Animation & Key Frames: FSX/P3D

[hairyspin]

OBED scaling error sources

If you have built geometry using spline cages - several splines in the shape of wing or fuselage cross-sections, Attached together with Cross-Section and Surface modifiers for example - then Gmax or 3ds Max may not have an accurate handle on your geometry. This might be even more the case if you've then used Lofting to form wingtips which are welded on to the Wing mesh and then further scaling of parts of the mesh to refine the shape. The geometry looks just fine to you, but apply a Reset XForm modifier before mapping or animating or Gmax/Max might have lost track along the way.

The biggest source of OBED scaling errors in practice is Groups. Groups are very powerful tools but should be used as donkeys eat thistles – very carefully! Grouping a bunch of objects, performing some operations on the group (especially scaling) and then Ungrouping will lead to OBED scaling errors. Exploding a group will do the same. Gmax/Max loses track of transform data when a group is ungrouped or exploded, which is where the problem starts.

In general, avoid Groups unless you genuinely know what you're doing.

 

[OzFlightSimulations]

Massive THANKS

Tom,
I have no idea where abouts you are in the world, however if I could shake your hand and buy you a beer & say THANKS that would be Awesome.

I will follow it all up, and I thank you sincerely for your time, effort and knowledge.

Kind Regards
Matt

PS. It exports fine, but with the engine off, the prop remains spinning..... hmmmmmm think ive got some more reading to do, unless you know a fix..

 

[hairyspin]

You're welcome Matt. As to my whereabouts, relative to you I'm the antipodean: in the UK...

The prop continuing turning may not be to do with the animation tagging, or it may only need a little time to spool down and stop. I just dropped the model into the default C172 folder where turning the magnetos off stopped the prop with no issues.

 

[OzFlightSimulations]

You're welcome Matt. As to my whereabouts, relative to you I'm the antipodean: in the UK...

The prop continuing turning may not be to do with the animation tagging, or it may only need a little time to spool down and stop. I just dropped the model into the default C172 folder where turning the magnetos off stopped the prop with no issues.

Got it, All good. Thanks heaps. You're worth more money. Hey just a quick question... The elevator has its own trim tab.. Im trying to animate it. Ive given the elevator 30 degrees of travel up and down just for the purpose of the exercise.... That works fine with the yoke,. Then I linked the trim tab on the elevator, to the elevator its self... so that when the elevator moves, the trim tab should stay on the elevator and not float in the air..... however my attempt, it failed... Does anyone have a better solution to this one?

Thanks again to everyone here for your help. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[hairyspin]

A couple of things come to mind. First check the trimtab is linked to the elevator: to check this quickly select the trimtab and press Page Up – the elevator should now be selected. You can also check in the Select Objects list with Display Subtree ticked: the trimtab will be below the elevator in the list and indented to the right (see last pic in post 14 above). Also have you animated the trimtab but forgotten to tag with the Animation Manager?

That should be enough to check for now, payment at the regular rates to the usual numbered Swiss bank account, lol.

 

[OzFlightSimulations]

I got it!!! Had the link "BACKWARDS" it works now I have the link between the Trimtab and the Elevator instead of elevator to trimtab.
Thanks so much!! Tom. I will drop you an email to the address you sent from the other week.
Hey if you like, you are more than welcome to join us on line too. My FSX server "Oz Flight Simulations" IP is 120.146.148.82 and you can also connect to our Teamspeak 3 Server using the same address.

 

[radrotor]

FS Animation got me beat.

Hi Tom,
Followed all your nicely detailed instructions to the best of my ability.
Acquired FSX Gold with accelerator, installed SDK SP1 and Accelerator SDK into what I hope are the correct folders.
Gamepacks in Gmax seem to be working.
Created Key frame animations for wheels and rotors on my test model "box"
However, when I try and tag the animations using the FSX Animation tool, the create button (marked in blue on image) does not work.
See the image http://cabs4u.co.za/images/Capture1.jpg
I checked the Animation Dialogue script which seems in order. See Below

rollout AnimationDLG "Animation Dialog" width:600 height:398
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- FlightSimX New Animation Manager
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
button createAnim "Create" pos:[370,165] width:90 height:20 toolTip:"Creates a new animation for the selected part without keyframe offsets."
button deleteAnim "Delete" pos:[480,165] width:90 height:20
edittext newFramesStart "Start" pos:[370,190] width:88 height:20
edittext newFramesEnd "End" pos:[480,190] width:88 height:20

• 
  
  

I have probably done something stupid or missed something somewhere
Any suggestions?
Bruce

 

[tgibson]

You have some kind of Windows interface problem. The Create and Delete buttons are supposed to be in the darker gray area above the keyframes (1 to 100) and below the light gray box where the animation name will appear after clicking the Create button. In your screen shot there is no space for those buttons above the keyframe number boxes. Do you have the Windows font size set to something other than default? Something like that? Perhaps your monitor resolution is set too low?

 

[Dev One]

FSX Gmax prop animation problem

Sorry to resurrect this topic, but I am at last starting to make FSX native models having successfully achieved installing the FSX SDK for SP2 -(for some reason FSX + A will not work!)
So I have imported my latest FS9 Gmax model into FSX Gmax, & have followed Hairyspins tutorial above - very good, easy to follow for what is a fairly complex sequence, but, when I come to try it out in FSX only the still blades show for all the modes (slow & blurred), they also reverse direction depending upon revs & the initial start rotation goes in the opposite direction to that animated.
I have managed to reanimate most control surfaces & undercart, but wingfold is being awkward at the moment.
Texture/mapping is next hurdle - must read the SDK again & again to get it to sink in......

