Airbus Sidestick

[Mosesjunior]

Hey folks i have been working on a A320 cockpit and i am trying to animate the sidestick but the issue is only one animation tags can be applied to an object and airbus side stick moves in four(4) directions; forward, backward, left and right and has a stick boot to cover the mechanism under that which i used skinned mesh to animate the boot but on in one direction the animations can be applied, forward and backwards or left and right and the aim is to get all four directions into it like FSX default A321 cockpit does. Any idea on how to achieve this?

 

[=rk=]

Use a different animation for each axis. It is similar to animating a steerable wheel, there is the rotation, yaw and suspension, not to mention, retracting also. So I am imagining your stick as two stacked disks under that cover and the lower disk moves only forward or back, while carrying the upper disk and yoke. The upper disk moves only left or right and it carries the yoke which protrudes from the boot. The two disks are actually symbolic, because under the boot, they could be anything, but I think they have to be at least one polygon and render to work, although I could be mistaken.

 

[Mosesjunior]

I think that is impossible. How can i use a different animation for each axis when the animation tag is only allowed once on an object? The sidestick is animated to go forward and backwards only currently and i am trying to get help on how exactly an airbus sidestick is to be animated for the sim, TomA330/340 cockpits have animated sidestick but the boot is not animated and default A321 has animation as well and so does helicopters. The skinned mesh is applied and the boot can animate by the bone in pose mode here in blender but i need to achieve a 4 way animation so in the sim i can see the animation when i am on the controls

 

[Mosesjunior]

lever_stick_fore_aft is the only one currently on and i need to get lever_stick_l_r into the same objets

 

[=rk=]

I think that is impossible.

Ok, great. You might consider studying existing examples of complex animations before attempting your first.

How can i use a different animation for each axis when the animation tag is only allowed once on an object?

I am imagining your stick as two stacked disks under that cover and the lower disk moves only forward or back, while carrying the upper disk and yoke. The upper disk moves only left or right and it carries the yoke which protrudes from the boot.

One of the problems for me, is that I feel I've done everything I can to break your impression that a control stick has to be a single object.

 

[tgibson]

1. Create your modeled stick. (Done).
2. Create a small cube, buried inside the stick, at the rotation point.
3. Link the stick to the cube (the stick is a child of the cube parent). Now the stick will follow the movements of the cube.
4. Animate the stick fore_aft.
5. Animate the cube left_right.
6. Now the stick will move both fore-aft and left-right.

Hope this helps,

 

[Mosesjunior]

Yes indeed is does help. Thank you very much this makes a lot of clarity. and also do you use blender or know about the Blender2FSX toolkit?

 

[tgibson]

Not me, I'm still back at GMAX. But someone else can probably help. There is even a Blender forum:

Blender

Use this forum for questions about using Blender to create objects for FS

www.fsdeveloper.com