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Fire truck animation

mamu

mamu

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766
Country
italy
Hi, I'm here again with a new question.

The airport I'm working on is open only during day time.
So, at 8.00 am a fire truck runs out from an hangar and goes on the apron. At 6.30 PM it goes back to the hangar.
The 2 animations are pretty easy to do in gmax. The problem is moving them to the sim :confused:

Any idea?
 
mamu

mamu

Messages
766
Country
italy
I think I have to do a lot of asm tweaking.

This could be the steps
- export the first animation
- "CAT" the first animation in order to have the code ready for the next tweaking. (I should put an animation trigger, 0388h, min 1 max 15)
- export the second animation
- cut & paste the second animation parameters (real4 lines) over the real4 parameters of the 'CAT created' reverse animation parameters
- compile the mdl (and pray in order to it compiles)
- run MDLTweaker and put a bunch of conditional display entry in the mdl:
0389h between 8 and 8 AND
0388h between 0 and 14 ; should show the mdl from 8.00 to 8.14
OR (don't know if this step is possible)
0389h between 18 and 18 AND
0388h between 0 and 14 ; should show the mdl from 18.00 to 18.14
- create a static mdl where the first animation stops and the second animation starts
- run MDLTweaker a put these conditions
0389h between 8 and 8 AND
0388h between 15 and 59
OR (don't know if this step is possible)
0389h between 9 and 17
- compile it
- place the 2 mdls on the scenery and enjoy the mess :p

Could this works?
 
arno

arno

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FSDevConf team
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32,883
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netherlands
Hi,

It sounds like that could work, but it is a bit chaotic indeed :).

Do you really need the animation? The chance that someone is at your scenery while the vehicle drives is very small. So you could also just have to display either static at the start and end position. That would mean only two MDL files tweaked with MDL Tweaker for the correct conditions.

If you want the animation, I would do it like this. Your idea of replacing the reverse animation with the second animation file is a good one. Just make sure both animations use the same amount of frames and that the same parts are animated. Then that should work fine.

Then you only have the triggering to do. I would not use MDL Tweaker if you take the animation approach. Just manually tweak the trigger code, so that the forward animation is started at the time you want it and the backward animation also when you want it. In between that you should set the animation status so that it displays the static end position of the first animation right away.

If you need some help with the trigger tweaking, let me know once you got the animations itself working correctly.
 
mamu

mamu

Messages
766
Country
italy
arno said:
----8<----8<------
Do you really need the animation? The chance that someone is at your scenery while the vehicle drives is very small. So you could also just have to display either static at the start and end position. That would mean only two MDL files tweaked with MDL Tweaker for the correct conditions.
----8<----8<------
Click to expand...

I don't need it for sure :). Maybe users don't need it. But my betatester is extremely precise, so he NEEDS it: <<What is that damn thing that pops out in the morning and disappears in the evening???? Is there Copperfield near here??>>. I want to avoid to answer to question like this :D

Ok back to scenery design

I don't want to bore you anymore, because as soon as I wrote my previus 3d, i found a solution (that is not so clean, but, anyway, it works like charm)

- made two animated mdls (let call them 'in' and 'out') and 2 static mdls (one with the fire truck out and the hangar door closed and one with only the hangar door closed)
- CATed 'in' and 'out' with 0388 trigger min 1 max 15
- tweaked all the mdls with MDLTweaker in order to have the right timeline:

(obj1) 00.00-08.00 : static door
(obj2) 08.01-08.15 : in animation
(obj3) 08.16-09.00 : static truck and static door
(obj4) 09.00-18.00 : " "
(obj5) 18.01-18.15 : out animation
(obj6) 18.16-19.00 : static door
(obj1) 19.00-24.00 : static door

compile them ends up with a bgl that is 3 times bigger than the original animation...160k vs 62k, but as soon as the mdls are called in the scenery engine only when they are visible (mmh...aren't they?) it's not a great problem!
There's only a very little issue (my betatester will kill me as soon as he notices that :rolleyes: ): I change the sim clock several times to test the complete time line. As soon as I go to the day+1, the animations simply show up on the end frame. Not a real problem indeed, since no one will fly for a whole day around my airport (neither my betatester!)

Thank you again Arno for your inputs!
 
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