Any assistance/ useful suggestions appreciated.
Keith

 

[Tako_Kichi]

Are you sure you have your visibility tags set correctly Keith? You need three sets of components for the prop(s) (still, slow and blurred) and the parent part for each set needs to have the correct visibility tag assigned to it.

 

[Dev One]

Larry,
Thanks for responding.
I think I have done all three correctly, but I did notice that after clicking 'attach to geometry!' that in the 'Attach Name' window above that button was 'undefined_0'.
But that is redoing 'prop0_ blurred' as an aide to answer your question.... Hairyspins example shows nothing in that box.
Does not having the blades or discs mapped/textured make a difference?
Regards
Keith

 

[Tako_Kichi]

Larry,
Thanks for responding.
I think I have done all three correctly, but I did notice that after clicking 'attach to geometry!' that in the 'Attach Name' window above that button was 'undefined_0'.
But that is redoing 'prop0_ blurred' as an aide to answer your question.... Hairyspins example shows nothing in that box.

Whatever appears in that box is unimportant as far as I can tell, I just accept what it says and move on.

Does not having the blades or discs mapped/textured make a difference?

It makes no difference whether the part is mapped or textured when it comes to adding animation or visibility tags.

 

[Milton Shupe]

Keith, animating props, and other FS9 standard animations, is addressed in my video of "Converting FS9 Models to FSX Native".

Pull up video and go to 41 minutes into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm25MYd_G0o

Hope this helps.

BTW, the Attachpt tool does add a name tag to these, and they are normally names like "Undefined 0", 1, 2, etc.

 

[Dev One]

Milton, Thank you for the link, I had already printed off your document some time ago & read it through, which is how I managed to animate the controls & undercart, but I had forgotten about your video presentation, which I think I have done the prop as you describe, but I will try again. I will also play further on for the texture mapping.
So thank you again.
Keith


[edit]. Have re animated & re-attached prop as per Hairyspins document & Milton's video - no joy I'm afraid still have only the prop blades showing for all phases of speed - up to 8 blades showing jerkily. Start & stop rotation in wrong direction also.
K

 

[Milton Shupe]

Keith,

1) In Gmax/Max, select each of your prop spinners or hubs one at a time;
2) Go To EDIT/Object Properties;
3) Go to User Tab and view the text to ensure you have attached the correct Visibility tag for each spinner (i.e prop0_still/slow/blurred)

If not, simply highlight and Delete the text and go back to the Attach Point tool and redo the Visibility tag properly.

And, animate the spinners in teh direction the props should turn.
If they show backwards in the sim, ensure you do not have this statement in the aircraft.cfg/Propeller section, else remove it:

rotation = 1, 1, 1

 

[Dev One]

Milton here are the readouts in FSXGmax:
Prop_blurred properties=
FSXML = <?xml version= "1.0" encoding= "ISO-8859-1"?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"> <Visibilty name="prop0_blurred"> </Visibility> </FSMakeMdlData>

Similar for Prop_slow & Prop_still.

Just wondering & uninstalling FSX Acceleration & trying to re-install FSX SP2. Have got it to SP1, but its throwing up at SP2 - maybe because my laptop was at SP2 standard but using the basic FSX disc, whereas my desktop has FSX Deluxe + SP1 at the moment (was Delux+Acceleration). Found that Acceleartion will not allow wingfold to work whereas SP2 will allow wingfold to work. My SDK is SP2.

Prop rotation is -1 Brit engine! Gmax rotation anti clock from behind, but in FSX it goes t'other way!

Keith

 

[Dev One]

Update, Having written about lack of success, (have now deleted it), Murphy jumps in & in retrying the models in FSX with another models .cfg that changed the rotation direction, guess what --- prop animation now works OK!!! Didn't do that yesterday!
The other glitch I have is that the flaps are visually reversed with respect to position seen in the FDA. Just tried swapping the zero position for the 100% position & that doesn't work either - it just puts the zero position further down!
Does any of this ring bells? Have yet to associate with flaps reversed.

Keith

 

[Milton Shupe]

Milton here are the readouts in FSXGmax:
Prop_blurred properties=
FSXML = <?xml version= "1.0" encoding= "ISO-8859-1"?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"> <Visibilty name="prop0_blurred"> </Visibility> </FSMakeMdlData>

Similar for Prop_slow & Prop_still.

Just wondering & uninstalling FSX Acceleration & trying to re-install FSX SP2. Have got it to SP1, but its throwing up at SP2 - maybe because my laptop was at SP2 standard but using the basic FSX disc, whereas my desktop has FSX Deluxe + SP1 at the moment (was Delux+Acceleration). Found that Acceleartion will not allow wingfold to work whereas SP2 will allow wingfold to work. My SDK is SP2.

Prop rotation is -1 Brit engine! Gmax rotation anti clock from behind, but in FSX it goes t'other way!

Keith

Keith,

Do not use rotation command in the cfg. Always animate props in direction they turn (from front viewing rearwards).

 

[Milton Shupe]

Update, Having written about lack of success, (have now deleted it), Murphy jumps in & in retrying the models in FSX with another models .cfg that changed the rotation direction, guess what --- prop animation now works OK!!! Didn't do that yesterday!
The other glitch I have is that the flaps are visually reversed with respect to position seen in the FDA. Just tried swapping the zero position for the 100% position & that doesn't work either - it just puts the zero position further down!
Does any of this ring bells? Have yet to associate with flaps reversed.

Keith

Keith,

Flaps at frame 0 should be retracted; frame 100 is fully extended.

 

[Dev One]

Yes Milton, same as in FS9, but somehow its got its ni**ers twisted....shall go experimenting again. I usually animate all controls through 90° so that the values visually & aero wise are then controlled through the .cfg. Just wondering as I write if the L_flaps_percent operates differently to L_flaps?
Keith