Free Creator

[michaeldono]

Do I need Pro Sketchup to export in .obj or .3ds?

[gypbrc]

Yes. You get a 10 hour trial. I suggest you carry on using whatever version of Sketchup you're currently using, save the work as a .skp file. Then open it in Pro Sketchup and export. That way you're not wasting 10 hours of trial building stuff.

[MallardFan]

I don't have Pro, there is a plugin you can get which has a ObjExporter

[gypbrc]

I'll remember that for when my trial runs out

[michaeldono]

Where can I get the OBJ exporter?

[Trainguy76]

I made a Blender to RailWorks tutorial a while ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj85KdDb ... ature=plcp

[cilldroichid]

Can anyone link me to a good guide to the actual modelling in Blender? Or would it be best to import from Sketchup?

From my own experience i would advise to build in Blender. From reading the forums Blender seems to be complicated/different to other modelling programs but if, like me, you have no previous experience with 3D modelling you won't know any different.

I found these tutorials very helpful, inparticular parts 1.1. Basic Blender GUI, 1.9. Edit Mode Modeling, 1.7. Blender Materials and 1.2. Object Mode Modeling.

Edit; silly me, here is the link to the tutorials http://ocw.tufts.edu/Content/57/supplem ... ial/678906

[michaeldono]

I found a OBJ Exporter but there seems to be no download link on the page that works?

[michaeldono]

Hopefully I'll have this canopy imported from Sketchup soon (I'll go get the OBJ Exporter if I can find one) and then I can get it textured. A line of 2 or 3 these in parallel would look good I think, especially with 91s or 390s in!

The canopy is actually from Llandudno, but I think it'd be a great general canopy to use instead of the Hagen/Bath Green Park one

[michaeldono]

Looks like it imported ok with the Collada .dae, but I'd still perfer .obj or .3ds

The roof hasn't dissapeard from the front view, i've just used a single sqaure for it, i've now beefed it up a bit

[michaeldono]

When creating the texture map, what is the best size? 256x256 is a bit small, is 512x512 a better size for a good resolution? What is also the maximum size I can go to?

[gypbrc]

You can go any size you want. You can also use any number of textures and map different parts to different sheets. The textures all have to have rectangular dimensions that are a power of two (i.e 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048...) and they do not have to be square.

[michaeldono]

When unwrapping, there are several different triangles that don't seem to resemble much of the model, is there a way to make them rectangles instead? Also, how do I find out what triangle represents in the model?

One last thing, is there a way that I can chose the location of each triangle and its size individually? I'd also like to set several parts of the model the same texture, (e.g. some of the beams in the canopy a small green texture, and some others a small red texture, then the legs a longer texture with a green base, with white the rest of the way. Then the roof a white corrugated metal that gets flipped on 2 out of the 4 of the roof sections). Is there a way I could like group select them to the textures?

[gypbrc]

Take a look at the document linked on the first page of this thread, it will answer all of those questions.

[michaeldono]

What about all of the triangles that were created during import?