Editing locomotive height above rail tops: traincar wheel-to-rail contact edit

[JonMyrlennBailey]

What parameter determines the height of a loco's (traincar) wheels above the tracks?

I noticed one of my locos looks like its wheels are not quite touching the rail tops on close inspection but floating ever so slightly above the rails.

It looks like the is a slight gap between the bottom dead center of the engine's wheels (not the flanges, but the shiny part around the wheels that normally ride on top of the track) on the rail tops. Is there an easy edit to bring the engine's wheels down (a hair or two) so it looks like the wheels are making solid contact with the rails assuming the loco asset is, in fact, end-user editable?

 

[oknotsen]

Both of them are meshes build by the individual designers of both the engine and the tracks. Next to that, the rail can also be bended in some direction (in an upward or downward grade for example).

If you put all tracks together, you will notice some are one or more centimetres higher than others. I assume this is the same for some bogies / wheels.

I doubt there is a setting for this, but be happy to be proven wrong.

 

[JonMyrlennBailey]

I was wondering what the term "mesh" meant in Trainz. I see it a lot on these pages. I take it that it means the points where various assets meet or interface like wheels and roads

The mesh is not something that can be adjusted in the config file??

 

[oknotsen]

No, you can not adjust the mesh in a config file.

See a mesh as the skeleton of the object. The walls of a house if you like, or the frame. Put some paint on it (the skin) and you got an object.

Edit:
Here is the mesh of an object I made:

Hope this clears it up a bit.

 

[clam1952]

Actually you can adjust position hight and rotation of a mesh using the position tag, I used it on early 2 ft NG stock that were made for a lower none standard rail height. See floating Bogies thread. http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?67756-Floating-Bogies&highlight=Floating bogies

 

[JonMyrlennBailey]

Thanks, Clam, it really works.

Be sure to edit the config file of the engine's bogey/bogeys, not the locomotive file itself. Check the engine's dependencies to find its associated bogey/truck. Now, I will see if I can give my loco a new hornsound.

 

[pcas1986]

You can find a definition of a mesh for Trainz purposes at this N3V WiKi page. We often use the word mesh to mean an object defined in an IM file but an IM file can contain one or more meshes. If you go to the bottom of the section on meshes you will see that the top of any rail should be at 0.3 metres above origin.

Trainz automatically adjusts the height of any bogie by plus 0.3 metres in the X axis so if the radius of your bogie is 0.7 metres then in game the final location of the wheel axle centre will be 1 metre. As Clam says you can adjust this via the position or orientation tags. I think of those as a "fudge factor".