Start small. Model a part at a time. Dont try to model an entire terminal in your case. Start with what makes the terminal itself, like part of the foundation, then start spreading out to another part from there. You can do it all in the same model, but what I am saying is, start in sections.
I guess opinions differ. If I was going to improve something it would be the models for sure. What we're talking about here isn't detail level: it's production quality. While it's true that a good texture can help a low-detail model shine, that's not the situation gigawert is in. Those models don't reproduce the original beyond the concept level. It's just my 2 cents, and if gigawert wants to leave the models at the "communicates the concept" level that wouldn't be unreasonable - but for improvements I think it's got to happen in the model first. It only takes a few minutes to produce something closer to real life.
Look at my profile picture, What do you see? You see a brick wall, a toolchest, a ROBLOX figure, and a bike frame. Look at this picture; You see a 1971 Plymouth Barracuda I modeled in ROBLOX. Do you think I started with the entire body? No, I did not. How vehicles are modeled both in ROBLOX and in a professional program like blender or 3DS Max will help you understand a good workflow when you are actually working on something. When I used to model in the ROBLOX platform, I used blueprints for things like cars, and I would start modeling from them, just like in Blender or 3DS Max, Or even sketchup in this case. After I got the tracing, I would take my next step and "shape" the car based on other parts of the print. Once I had shaped it, I still wouldnt jump to the entire body. I would move on to another part, and just build off of each part I got, until I had a complete project. Making static objects for beamNG should start out one part at a time. Dont try to make the entire thing at once, Look at how you could split it up. Splitting it up allows you to work on one part at a time, and since you are more focused on that one part, you put more effort into it, and the outcome is so much better than just doing the entire piece. Take your airport sign, How can you split it up into sub projects? Why not do the poles for the sign first, start with one side and then the other. After that, once you have the support structure, look at how the sign is attatched to the poles, and model that. Once thats done, model the signs. Take care not to do it sloppy. Here are some other pics of my old ROBLOX projects, so you can look and get an idea of my workflow and how you can relate and use it in sketchup; Same project, just 2 pictures. How I modeled buildings back in ROBLOX was I would work in a scale. Sketchup allows you to work in feet/inches, so this is a good scale, as long as you use it. Then, I would make a grid for my entire building. I do this in sketchup aswell, I will try to picture something where I use this grid in sketchup. Basically helps me make my measurements more precise, and allows me to duplicate things and match them up correctly in the long run. Then, in roblox, I would make a part of a wall to the edges of one of the squares in my grid. Sometimes I would do an entire wall, but it was still in the confines of my grid. Then I would detail the wall and save it, then make another wall, and so forth until I had all that I needed, then I would put them together like a lego set. Working in parts may not always grant a lego set like I described, but allows you to not only put more detail into something, but allows you to potentially use the part later. If I missed anything here, Feel free to chime in.
My posts are taking so long to type that they are coming after someone posts something else here. Basically what he needs to do is take his time and split up his project into sections and actually put effort into them. Its fine not to, but it looks more professional to model in detail.
I would've made my sign like that if only I had more Sketchup skills and knew how to do a twisted "pipe" or cylinder like that.
You could still do it with boxes if you dont know how to do it with pipes. It would take alot of patience and a use of a grid scale system like I mentioned earlier, But you could make it as a 2D image then extrude the 2D image of your sign support structure. Ofcourse tubes are optimal, but its a start, and would be better than nothing.
Erm... They only show you how to open Sketchup and draw 2D stuff in it. Plus you can't click on anything else.
Erm.. there is tons of useful information in there. They cover every aspect of the program. Please work on your reading comprehension. ... also, 2D is key.
I'm still making progress, although slowly. Obviously the guardrail cannot have the same slope as the bridge because the slope of the bridge changes a bit. To compensate for this, I extruded the guardrails back 5" from where the slope changed, then extruded the area in between where one rail starts and the other one ends to make a seamless guardrail in BeamNG.
I can't tell you about sketchup, but to model a pipe in Blender, you create a circle (or cylinder if you want to, but I find circles easier), then extrude it, scale it, rotate it, move it, do it again. It can't be that much harder in sketchup Replying to the discussion at the beginning of the page.
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this. I'm still finishing up the bridge and am almost done. The slow progress lately is due to school... I just read an article on how to make pipes in Sketchup, so that means I can improve that overhead sign even more.
I finished the bridge except the texturing, but there's this one bug that pulls the car into the bridge. Ideas? The area is thick enough too.
check your normals. i think you have to right click that section of the bridge in sketchup and click "flip faces". If the face is the correct way it should be white, not purpleish
