RailClone - parametric modelling tool

lonelymonk

If you’re not familiar with RailClone, it’s a parametric modelling tool for 3ds Max that creates sophisticated 1d and 2d arrays by instancing, sequencing, combining, deforming, slicing, bevelling, and mirroring meshes along 1 or more paths. It’s ideal for fast iteration, suited to modular workflows, and because it intelligently creates instances on the fly, we think it has great potential for game artists. For a demonstration of how it works, check out a couple of reels for our recent releases!

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We’ve seen an increase in interest in RailClone from game studios recently, so we thought it’d be great to get hands-on with the community, and start a thread here to get feedback and discuss how RailClone can be used and developed for game artists.

Feel free to ask general questions, make suggestions, request tutorials and if you have any examples, personal or commercial, we’d love to see them.

Thanks!

Paul

Useful Links

RailClone download (including free version)
Gallery
Forum
Documentation
Tutorials
Demo reels
Showreels

lonelymonk

Hi Perna,

Thanks for the kind words.

In answer to you questions, RailClone (and Forest Pack) are both compatible with 3ds Max 9 and upwards. The differences between the lite and the pro version can be found here. But even with those limitations you can do quite a lot with it, and it's a good way to see what RailClone is all about. It's also free to use it for commercial work.

RailClone is offered as a one time purchase with a maintenance plan. The software does not expire and you are free to use it forever! Within the maintenance period you receive upgrades, beta access, premium technical support and other promos and discounts. There is no penalty for letting subscription lapse. You can rejoin at any time and receive all the upgrades released up to that point and for the period of your new subscription.

RailClone does not currently support intersections and forks, this geometry problem is difficult to solve even manually, because it requires boolean or other advanced operations. It's been requested a number of times though!

I hope that answers your questions,let me know if you need anything else.

Thanks!

Paul

Eric Chadwick

This looks great, and very applicable to my current projects. Thanks for posting.

Eric Chadwick

I found a good in-depth and seemingly even-handed review.
http://www.maxunderground.com/railclone_review

Downloaded the light version, will definitely give it a test run.

shawnolson

Railclone and Forest are two of my favorite plugins. I've been an Itoo customer for years!

The latest versions of Wall Worm now have direct support for Forest, in fact, and I'm working on adding Railclone too, with prop entity distribution (for the VMF Exporter). I have not yet published this or documented it, but it is very powerful. Hopefully I can get the Railclone integration added too.

I'll share some screen shots of use for the Source Engine when I can get the current project finished. I highly recommend Itoo's products.

lonelymonk

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

I found a good in-depth and seemingly even-handed review.
http://www.maxunderground.com/railclone_review

Downloaded the light version, will definitely give it a test run.

Thanks for posting the review. We were very pleased with it and most of the highlighted issues were resolved quickly as a result.

Best of luck with the lite version. I'll be interested to hear how you get on.

Cheers,

Paul