Still need help with animating wheels

Thank you Mister Williard. I have to work through the weekend but will give all this a shot come next Monday.
I think I understand what all of you are talking about but have to apply it to get it to sink in.

<!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

Hi,
It’s just me, again.
This is a Trainz’04 project, btw.
OK, here’s what I have so far and I’ve tried all combinations but the right one to make these things roll upon export.

[img:3mtud55w]http&#58;//img137&#46;imageshack&#46;us/img137/4627/coalcarcy8&#46;jpg[/img:3mtud55w]

Will somebody please walk me through this process, please?

Thank you,

Rick,

The simplest way to demo this is to start a new project.
Run the train sim engineer plugin
Select ‘4 wheel wagon’ in the list on the right and press build.

Paint the model with any texture.
Now in the hierarchy, select the Bogie1 group.

Then File/Export/Trainworks/Trainz

(If it says select a group first, go to the hierarchy and select any object, then re-select the group and export again – small bug there)

Remember to give the object a name
Select the last option to export MSTS bogie.

Remember it’s groups that are animated, not objects – they are just influenced by the group axis.

Hi,
For some reason nobody seems to understand that I just want to animate these wheels. These wheels will be used on a number of projects that I have planed.
In Trainz, one can create bogeys and use them on any train car that they will fit under.
I have created a bogey config.txt file and folder for these wheels.
My question is, how do I animate them to work in Trainz?
I was told that a simple export process would do it for me but I can’t get that to work.

[b:2xulh8y8]EDIT: This may take a little time on my end but, after running the ‘4 wheel wagon’ thing, I believe I may be able to put all the ‘pieces of the puzzle’ together.[/b:2xulh8y8]
[b:2xulh8y8]There is no guarantee that it’ll work at this time in Trainz but, if it does, I’ll write a tutorial on it to help others.[/b:2xulh8y8]
Thanks again, Paul. You may have shed a little light onto my delima.

I do have one question about all this, can I replace your wheels with mine??? Mine are made of one primitive and don’t have 3 parts to them. Mine also have less polys.
I need to do a little experimenting…

Thank you,

My point was mainly to show the use of the group hierarchy.

You can do the same thing manually by animating the wheel groups in 3DC and exporting the same bogie group using the animated groups option of the export plugin.
(You can even use my generate X rotation 360 script to speed the process)

To make yours work, all you need to do is mimic the hierarchy from mine (bearing in mind that the wheel groups axes need to be in the centre of the axle)

Just to say we DO know what you are talking about… check out my Trainz Content:
bogey/kuid2_56316_19001_1.cdp

My KUID is 56316

It is a bettendorf swing motion caboose bogey.

The thing is… My recollection was that the export works for me once I had my heirachy correct.

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by Paul Gausden:
To make yours work, all you need to do is mimic the hierarchy from mine [b:1s0fbakq](bearing in mind that the wheel groups axes need to be in the centre of the axle)[/b:1s0fbakq] [/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]
I noticed this and it was going to be another question but I believe I understand.
It appears that I’m going to have to add more parts to mimic the hierarchy which I didn’t want to do.
I only wanted to make these wheels go round with no additional parts.

@ pwillard,
I don’t believe you do understand. I just looked at your bogey with side frames and all. I’m only trying to animate these wheels.
I don’t want side frames, bolsters or anything else attached to them so, to follow the hierarchy is futal.

My very first pic shows one Group with two Cylinders in it. I wanted to animate these two cylinders is all. My friend does it for me in G-Max when I need wheels but I wanted to do it myself, for a change, in 3DC.

EDIT: I’ve discovered that Trainz will need at least one more object in my scene because Trainz has to have at least one object at Y=0. (It’s the way Trainz works.)
So, to animate these Cylinders/wheels, they need their axis points at wheel center. Therefore, that object will need to be the MAIN or top of the hierarchy object.
One little 1/4′ cube hidden in one of the axles can accomplish this. I also believe that a number of these little cubes hidden in the axles could also create the proper hierarchy needed to follow Pauls instructions about the hierarchy chain.
Hmmm…

Thanks,

[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by thegrindre:
[BLOCKQUOTE class=’ip-ubbcode-quote’][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-title’]quote:[/div][div class=’ip-ubbcode-quote-content’]Originally posted by Paul Gausden:
To make yours work, all you need to do is mimic the hierarchy from mine [b:1r08pgoy](bearing in mind that the wheel groups axes need to be in the centre of the axle)[/b:1r08pgoy] [/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]
I noticed this and it was going to be another question but I believe I understand.
It appears that I’m going to have to add more parts to mimic the hierarchy which I didn’t want to do.
I only wanted to make these wheels go round with no additional parts.

[/div][/BLOCKQUOTE]

No additional parts needed, just the groups (which are actually just positions in 3D space)

With my example you can delete the solebar and frame objects to be left with just the wheels and axles.
No objects are needed in the bogie1 group to just animate the 2 axles.

You’ve touched upon what is actually one of the tricky differences between GMAX and 3DC. GMAX has these HELPER objects called ‘points’ which are just an X,Y,Z point in space. They are used for things like attachment points for BOGIES that define where to attach ‘a.limfront’ or ‘a.Bog0’ in Trainz.

We don’t actually have an equivalent in 3DC so we have Paul’s tools or manually create really small objects to use as attachment point indicators. These points, along with the proper heirarchy definitions help create the expected results.

As for Heirarchy for a 2 axle van, I have this extract from some old notes I had from the web… (from Trainz forum, I assume)

—
For a four wheeled wagon, I would make the undergear and wheels as a separate mesh. This would then work like this.

a.limback
a.bog1 andgt; invisible bogie on rear wheel centre
a.bog2 andgt; wheeled chassis bogie on centerline of the body
a.bog0 andgt; invisible bogie on fron wheel centre
a.limfront

It is also possible to use a single axle bogie for both wheel sets and that would read like this:-

a.limback
a.bog1 Invisible Bogie + a.bog3 Wheel set on common centres
a.bog0 Invisible Bogie + a.bog2 Wheel set on common centres
a.limfront