Custom Scenery Exchange / 3d modellers

I'm thinking of creating some objects, but I suck at doing it using the bitmap tools in dr.j's editor. I'm presuming guys like fisherman, toon etc. use a 3d modelling program to create the initial images for the objects, any suggestions on which one I should use?

I have AutoCAD 2002!

Not easy to use but you can draw things 3D

This custom scenery is damn hard. I'm trying to do a fence with two diagonal cross beams on it, tussaud's style, and I'm not really getting anywhere, because to be honest I don't know where to start... anybody have any tips to get me started? I'm a fast learner if you point me in the right direction...

if you show me a pic of what you're trying to make I would probably be able to give you some tips. I don't use 3d modelling for my stuff, just photoshop.

I'm trying to make the fence either side of the entrance. My main problem is, when I've made a graphic in wherever, I can't paste it into the object editor while keeping the background invisible. I'm not sure whether to skew the fence in a graphics editor or the object editor as well... thanks for any help.

Here's how I would tackle it. I would draw the fence straight on in Photoshop. The height has to be a multiple of 8 pixels, I find for fences, that 8 usually looks best, but you can get away with 16 for this one probably. The width should be 32 pixels for fences and walls. Don't worry about light effects for now. Once you have an acceptable likeness drawn, you have to skew it to the isometric angle. It's been a while since I've done any but I believe it's 27 degrees. Do one version at 27 and one at -27 for the two different views. Once this is done you can start adding the lighting effects. Say the image you have has good shading for the darker view, take the other image and increase the brightness to get it noticably lighter in colour. Then start adding pixels to your images to give it a 3 dimensional appearance. Once you have your images done, its just a matter of pasting them in the editor and lining them up, making them colorable, and cleaning up any glitches caused by the limited colour palette. This is very simplified, but I hope it helps a bit. It may help to look at some of the fences I've done and use those as a template for your work.

Thanks for the help, its useful to know how you build stuff . for the invisible thing, is there an easier way other than pasting it into the object editor and going round the outline of the shape with the rubber tool to get rid of the background colour?

select the background in photoshop and make sure it is 0,0,0 black. Then go to the options in the object editor and change the default background to black. When you paste it over the background should disappear for you.

I whipped up a template for you to look at, hope it helps.

This took me about 5 minutes. So you can see once you have some practice it doesn't take too long to create things.

Awesome. Thanks a lot, toon... I should be creating some good objects now, I managed to pretty much replicate that one so I'm getting somewhere

sounds like very good advice i wish i had the ability to do this kind of stuff.
=)

That makes things so much more easier. Maybe now I can actually make some of the scenery that I tried out earlier, look better

I worked a bit more on the fence, working off toon's base, let me know what you think, Basically, I added a wire mesh and tried to make it look more wooden.

They look amazing, seriously, they look just like the real fences at TP around nem inferno, the ones i fell over while queue jumping

I worked a bit more on the fence, working off toon's base, let me know what you think, Basically, I added a wire mesh and tried to make it look more wooden.

It looks good, but it's small and I can't see the shading. I'd like to see it tho if you would e-mail it to m.murchison@shaw.ca

Thats realy accurate. Looks great. Should we take this as a sign that your about to embark on a Nemesis Inferno recreation?

Thats realy accurate. Looks great. Should we take this as a sign that your about to embark on a Nemesis Inferno recreation? 

Nope, he built a coaster called colossus inferno in his solo park hes builing, tussauds port haven. Its pretty hard for a recreation of nem inferno, the limits in rct leave u no chance of getting it accurate ive tried.

Actually, I was thinking of doing recs of both Nemesis', although the Alton Towers one is very hard to do due to the inline twist over the station being at a diagonal irl.

I hope Rct3 allows inversions on a diagonal. That could open up some realy cool possibilities etc. and make it more realisitic.

Actually, I was thinking of doing recs of both Nemesis', although the Alton Towers one is very hard to do due to the inline twist over the station being at a diagonal irl.

Ive been wanting to do a thorpe park rec, i started one but i got stuck with the entrance dome, and kinda gave up. It would be much better to do it with someone else that can make the fences *hint*deano*hint* and also knows some about the park.