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Converting helicopter: Animation issues...

manschy

manschy

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germany
After delving into the subject how to convert helicopters, I detected my limited doggy brain regarding this high complicated subject matter.
Nevertheless, I want to try to convert one of my beloved helicopters, the Westland Wessex which was operating in the early 80s nearby our hometown, for P3Dv4.5.

In comparison to the Alphasim Lynx which seemed easily to convert (for my personal needs so far), the Simshed Wessex seems a lot more complicate, especially to convert the animations correctly.
Unfortunately, I am not able to find the correct usage inside Tom Gibsons great tutorial for FS9 to FSX/P3D conversions - I think, helicopters seem to be a lot more complicate. Otherwise, it may due to my restricted language capabilities to understand all important descriptions...

One thing I get stuck at moment, is to seperate the Wessex' rotors correctly to get them animated. This worked fine with the Lynx, but at the Wessex, I have massive problems with the assigned animations. Please have a look:



Problem is that I can't find the assigned animations (animation editor) again inside the hierarchy editor, where I could assign these animations to the extracted rotor section. Also inside the modeldef.xml (which I open with the modeldef.xml editor...) these animations are not in place.

So after extracting the rotors section without these animation settings, I only get a weird arrangement of rotor parts:



I would really appreciate each hint how to solve these issues or where I can find a tutorial (or tutorial extracts...) to work with correctly...
 
Hi,

First, in the Animation Editor if the line is red, then it is unknown to MCX and will be lost if you Export the model. Thus no animations remain when you export the rotors. The fact that at least some of them are default animation tags suggests to me that you have either not assigned the location of the SDK's modeldef.xml file in the MCX Options, or you have pointed it to a very shortened version (i.e. not default).

The second issue is a bug that has appeared in recent versions of MCX - parts are shifting around when Exporting parts of models or after Merging. Arno is aware of the issue but I haven't seen anything on its solution. Some use an older version when needed to avoid this issue.
 
Thank you very much for your answer, Tom. The animation issue is strange indeed, because the assigned animations are listed in the "Animation Edior" correctly, but on the other hand they are missing in the "Hierarchy Editor". That way, I have no chance to change them like your great tutorial.
The modeldef.xml path is set correctly inside MCX - that way, I also get the Lynx to work halfway properly. On that model, the rotor animations appear fine, both in the "Animation Editor" and "Hierarchy Editor". Working on the Lynx model, I easily could do the needed changes in both editors. But with the Wessex model, MCX seems only to be able to detect the existing animations but not to handle them...
 
Hi,

But the fact that even animations like prop0_still are shown in red means that MCX can't find that one in the modeldef.xml file. So like Tom said either your modeldef.xml file is not complete or maybe some definitions are corrupted.

I am still working on the bug that some parts get an offset. I have not been fully capable to reproduce the behaviour on my machine (and also got distracted by some other bugs and features over the weekend). I'll try to have another look at it tomorrow evening.
 
Thank you very much, Arno. I will have another intense look at the modeldef.xml - this seems maybe to be indeed the major part of my inadequacy.
 
Note that if you added any tags to the top of the file and they are corrupt that will inactivate all tags below it.
 
Okay, gents, I detected a wrong modeldef.xml path (which leads to the FSX SDK instead of the P3Dv4 I am working with at the helicopters - shame on me...) and now all (most) of the needed animations are at the right place.

But I still have no animations in the sim! It seems to work everything well inside MCX. All merged props (prop0_slow, prop0_blurred) are working:



I can't find any issues, neither inside the Animation Editor nor the Hierarchy Editor



The exporting message windows at the bottom also shows no mistakes:



Where can I find the culprit (except the one in front of the PC LOL)?

(Don't mind the tail rotor, it's currently not merged because of the position issue when exporting both rotors together - I will export and merge it seperately..)
 
Okay, after reworking some parts and exchanging the prop0_* animations with rotor_* animations (*=still, slow, blurred) the Wessex finally seems to be reanimated in P3Dv4.
So the culprit was indeed the person in front of the PC.

Only ongoing issue: I can't start the heli with Ctrl+E.
Where can I search for the reason, please?
 
Tom - I didn't know this!!!! Since 2013 I always start aircraft which are not my absolute favourites only by ctrl+E (shutdown by ctrl+T). But using your solution (in addition with ctrl-shift-F1 for shut down) it seems to work now! Furthermore, the complete engine animation procedere now looks much more smooth and real - it takes much longer until the rotors reach their full thrust, that's really great.
Only small issue with the Wessex: I have to "cut" the engines by ctrl+T and push ctrl+E promptly to get the complete engine start. When I only use ctrl-shift-F4, the engine starts but still remains in idle. When I push F3 or F4, the engine chokes off.
Is there any key combination I can use after ctrl-shift-F4? Currently, I use a freeware VC of a Sikorsky S-34 which is not a great help because of a rudimentary clickable objects...

Anyway, you made my day with this valuable hint! Thank you so much.
 
Oh, just another question: Is it any possible to reduce the complete model size with MCX? The Wessex seems a lot too big, approx 1,25 to 1 in size...
 
There is a scale option in the transformation menu, you can use it to scale the entire model.
 
Arno, that's wonderful. I was anxious about doing a lot of procedures again like the converting marathon. Thanks a lot for this information.
 
Great - works fine. I just had to adjust the contact points as well, very easy. Only thing I note is the light effects which now (naturally) are placed somewhere in the air around the heli. So if one could tell me the menue where I can adjust these too, this would be the icing on the cake! :)
 
Which lights effects? If they are part of the model they should have scaled with the rest. So I guess they are in the aircraft.cfg file as well.
 
Will have a look at. As you mentioned, I scaled the complete heli, so the model's light effects should be scaled as well.
I had hope being able to influence the light effects position by Attached Object Editor, but failed. Furthermore, only attached effect seems to be the landing light.
Are the beacon and position lights maybe part of a separate fx effect?

 
Those lights are probably in the Lights section of the aircraft.cfg file. You can adjust them there.

After Ctrl-Shift-F4 you should be able to use Ctrl-E to get them started properly.
 
Okay, back from a short holiday, and I could fix the lights indeed. Startup works as well. Just have to adjust the gear a little to match the ground correctly. With a S-58 VC currently I am satisfied...
Thank you all!







 
Would you be willing to share your Wessex? I'm running V3 of P3D but most V4 models still work since V3 just ignores the PBR stuff
 
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