Building Software in MicroMark Ad

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

In the December MR, MicroMark advertises software for designing buildings. You chose a background, place windows, etc. then print. My guess is that you use card stock and make your building

I’m faced with the job of recreating old buildings from photos. If this software works, I can create a scale version that I can use to recreate the structures.

Anyone use this software or otherwise have an opinion?

2

I have not. A friend used it (or something similar) and said it was quirky and had a fairly steep learning curve. But that was a year ago.

Dave H.

3

Any of you in the night crowd use it?

4

here’s the manufacturer’s website

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/model-builder.html

and a review , somewhat less than enthusiastic

http://www.housatonicrr.com/ModBldReview.htm

it looks like an interesting product , but you might want to wait for the next version

edit: i just had a look at the photo gallery on Evan Design’s website , and there’s a few nice buildings there . worth a look anyway

5

Man, if that thing works, it’s just what I need. I have photos of some of the building, and if I could build a replica out of paper before I do the styrene thing that would be great.

If I get it, I’ll do a reveiw as well.

6

If any of you use 3D software (3ds max, Maya, Cinema4D, Silo, etc.) you might want to think about trying to roll-your-own. If you can create a model of a building in 3D and export it there’s a Japanese application called Pepakura that will turn it into a set of fold-up outlines that you can print on cardstock. You can either paint your own textures on top of the outlines in Photoshop or similar or you could take care of that by texturing the 3D model itself before Pepakura begins work on it.

Not sure how much the skill-set to do this will overlap with the model railroad crowd. My other hobbies are 3D graphics and game development so I have built a few 3D models in my time - and was accordingly quite excited to find some software to turn them into real 3D objects. You’d be surprised how realistic some of the models can turn out. For some very nice commercial examples check out:

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2

This stuff is for games (like those little click figures) but the company seems to do nice work. I bought and built this one and it’s quite amazing:

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=161

Hope that helps. If anyone has questions about printing or building paper models I might be able to help with material recommendations, techniques, etc. There are also some good how-tos on the WWG site - things you might not think of like using a marker to color the edges so they don’t look so out of place.
M