Blender for Trainz

Blender is an open source freeware program maintained by the Blender

Foundation, an independent organization dedicated to giving the worldwide

Internet community access to 3D modeling technology.

Blender is becoming more popular with Trainz modelers as, unlike Gmax, it

continues to be supported by its developers. The current (October, 2015) version is

2.76.

When I first took an interest in Blender for modeling assets for Trainz I was

surprised at the lack of good tutorials for the beginner who wanted to model

specifically for Trainz. I soon found I wasn’t alone.

“I have spent the last hour trying to work with blender for the first time and

am ready for a fast trip to the saloon and it's only 7:45 am LOL, don't know

how anyone can work with stuff like that.” (February 12, 2013)

“I have looked at Blender and bought a rather expensive book on it but

nothing in the book seemed to tie up to what was going on on the

computer screen, so not a good way to start trying to learn something.

It may have been that the book was for an earlier version than the

program I downloaded? I struggled for quite a while before finally

giving up.” (March 31, 2013)

So, I decided if I was going to have to dig to learn this stuff then maybe it might

help others if I kept notes.

Now, almost three years later, I can see that those original tutorials could have

explained thing a bit better. What follows is an attempt to improve and expand on

those tutorials.