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How to add a beacon to a truck

I'll put a beacon on the crate in this tutorial because these objects are very good to show the basic way of placing a prop, it works the same way with any other mesh and node/beam object.

First open the .load file in the editorizer to see the node numbers. You need three nodes that form a 90° angle, it works with other angles too but the offset settings become difficult then.

Open the file in notepad and look for the props section, if there is none you need to create it:

props
;ref,x,y,offsetx,offsety,offsetz,rotx,roty,rotz,mesh
   7,6,5,    0.5,    0.5,      0,   0,   0,   0,beacon.mesh

What each parameter means:

• ref: Reference node, the center node of the 90° angle, 7 in my example
• x: Reference node in x direction, one node of the angle, x is the direction you set in the offset.
• y: Reference node in y direction, the second node of the angle, it defines the y direction.
• offsetx: the place in between ref and x where your prop will be, 0.5 is in the middle, 0 is at ref, 1 is at x.
• offsety: the place in between ref and y where the prop will be, it works like offsetx but in the direction ref-y.
• offsetz: the height above the crate in this case, this value is given in meters and not depending on the node distances.
• rotx: rotation around the x axis
• roty: rotation around the y axis
• rotz: rotation around the z axis
• mesh: the name of the mesh you want to place

The test setup will look like this in RoR:

The Beacon is in the middle of the crate because x and y settings are both 0.5, but it does not have the right rotation. It needs to be rotated around the x axis:

props
;ref,x,y,offsetx,offsety,offsetz,rotx,roty,rotz,mesh
   7,6,5,    0.5,    0.5,      0, -90,   0,   0,beacon.mesh

You probably need some trial and error until you find the right axis, this can be tricky sometimes. If you can rotate your mesh in a 3d-program like SketchUp or Blender it might be easier to rotate it there and to use 0,0,0 for the rotation. Some tips to find the right rotation: try 0,0,0 first, and look how much rotation is necessary, in most cases 90° is enough. try 90,0,0, then 0,0,0, then 0,0,90, don't rotate on two axises at once.

That's basically all about placing meshes. The mesh will be attached to this three nodes, if they move or get ripped off the vehicle the mesh will move with them and keep it's offsets.