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Animating attached objects problem

G

gregsoldo

Messages
26
HI there, I'm trying to animate an attached object and what I did is to first attach the object and then animate it.

I've also added the tick18 prefix to the attachpt_crown (cause it's a Crown Victoria) so it finally looks like this in the parameters field: tick18_attachpt_crown

I've compiled it but nothing is seen in FS

Also tried with attached generic library objects of FS2004 like the fuel truck and the snow plow but again nothing happens.

Can anyone of the gurus here around enlighten me please before I get crazy :banghead: ??


Thank you in advance
 
Hi Greg.

Although this isn't exactly what you have in mind, here's what I've found.

You can attach a library object to a gmax object with the AttachToolGmax script. First, you need to make a box to enclose all the objects ( attached and gmax objects ). Make a zero-opacity material and assign it to that box. That box is now your root, and all other objects can be linked to it.

Inside that box, I make a groundplane, and convert it to an attachpoint to hold the default amusement park ( 5556330d4a51a6120f4420a21271a935 ).

I export the mess as normal, and I can place the amusement park anywhere, and the animation shows.

So, animations do work with attachpoints made in Gmax. The key here is probably the large invisible bounding box that serves as the root object.

==================

Your problem is that you wish to animate a static object using an animated ( moving ) attachpoint. I'm not yet sure that will work... but I'll check back in.

Dick
 
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Hi Greg.

If you make a large, invisible, bounding box, then a small, invisible animated box, then an attachpoint of an object, it will work.

The bounding box is the root. It needs a zero-opacity material, and I named it "Bounding".

The animation is a box that also has the invisible material, and is like "tick18_Movement".

The attached object is a groundplane, and I named it "attachpt_AmusementPark".

I had linked the animation to the "Bounding" root, and linked the attachpoint to the "Tick18_Movement".

The end result is the Amusement Park moves around, while the animations of the park still do their movement! Nested animation.

I'm not sure the "Bounding" needs to be encompassing the whole works... it might be that a very small, invisible root object will work. My testing indicates that is the case. What's important is the linking of the invisible animation to the invisible root, and the linking of the attachpoint to the invisible animation.

The attachpoint should not have an invisible material... in fact, it needs no material at all. Just leave it as colored plane.

Dick
 
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Hi Nick.

Yes, effects can move as well. Using "fx_WhiteDot.fx", it looks like a searchlight on the ground at night.

:stirthepo

That leads to the possibility of attaching an effect to a library object, and then moving the library object ( and it's effect ) via Gmax/MakeMDL.



Dick
 
Thank you Dick!!!! It finally worked out!!! Now I realized why people call you gurus! :rotfl:

BTW that animated amusement park was hilariously crazy and bizarre :laughing:

Thank you man!
 
Hi Greg.

MS warned about attachments in the SDK, if I recall correctly.

They were a bit concerned that we could have attachments of library objects that have attachments of library objects that have attachments of library objects...

Now they can all be animated as well, so we can have a real mess if we want!

:rotfl:

Dick
 
That is extremely interesting... But then I remembered, that I already had this working...

The problem that Arno was having was that CAT could not control the effect, only the object.

Arno?
 
Yes, that is correct. It is not possible to switch the animation tables for the attachpoints. So if they are animated, they are animated all the time. It is not possible to condition them like normal animated objects.
 
Arno,

For a non-coder like me... ;) Can you explain why the condition on the attached effect cannot be controlled? :stirthepo
 
Because the commands used to check which condition to apply are not valid in the section of the MDL file that stores the attachpoint (and defines the translation/animation table for this attachpoint). So there is no way to use a different animation table based on a condition.
 
But what we actually are animating is a transparent box and not the attached object itself. The attachment is just linked to the animated box.
 
gregsoldo said:
But what we actually are animating is a transparent box and not the attached object itself. The attachment is just linked to the animated box.
Click to expand...

Yes, and that is the problem :). The animation of the attached object can be condition like any other animation. But for the attachpoint we can not do anything.
 
gregsoldo said:
Also is it possible to condition-animate attached objects using the F2k2 gamepack and CAT2k2?
Click to expand...

No, because the Fs2002 gamepack does not allow attached objects. This is a new features of the Fs2004 gamepack.
 
Anyway I've already did it the old good way, doing a whole new fuel truck outta nothing and condition-animated it.

Anyway, thank you; at least I now know I can animate attached objects for decoration animations.

:) Thanks a lot.
 
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