Using Plans

Models made in Trainz are life size (1:1) witch leads to a problem in taking measurements from scale plans, that is the thickness of the line maybe an inch or more. All the plans you will find will be on paper or were on paper witch has a 2% error. There is nothing you can do about ether but it comes out to about 2" for an 85' car and no one will see it in game.

I know of three ways to use plans and have tried all at lest one time.

Measurements

Simply use the measurements on the plans and/or use a scale rule to get the numbers to enter in.

Template

You scan the plans in and crop the scan to a know size then make a box or a plane the same size and UV map the scan onto it. You need to make a side, end, and top.

Background

Most 3D modeling programs let you add a custom background that you can re-size. This is what I use and have used in Gmax and Blender. Getting the size the same on two or more plans is very hard, one will be off just a bit. What I do is use the side as the master and if the end one is off move the part back in the side view.

PLANS

Note: the following is for the U.S. and Canada.

Plans are made by the manufacture, railroads, and rail fans/modelers.

All plans can have mistakes in them and they can also be out of date due to model changes and then the railroad shops can make them look completely different. This makes having good photos a must to make a good model.

Manufactures plans - the originals

There are three basic types, locomotive, passenger car, and freight car. All are on very large paper, newspaper size and up, witch makes scanning them hard. What is not on them is all the parts from the parts suppliers. Common practice was to not draw the wheels, bogeys, air brakes, grab irons, lettering and so on. They are also hard to find as most of the old ones were not saved. In 1879 the first Car Builders Cyclopedia was published fallowed by the locomotive ones some years later witch have lots of the original plans and the plans for the missing parts. Some are on CD, some are on Google Books, and you can buy them on Ebay and Amazon.  

Railroad plans - class books

Some large railroads made up classification books. A lot of them are on the Internet. They are small per-printed forms with a lot of data on them and a side and end view with dimensions but most look had drawn. Some have copy's of the originals.

Rail fan / modelers - plans found in model magazines and books

Model railroading started in the 1930s witch started the model magazines and a need for plans. Most of the plans came from the Cyclopedias or class books. The early ones are not that good as the models did not have a lot of detail but they did add in the lettering. By the S the plans got a lot better and are the easiest to use and find. They also had plans made by modelers that were made by measuring the real thing or from photos.

Making content is fun but it is also a lot of vary hard work and takes a lot of time, in fact most of us who make a lot of content spend most of are time doing that and not running Trainz.

To make most content you need to make a 3D mesh, a 2D texture, UV map the texture to the mesh, export it and then get it to work error free in Trainz. Not everyone can make content, everyone can try but a lot have started to make something only to find out it's a lot harder than it looks, usually they try to start with a steam locomotive, one of the hardest things to make.

To make the 3D mesh you use a 3D CAD program, one of the hardest programs to learn, and what you see in the program is not what Trainz will show. The texture is a lot simpler as you get what you see. UV mapping may be one of the hardest things to do depending on the 3D CAD program used.