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Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:
- Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
- Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
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- Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
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Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.
By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.
Ronald
Resource contributor
- Messages
- 974
Hello Matteo07
A - If you want any help of some kind, I think it is wise to provide (much) more details / screenshots / error messages about your current situation and your challenges you might have like:
- Version numbers / make/ model of the flightsim / tools you are using
- What kind of vehicles did you attempt to create?
- How did you create the vehicles?
- What does not work, when and why?
You do not provide enough information to others, if they want to get started with helping you.
- Are you able to export your vehicles from Sketchup into FSX
- How do you do this exactly?
_ which steps do you follow to export / convert your models into FSX
- What kind of errors do you encounter (screenshots)?
.
A - If you want any help of some kind, I think it is wise to provide (much) more details / screenshots / error messages about your current situation and your challenges you might have like:
- Version numbers / make/ model of the flightsim / tools you are using
- What kind of vehicles did you attempt to create?
- How did you create the vehicles?
- What does not work, when and why?
B - See A.
You do not provide enough information to others, if they want to get started with helping you.
C - See A
- Are you able to export your vehicles from Sketchup into FSX
- How do you do this exactly?
_ which steps do you follow to export / convert your models into FSX
- What kind of errors do you encounter (screenshots)?
A
Aviasim
Guest
You have to use path constraint under animation within GMax and apply "Ambient Animation" (using the Animation SDK)
1.) Draw your line you want the vehicle to follow
2.) With your vehicle selected, select the "Motion" modifier in the toolbar:
This will then bring you here:
3.) Click "Position : Position XYZ" - the "Assign Controller" button will now be clickable (just to the left of my cursor in the following pic)
4.) Click the Assign Controller button and a new window will open, you will want to select "Path Constraint" and press "Ok"
5.) Now, under "Path Parameters", click "Add Path" and then select your line. Your object will now snap itself to the line, you can preview the animation at this point.
At this point, it's worth noting that the model is not "following" the line as if it were a car, ie, constant heading through corners.
6.) Press the "Follow" checkbox so your car actually turns on corners
Now, your car should be following the line as if it were a car.
7.) Press "Trajectories"
Here you will need to specify the start and end frame, mine is 0-100 just for this quick tutorial write up - but for a real car following a real road, it would need quite a lot more frames so the car appears to be driving at a more realistic speed across a set distance, this is entirely up to you. Next part is the samples, by default it's 10, quick maths - if I have 100 frames with 10 samples - it will use the position/rotation of every 10th frame of the animation, thus cutting short the animation path. Just for this I will use 50 samples, more than enough and it doesn't really destroy my path.
8.) Specify your start frame, end frame and samples then press "Collapse"
9.) Now go to "ACES Tools" toolbar and then "Animation Manager" - click to highlight "Ambient" then enter the start and end frames (0 and 100) then press "Create"
10.) Close the animation manager and then open it back up to open the "Summary" dialogue box. (There is a bug that when you initially add the animation, it does not immediately display in the summary)
The animation is now registered and you can now export.
Before you export though, check these:
It's best that you apply your FSX material to the object before running it through the animation process
Make sure you have "Skinned Mesh" turned on in the material properties
1.) Draw your line you want the vehicle to follow
2.) With your vehicle selected, select the "Motion" modifier in the toolbar:
This will then bring you here:
3.) Click "Position : Position XYZ" - the "Assign Controller" button will now be clickable (just to the left of my cursor in the following pic)
4.) Click the Assign Controller button and a new window will open, you will want to select "Path Constraint" and press "Ok"
5.) Now, under "Path Parameters", click "Add Path" and then select your line. Your object will now snap itself to the line, you can preview the animation at this point.
At this point, it's worth noting that the model is not "following" the line as if it were a car, ie, constant heading through corners.
6.) Press the "Follow" checkbox so your car actually turns on corners
Now, your car should be following the line as if it were a car.
7.) Press "Trajectories"
Here you will need to specify the start and end frame, mine is 0-100 just for this quick tutorial write up - but for a real car following a real road, it would need quite a lot more frames so the car appears to be driving at a more realistic speed across a set distance, this is entirely up to you. Next part is the samples, by default it's 10, quick maths - if I have 100 frames with 10 samples - it will use the position/rotation of every 10th frame of the animation, thus cutting short the animation path. Just for this I will use 50 samples, more than enough and it doesn't really destroy my path.
8.) Specify your start frame, end frame and samples then press "Collapse"
9.) Now go to "ACES Tools" toolbar and then "Animation Manager" - click to highlight "Ambient" then enter the start and end frames (0 and 100) then press "Create"
10.) Close the animation manager and then open it back up to open the "Summary" dialogue box. (There is a bug that when you initially add the animation, it does not immediately display in the summary)
The animation is now registered and you can now export.
Before you export though, check these:
It's best that you apply your FSX material to the object before running it through the animation process
Make sure you have "Skinned Mesh" turned on in the material properties
A
Aviasim
Guest
11.) Now apply a GUID and friendly name
12.) With the car selected, File > Export Selected > ESP .X. In the export dialogue, turn on "Skinned Mesh" and "Export Animations" then press "Ok"
Where ever you chose to export, you will, or should have a .X and .XAnim file.
To process the .xanim with the .x I use a CMD prompt with the target %windir%\system32\cmd.exe /K E:"\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3 SDK 3.4.18.19475\Modeling SDK\3DSM2015_x64\Plugins\XtoMDL.exe" /XANIM /DICT:E
lugins\modeldef.XMLThere is a tutorial on how to do this here
You should then be able to just drag the .x file on to the CMD prompt shortcut and it will generate an animation saving MDL file
That is pretty much it, hope this helps!