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Rolling Stock Coupler Bogey Tutorial

In this tutorial you will learn how to add a coupler to the flatcar created in this tutorial. The couplers will be set up as bogeys/trucks.

Note. To complete this tutorial you will need to download the US style coupler here.

3DStudio Max will be referred to as 3ds.

To complete these tutorials with the dimensions listed herein you will need the following setup
1. Open the "Units Setup.." dialog from the "Customize" menu and select the "System Units Setup" button. In the "System Units Scale", use the system unit scale of 1.0 units = 1m
2. In the "Units Setup set "Display Units Scale" to Metric Meters.

1. Flatcar and new attachment points.

The first thing you need to do is open the flatcar from the flatcar tutorial. Once open we need to add two more attachment points to the mesh. Add the points in the top view and name them a.bog2 and a.bog3. Relocate them to the following locations.

	X	Y	Z
a.bog2	0.0	-5.75	0.88
a.bog3	0.0	5.75	0.88

0.88 gives a coupler height of 34.5" which for North American railroads is the standard coupler height. If you find the couplers are too close to the body then you can adjust the "Y" dimension to suit. Once added then you need to rotate a.bog3 180 degrees in the "Y" coordinates. This allows the use of only one coupler bogey. Once rotated export the mesh to the same location you exported the flatcar to overwriting the existing model.

2. Couplers

Once exported save the file and open the coupler from the above download link. The coupler is in the wrong location for our requirements. Use the "Select and Move" tool to move the coupler so the back face is on 0. Use the following co-ordinates.

	X	Y	Z
Coupler	0.0	-0.424	0.0

Add a texture to the coupler and an "Unwrap UVW" modifier.

Figure 1 Coupler in correct location (NOTE location of grid lines)

3. Coupler exporting and bogey config.txt

Once you have textured the coupler then we can export the mesh. We need to set up a bogey folder as shown in this tutorial

Export the mesh into the new folder and name it tutorial_body.im.

Create a new config.txt file with the following entries

Config.txt entry	Description
kuid <KUID2:86105:50090:0>	This is the kuid number. Replace the "86105" with your user number and replace the15000 with a suitable number for your item
kind bogey	This tells Trainz that the kind is a bogey and not a scenery or track item.
username Coupler Bogey	This is the name that will show up in Driver. Give the coupler a meaningful title but keep it short as possible.
description "Standard US coupler set up as a bogey"	This is a description about the coupler. It can be brief or very detailed.NOTE do not use " inside the description text.
asset-filename tutorial	This is the folder that the meshes and the textures are contained in.
mesh-table { default { mesh tutorial_bogey.im auto-create 1 } shadow { mesh tutorial_bogey_shadow/tutorial_bogey_shadow.im } }	This is the mesh table. In this table you can reference items such as animation and other attachments. Animated items can also be controlled via the use of a script.
trainz-build 2.2	This is the version of Trainz the item will work in. The 2 refers to TRS2004 and the .2 refers to SP2.
category-class ZB	This will allow the content to be sorted by the category class. ZB is a bogey/truck.
category-region-0 US	This is the region the coupler was used in. If there is more than one country required then you can add category-region-1 on the next line.
category-era-0 2000s	This is the years that the item is used in. As with the region category you can have more than one.

4. Flatcars Config.txt

The next step is to modify the config.txt file for the flatcar so that it can utilize the new couplers. New entries are colored RED.

Config.txt entry	Description
kuid <KUID2:86105:15000:0>	This is the kuid number. Replace the "86105" with your user number and replace the15000 with a suitable number for your item. The recommended range for a rolling stock freight car is 15000 to 19999. The last number represent the version number for the item.
username Flatcar Tutorial	This is the name that will show up in Driver. Give the flatcar a meaningful title but keep it short as possible. This should be kept the same as the "Username"
company Santa Fe	This is a company name for the item.
bogey <KUID:86105:50001>	This is the kuid number of the bogey file that will be used on the flatcar. Attaches to a.bog0
bogey-1 <KUID:86105:50001>	This is the kuid number of the bogey file that will be used on the flatcar. Attaches to a.bog1
bogey-2 <KUID:86105:50090>	This is the kuid number of the coupler bogey file that will be used on the flatcar. Attaches to a.bog2
bogey-3 <KUID:86105:50090>	This is the kuid number of the coupler bogey file that will be used on the flatcar. Attaches to a.bog3
kuid-table { 0 <KUID:86105:50001> 1 <KUID:86105:50090> }	This tells the download station what items are required to use the flatcar.
engine 0	This tells Trainz that the item is rolling stock and not a locomotive.
mass 50000	This is the mass of the flatcar in kg's
kind traincar	This tells Trainz that the kind is a Traincar and not a scenery or track item.
trainzbuild 2.2	This is the version of Trainz the item will work in.
category-class XFM	This will allow the content to be sorted by the category class. XFM is a general service flatcar.
category-region-0 US	This is the region the flatcar was used in. If there is more than one country required then you can add category-region-1 on the next line.
category-era-0 2000	This is the years that the item is used in. As with the region category you can have more than one.
enginespec <KUID:-1:42004201>	This is a dummy engine spec file. This file is included with Trainz.
description "Tutorial on how to create a simple Flatcar"	This is a description about the flatcar. It can be brief or very detailed..NOTE do not use " inside the description text.
asset-filename Tutorial	This is the folder that the meshes and the textures are contained in.
mesh-table { default { mesh Tutorial_body/Tutorial_body.im auto-create 1 } shadow { mesh Tutorial_shadow/Tutorial_shadow.im } }	This is the mesh table. In this table you can reference items such as animation and other attachments. Animated items can also be controlled via the use of a script.

Figure 2 Finished product viewed in Trainz

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