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FSX carrier animation

S

spyhunter82

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unitedkingdom
Hi all

im kinda new to the forums and i cant seem to find what im lookin for.

i have this little animation problem that i just cant seem to solve, heres what ive been doing.

ive tried to animate the lift on an aircraft carrier, the one that brings aircraft from the lower deck to the flight deck but even though Gmax exports the animation and the attach point platform and all is visible in the game. the animation does what its supposed to, but fsx doesnt recognise the solid platform and the planes just fall right through the lift.

why doesnt fsx recognise the animated solid platform even though one has been attached ?

any advice would be great
thanks in advance
mark
 
thanks

well this post has been up for a few days now and it seems its a popular topic
with 0 replys

thanks for the help :confused:
 
Platforms, as far as I know, cannot be animated. That is the platform (attach point platform) will not move although the visual will. The result would be the plane sitting in midair as the platform appears to move.
 
I've managed to implement this on a carrier I'm converting using ModelConverterX.
It's not straightforward;

1. Separate out the animated platform with MCX
2. Export as .X / .Xanim
3. Open the .X file with notepad, delete
AnimLinkName {
"nodeX";
}

4. MCX should now let you add a platform to the lift. Export as .X
5. Using a program such as aptdiff compare the new file to the original, add back AnimLinkName etc, correct other changes.
6. View the new .X / .Xanim in MCX, you should have an animated lift and a platform. But not a an animated platform, this is due to the platform being on the wrong node.
7. Edit the .X again by moving a
}
from before
Frame frm_part2 {
to the end of the file.

8. View again in MCX and export as MDL.
9. Merge the functioning lift back into the main MDL.

Hopefully I wasn't just lucky!
 
Essex, do you think you could walk us thru these steps here in a little more detail? Maybe show a screen shot or two?
 
Actually Essex, belay my last. I think I messed around and managed a hardened platform elevator on my carrier project. I misunderstood your instructions, but still it worked.

All I did was export each elevator, animated, from Blender. Did this for each on separately, one at a time. Exported it to .x / .Xanim file. So we'll call that step 1.

Then for Step 2, I opened each file in MCX, gave it a hardened platform surface, and saved it to a P3Dv2 MDL file.

From there I opened my hull MDL (already done separately) in MCX, and used the MERGE button to merge in each of the 4 elevators. Simple 2-3 click process. Easy.

Not sure why this worked but it did, at last on one elevator. I landed on it in a helo, and rode it down to the hangar deck.





Could it be that this is something that was updated in the MCX tool by Arno?
 
Essex, ran through this again, and closely followed your instructions. I am making this work, using your instructions (or at least I think I am following them correctly).

No issues at all getting hardened platforms that move. Only thing I am having trouble with is getting the platforms to stay level with the carrier deck, over a period of time. I suppose I just need either shorter periods of time for my ambient animation, and/or more animation keyframes placed throughout. Or maybe a combination of both?

I am getting a situation where the platforms keep wanting to sit just a bit higher than the deck, as it platform was resting on the deck itself.
 
BTW I'd love to figure out a way to make at least one elevator operate 'on command', but the only think I can think of here would be using the Control J Jetways animation tag. I cannot imagine somebody hasn't already tried that, so I really doubt it will work.
 
BTW this thread should be a sticky -- thanks again ESSEX. I am using this method now as standard operating procedure for carrier elevator platforms.
 
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