doug56.net/OriginalBlenderTutorials/

[eric]

A screenshot of the collections window might help.

capture_400181.jpg

[pwillard]

One thing to bear in mind...

The exporter is CASE SENSITIVE and therefore your collections naming requires UPPERCASE on the MAIN, LOD DEFINITIONS and Animated parts like BOGIE1x, WHEELSx, etc.

See if that's the reason.

The handy guide says:

"These key names must be in all capital letters to ensure they are retained in the exported shape file. Use lower case or mixed case names for all other parts."

Easy to mess up... Today, I forgot the "S" in the WHEELS key name... and I do get WHEELS in the game... but they won't TURN as expected. Until I fix it... of course.

[superheatedsteam]

Reference to the word 'MAIN' indicates the collections are not named correctly. The documentation that comes with the export tool goes into more detail. The screenshot below shows the settings for a single LOD model from 0 – 2000m.

Export_settings.jpg

[Railfanphil]

I figured it out an it exported correctly, what would be the best way to texture it?

[pwillard]

You will start by defining the coordinates where 2D Bitmap textures are attached. 2 Dimentional Bitmaps use U and V as coordinate references to map the bitmap to 3D objects.

The UV Mapper is part of Blender. All you need externally is a tool like Paint.net to actually `DRAW` your bitmaps... In Blender, you will be using the UV Editing tab... You then figure out how to best unwrap your shapes. if Smart UV Project doesn't work for you, there are multiple ways to do it, including "marking seams" and the selecting "unwrap". Be sure to leave a margin between UV islands or bitmap painting becomes painful. Blender will let you export the genrated UVmap for your 3d objects as an image so you can use it as a LAYER in Paint.net and then it's just like a coloring book after that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTd8NBg8EZU