FS2004 Bounding box... what's it really for?

[khaos_56k]

I'm tackling some more conditional animations in GMax, to be eventually exported to FS9, and am curious, is the bounding box necessary and why?

 

[Bambi_007]

No
the Bounding Box is not really necessary.

I tell from my sight.

Maybe other see this in other way.

 

[khaos_56k]

Thanks, Bambi...

I've never seen any difference in animation with or without a Bounding Box either.

 

[n4gix]

The bounding box serves as a proximity trigger for "visibility" of an object, among other things. From the FSD Wiki http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=MDL_format_(FS9_scenery):

Setting the bounding box wrong can result in display problems in FS, for
example the disappear of the object while it should still be visible.

It also serves as a proximity trigger for the CRASH box.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I assume this is about the CAT bounding box, instead of the MDL bounding box .

In CAT you should only use the bounding box as condition or trigger if you want to only allow the animation within a certain bounding box. So it is only needed when you need it .

 

[khaos_56k]

Arno,

This goes back to my wind vane (move to show wind direction) and wind speed gauge (low, med and high speed rotation) animations. I decided to do the hard edits in the ASM file.

Since these animations are conditional, am I wrong to not use a Bounding Box?

 

[arno]

For those animations it sounds fine. The bounding box trigger is normally used to for example only allow a gate to move when you are close to it (especially useful if you place the same objects at multiple locations, else they will all move at the same time).

 

[khaos_56k]

Understood... "Bounding Box = Trigger Area"

Thanks to all for your help.