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Can I fix an aircraft model whose main wheels don't turn?

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england
I've been given some MDL files of FS2004 aircraft models that need fixing (the nose wheels rotate but the main wheels do not) -- the original author cannot fix them as his PC is no longer operational.

I believe the problem is likely the naming of the relevant objects (IIRC they need to be named c_gear, l_gear or r_gear to rotate) but when I open the model up in ModelConverterX (which I've never used before) I can only find names like "ModelPart" and "SceneGraphNode" in the Hierarchy Editor.

Where do I find the actual names of the objects so I can rename those which need renaming? Or are the model names removed at compile time (with appropriate animations applied during compilation) so that they don't actually appear in the MDL file?

Please advise,

George
 
Model converter X uses the FSX naming protocol, so the parts are not named as they are in FS 2004 format. Instead, those names are assigned to the animation section.

You can do one of two things:
1. Open the animation editor and find those animations that used to be part names in FS 2004.
2. Do a search in the hierarchy editor for those names and find the parts that have those animations.

By the way, the animations you are looking for are c_tire, etc.
 
On export to FS2004 MDL MCX does automatically map the FSX names to FS2004 names. So in the tool you need to assign the correct FSX name.
 
It looks as though the front and back wheels of the 4-wheel main wheel bogie have been merged into a single mesh (or more precisely two meshes: one for the tire treads and the other for the sides of the wheels), which would obviously be no good for rotating wheels.

Does ModelConverterX have any ability to split the front and rear wheels apart and then apply animations to them?

mainwheels.png
 
You can try setting collapse model parts to false in options and then import the plane again. This works occasionally, but the MDL compiler will usually combine parts that use the same material and are not animated.
 
You can try setting collapse model parts to false in options and then import the plane again. This works occasionally, but the MDL compiler will usually combine parts that use the same material and are not animated.
Thanks!

That seemed to separate the axles: now I just have to work out how to apply the animations!
 
Take a look at the animation of a wheel that does turn correctly, and try to duplicate that for your wheels that don’t work.
 
OK, having another look at this task now, but it looks like I need to apply animation types l_tire_blurred_key and r_tire_blurred_key to the wheels, but the animation type in the Hierarchy Editor only seems to offer None as an animation type, as shown below.

How do I get these animation assigned? I've seen references to a modeldef.xml as a source for available animation types, but isn't this file something that comes with the FSX SDK (which only FSX Deluxe or Steam version users have access to)? Besides I'm aiming to build the model in FS2004 format...

ModelConverterX Hierarchy Editor.png


Thanks.

George
 
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Without the modeldef.xml file you will indeed have issues with exporting. So use the P3D SDK as Tom suggested. For FS2004 it is best to also set the makemdl.parts.xml path.
 
You can get it from the P3D SDK 1.4. That also produces FSX models. Link below.

OK that seemed to work and got my main wheels turning again, but now it seems like my model is appearing in the FSX "Select Aircraft" screen with a massive "nose down" deflection in its horizontal stabilizer, even though once the aircraft is loaded, the stabilizer trim appears normally.

Any idea how to set the "default" animation positions as displayed in the Select Aircraft screen?

I've also found that the tailhook animation isn't working, even though I renamed the animation from (showing red) "tailhook" to "tailhook_pct": any thoughts on this?

George
 
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Make sure the horizontal stabilizer animation has a key frame at zero, 50, and 100 (at least).

Is the tail hook animation operating properly in MCX? How about if you import your modified plane into MCX, is it working then?
 
Make sure the horizontal stabilizer animation has a key frame at zero, 50, and 100 (at least).

Is the tail hook animation operating properly in MCX? How about if you import your modified plane into MCX, is it working then?
Yes, the horizontal stabilizer animation has key frames at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100.

And the tail hook animation does work properly from within MCX -- it also works properly if I re-import the modified plane into MCX (although the engine fans animation is broken in that case, suggesting a bug in how ModelConverterX imports FS2004 MDL files in the first place).
 
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(Update) I managed to get the tail hook animation working properly by editing the animation_mapping.ini file, but when I checked my model more closely I discovered a load of control surface animations were also broken.

It seems as though while ModelConverterX is obviously able to read MDL files in various formats, it leaves the job of saving them out again to whichever Microsoft SDKs the user may have installed, which limits the amount of control over the process (and is probably the source of my problems, given that ModelConverterX likely isn't really designed for the old FS2004 format).

It made me wonder whether I should forget about ModelConverterX and try to hand-code a utility to fix my problem...
 
I haven’t seen major control surface issues exporting to FS 2004 using the latest development versions of MCX, but I haven’t done that much much work with them either. Do you have an MDL file that has these problems that you can post here?
 
I haven’t seen major control surface issues exporting to FS 2004 using the latest development versions of MCX, but I haven’t done that much much work with them either. Do you have an MDL file that has these problems that you can post here?
I'd rather not post the files on a public forum -- is there any way I could send you them privately?

Also, who actually writes ModelConverterX?
 
You can send them by PM to me.

I'm the author of the ModelConverterX tool.
 
You can send them by PM to me.

I'm the author of the ModelConverterX tool.
Thank you very much for your help!

You should have received the models now, although I had to shrink the textures files to keep the zip file size within the limit!

George
 
Thanks, I'll have a look what I can spot on the files.
 
(Update) I managed to get the tail hook animation working properly by editing the animation_mapping.ini file, but when I checked my model more closely I discovered a load of control surface animations were also broken.
If you think the animation mapping change is a structural improvement, let me know what you did so I can include it in future MCX releases.

I'll check the control services with the MDL file you provided.
It seems as though while ModelConverterX is obviously able to read MDL files in various formats, it leaves the job of saving them out again to whichever Microsoft SDKs the user may have installed, which limits the amount of control over the process (and is probably the source of my problems, given that ModelConverterX likely isn't really designed for the old FS2004 format).
MCX does use the XtoMdl or MakeMDL tool that the user has installed indeed. But the XML file with the animations is written by MCX, so that should give enough control to get consistent output.

Support to export the FS2004 MDL format has been in MCX for only half a year or so. So you are right that it was not designed from the start, but during the development there was extensive testing and for most models it worked quite good. Of course there is always some tweaking a user has to do, because there is a lot of variation in how models are made.
 
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