Blender 2.70 FSX Rudder Animation Problem (Solved)

[krispy1001]

Hi everyone!

I am having a problem with a rudder animation. I made a simple plane with a mesh cube as the rudder, so that I could test animating a rudder. When I test my test plane with rudder in FSX; the rudder animation changes the shape of the cube. Some how it is moving the vertices instead of moving the object as a whole.

I used one bone for my rudder animation and I set all keyframes for location and rotation.

full left rudder = keyframe 0, center rudder = keyframe 50, full right rudder = keyframe 100

I have no problem with my animation when I use Gmax.

Any suggestions?

Thank you, Krispy1001

 

[krispy1001]

Has anyone used blender to make FSX planes with animations?

I ask this because the only tutorials I can find is on X plane.

Thank you, Krispy1001

 

[capt_x]

I am having a problem with a rudder animation. I made a simple plane with a mesh cube as the rudder, so that I could test animating a rudder. When I test my test plane with rudder in FSX; the rudder animation changes the shape of the cube. Some how it is moving the vertices instead of moving the object as a whole.

That's what skinned meshes are for, moving vertices. It would be easier to animate the rudder object directly. You don't need bones for that. It's a matter of simply setting keyframes on the object (Select object, press I).

Be it as it may, when using skinned mesh, make sure to use vertex groups, not envelopes. And for moving the whole object, assign all vertices to one vertex group and bind that to the armature's bone. One question: Is the animation working correctly in Blender? I'm asking this because the skinned mesh implementation in the toolset still needs a lot of work and has not been thoroughly tested yet.

 

[krispy1001]

Hi capt_x!

Thank you for answering my question.

I have tried to animate it without a bone just a few minutes ago. And it did the same thing in FSX. The rudder does not rotate on Z axis it just changes it's shape on x and y.

And yes, the animations work very well in Blender 2.70, that is why I was very suppressed when it did not work in FSX.

I will step you through what I have done so far, and maybe you can tell me what I am doing wrong.

1. I click the "Initialize Toolset" button
2. I then create a empty at origin (0,0,0)
3. I enter a friendly name for the empty
4. I click the Generate guide button
5. I then make a simple body of a plane and I make the empty it's parent
6. I create a cylinder to act as my pivot point for the rudder
7. I create a simple rudder using a cube.
8. In the FSX Animation Tool bar I select rudder_percent_key and I assign it to the rudder.
9. I make the cylinder pivot point the parent to the rudder
10. Then I make the body the parent to the rudder pivot point.
11. I give everything a simple material color
12. I then click on the ruder pivot point and set it's key frame positions. frame 0 = full left rudder, frame 50 = rudder center, frame 100 = rudder full right turn
(for each of the three keyframes, I click the I key and add location, and rotation)
13. I then save my project before exporting it.
14. I click export as DirctX for FSX(x) format, I make sure to check the apply modifiers, export animations, skinned mesh, and export mdl
15. I then test my plane in FSX.

I have also tried using one bone. I got the same results using both methods.

The rudder does not rotation on the Z axis, it changes shape on the x and y planes.

Please let me know what I am doing wrong.

Thank you very much. Krispy1001

 

[capt_x]

Have you scaled any of the objects in Object Mode? Check the scale of your parts. It has to be 1 on all axes. If it isn't, hit Ctrl+A (Apply)>Scale.

 

[krispy1001]

Capt_X Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was it, my animations work perfect now.

I wrecked my brain yesterday trying to figure out what I did wrong. But everything that I tried gave me the same results.

Again Thank you very much Capt_X!

Krispy1001

 

[capt_x]

You're welcome. I somehow failed to mention that very important fact in the Wiki article. Now it's done.

 

[Daniel-45]

Hello,

Just to add for potential animation issue: Be always sure that you are on the "0" keyframe before exporting ...

If not your animations will be truncated.

(some hours spend to figure that, Haaarrrrg ! )


Daniel.