Turning couplers into child objects

[CArailroader]

Is it possible to make a coupler be a non-animated child object? For example, the Norfolk Western Y6b from Machine Rail has a working invisible front coupler and to my understanding cant be changed to show up due to a glitch from the RSC Challenger.

My idea is to take a coupler and make it child object and place it on the front frame where it would normally show. First attempts which were changing a child object bin to show the coupler geo have been unsuccessful.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

That should work.

You'd first have to create a new scenery blueprint for the coupler shape because you can't link to Geo/IGS files directly in the child objects section. If you don't have access to the source IGS of the couplers, you can just take a copy of a random simple static scenery object and edit its internal paths in RW Tools to include the coupler's shape.

Keep in mind that the couplers aren't attached to the 0,0,0 point of the main model, where all child objects get attached to by default. You'll need to edit the coupler child's position matrix or the coupler will be stuck in the middle of the engine. You should be able to grab the correct matrix values from the engine blueprint's coupler positioning data higher up in the engine blueprint.

This may require some experimenting, so good luck!

Cheers!
Michael

[buzz456]

Is it possible to make a coupler be a non-animated child object? For example, the Norfolk Western Y6b from Machine Rail has a working invisible front coupler and to my understanding cant be changed to show up due to a glitch from the RSC Challenger.

My idea is to take a coupler and make it child object and place it on the front frame where it would normally show. First attempts which were changing a child object bin to show the coupler geo have been unsuccessful.

If it’s working are you sure the bin file isn’t just looking for the wrong geo? What glitch are you referring in the Challenger? I’m traveling right now so have limited access to TS but if the thing works there should be some way to make it show up. Are you sure it’s not hiding underneath somewhere.

[CArailroader]

Hi,

That should work.

You'd first have to create a new scenery blueprint for the coupler shape because you can't link to Geo/IGS files directly in the child objects section. If you don't have access to the source IGS of the couplers, you can just take a copy of a random simple static scenery object and edit its internal paths in RW Tools to include the coupler's shape.

Keep in mind that the couplers aren't attached to the 0,0,0 point of the main model, where all child objects get attached to by default. You'll need to edit the coupler child's position matrix or the coupler will be stuck in the middle of the engine. You should be able to grab the correct matrix values from the engine blueprint's coupler positioning data higher up in the engine blueprint.

This may require some experimenting, so good luck!

Cheers!
Michael

Thank you, this is what I was indeed trying, so I must have messed up somewhere along the way. I'll try again from the beginning. I used the snow plow scenery blueprint by lukrailamerica because that is set to be at the front of an engine.

Buzz: This is what I'm referring to: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=22128&hilit=y6b#p253814