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animating a spring...

M

Michael2

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ca-britishcolumbia
Does anyone know a way to animate a spring that will compile into FSX? I have something working with bones, but it stretches the mesh as well as the overall length of the object. I think it would export to FSX although I haven't tried yet. Anyhow, before I spend too much time on this I thought I would ask if anyone knows the best way to do it.

I started out with the idea an animated spring would be crazy, but after modelling one, it isn't that many polygons. It is a fairly conspicuous part of the nose gear and a stretching cylinder rather than spring will be a bit of a compromise.
 
I think the deformation depends on the total elongation of the spring? And the number of vertices/segments on the spring...
 
What I can tell you is that scale animations don't work in FSX. You can only use location and rotation keyframes. (Just in case you used scale keyframes...)
 
I tried to do it with a "stretch to" constraint; it worked in Blender but not when compiled into FSX. I ended up using two telescoping cylinders instead, which really is more sensible given how close one has to be to actually see the details of a real spring.
 
There is a spring script tool for 3DS MAX that only needs 2 bones. It uses weight that is distributed evenly which would take hours to set manually using vertices. You can also offset so the ends of the spring do not stretch. Enjoy!!!:teacher:

The tool is called Marijn &Tattoo Spring Weight Tool V2.
https://spintires.nl/marijn-tattoo-spring-weight-tool-v2-spintires-modding-resource/

Spring_Weight_Tool.jpg
 
Neat tool! Boing, Boing, Bong! :rotfl:

I used two bones to animate a coiled control cable connected to the yokes. These wires are used for the yoke mounted controls (AP, trim buttons, CWS, etc.).
 
n4gix said:
Neat tool! Boing, Boing, Bong! :rotfl:

I used two bones to animate a coiled control cable connected to the yokes. These wires are used for the yoke mounted controls (AP, trim buttons, CWS, etc.).
Click to expand...
I did the same for my bi planes since they have so many thin cables. I figure the coiled cables were not that thick as it will not stretch correctly without a specific weight distribution along the coil. But a thick large spring is not an easy object to stretch so love this tool.
 
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