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P3D v4 Attitude Director Start Position and other instruments in Blender.

Messages
180
Country
unitedkingdom
Continuing on with my steep learning curve I have become bogged down and confused with the Attitude Director and some other instruments. Any pointers would be very welcomed.

I have tried a 'ball' horizon with the needle_attitude_bank assignment that seems to work well with banking, but I am stuck on the pitch bar. I have added a separate pitch bar with the needle_attitude_pitch assignment and tried parenting each to the other. I am seeing pitch and banking displayed but can't seem to get the instrument displaying in the correct sense. It is either displaying the pitch bar along the centre as for straight and level flight, but when in a steep dive or climb. Banking seems ok with the pitch bar is parented to the ball, but shows a banking straight and level flight if the ball is parented to the pitch bar.

Is there a correct attitude position to be in for keyframe 0? Should it start in a climb to port etc in Blender? I have tried setting the pitch bar 90 or 180 degrees out of phase lagging or leading, but neither seems to work.

Should I be trying a different method or combination for the Attitude Director?

Fuel quantity, Altimeter, Airspeed and Acceleration seem to be working correctly.

Drum type compass rotates on ground correctly using cylinder_wiskey_compass, assignment, but does not maintain correct heading in flight. I have keyframes at 0, 90, 180, 270 and 360. Do I need to add more keyframes to stop it hanging during tight turns?

Also any pointers please how to assign turbine engine RPM and Exhaust Temperature?

Next is also the Mach meter. Is there an assignment for Mach or should I modify an ASI gauge to add to the ModelDef? Mach is currently tracking ASI hundreds.

Thank you in advance for any help.



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JB3DG

Resource contributor
Messages
1,325
Country
southafrica
the pitch part should always be linked to the bank part.

The modeldef code usually adds 90 deg to the pitch value so -90 (pitch down) is at 0, and +90 (pitch up) is at 180, with 0 pitch in the middle.
Same applies to bank (-180 being left, +180 being right), just with different value ranges.
 
Messages
180
Country
unitedkingdom
Thank you.

I have the ball assigned to needle_attitude_bank parented to the pitch bar assigned to needle_attitude_pitch.

Bank seems to be tracking the horizon ok, but is out by 160 degrees.

Pitch is also working, but very sensitive. I have the 120 keyframes over 360 degrees. Should I reduce the pitch range of the 'ball' to 120 keyframes over180 degrees instead?

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n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
Ball Bank should be 360 frames keys at: 0, 90, 180, 270, 360
XML:
  <PartInfo>
    <Name>B737_needle_attitude_bank</Name>
    <AnimLength>360</AnimLength>
    <Animation>
      <Parameter>
        <Code>
          (A:ATTITUDE CAGE,bool) 1 &lt;
          if{ (A:ATTITUDE INDICATOR BANK DEGREES, degree) dnor }
          els{ 0 }
        </Code>
      </Parameter>
    </Animation>
    <MouseRect>
      <TooltipID>TOOLTIPTEXT_BACKUP_ATTITUDE_INDICATOR_BANK_PITCH</TooltipID>
    </MouseRect>
  </PartInfo>

Ball Pitch should be 180 frames keys at: 0, 45, 90, 135, 180
XML:
 <PartInfo>
    <Name>B737_needle_attitude_pitch</Name>
    <AnimLength>180</AnimLength>
    <Animation>
      <Parameter>
        <Code>
          (A:ATTITUDE CAGE,bool) 1 &lt;
          if{ (A:ATTITUDE INDICATOR PITCH DEGREES, degree) 90 min -90 max 90 + }
          els{ 90 }
        </Code>
        <Lag>40</Lag>
      </Parameter>
    </Animation>
  </PartInfo>
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
No problem. Note that you may have to carefully "calibrate" your pitch if the index lines are not completely linear (equal spaced). That's simple to do my using the "Autokey" button and the rotation tool, as well as possibly adding a couple more keys to the animation track.
 
Messages
180
Country
unitedkingdom
The attitude director I am modelling seems to be an early version without any pitch lines, but I will look into "Autokey" as that is new to me and definitely sounds like I will need that for any future projects.

I now have the Attitude Director working after a few days of not finding the pitch bar after I accidently changed the scale while modifying it and couldn't work out why it was not displaying correctly until I reset the scale to 1.0!

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