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MSFS Flag waving in the wind direction

Messages
90
Country
germany
Just to be sure that we talk about the same here: You are trying to use the animation in a normal scenery object instead of a simobject for now, don't you?

I noticed that the animation looks a little bit different. In particular, it has this star in front fo it instead of this keyframe symbol. Maybe this type of animation is not exported correctly? I'm not an expert for animations in Blender though.
 
Messages
233
Country
canada
Just to be sure that we talk about the same here: You are trying to use the animation in a normal scenery object instead of a simobject for now, don't you?

I noticed that the animation looks a little bit different. In particular, it has this star in front fo it instead of this keyframe symbol. Maybe this type of animation is not exported correctly? I'm not an expert for animations in Blender though.
I wanted to test the weaving animation first to make sure it works, as a scenery object. Previously, when I did the same but with just rotation left and right, not cloth simulation, it worked. Once it's working I wanted to try another animation for wind direction - then I would try simobject like advised. I need both animations to work, so I wanted to test the weave first as supposedly a simpler one.
 
Messages
90
Country
germany
All right, I somehow thought you had the cloth simulation already in the sim, but then I confused it with the rotation animation.

Please let me/us known about your progress! Since I'm working on a windsock, I'll soon have the same problem ;)
 
Messages
233
Country
canada
Well, I'm officially stuck. I can't find any resources on how to get animated cloth smulation into the sim. I can't find any tutorials that deal with that. There is not much sense working on the wind rotation when the flag itself cannot be animated, it would look weird. So hopefully somebody will figure this out and let me know. I just don't know what else to try. I can export the flag in a single frame "wavy" state by checking "Animation - current frame" box in Blender2MSFS. It doesn't show flat - it looks good but it's just a single frame. So in theory, MSFS does understand this kind of vertice animation/position. But I can't get cloth-based animation to work. Rotating animation does work in a simple form, but not cloth. I hope someone can figure this out...
 
Messages
90
Country
germany
That's bad :( Unfortunately, I had no time to investigate this topic. I'll also give it a try once I find some free time. But since I'm not an expert in that field, please don't expect too much.
 

Christian Bahr

Resource contributor
Messages
951
Country
germany
You get it for free, so you don't have to give anything for such a simple object. Do you have a template, i.e. what dimensions the flag should have, how high the mast should be?
 
Messages
233
Country
canada
You get it for free, so you don't have to give anything for such a simple object. Do you have a template, i.e. what dimensions the flag should have, how high the mast should be?
I would appreciate if you could share how you can actually do an animated flag, because this is what I'm trying to do and failing. I'm sure other people will appreciate it too.
 

Christian Bahr

Resource contributor
Messages
951
Country
germany
I would appreciate if you could share how you can actually do an animated flag, because this is what I'm trying to do and failing. I'm sure other people will appreciate it too.

This is the same principle as with a windsock: the flag is moved by bones!

Depending on how exactly the flag should be animated, the more or less bones you use. The special thing here is a noise controller. This noise controller is attached to each individual bone. In the noise controller setup you can then determine the axes and the strength with which each bone should be animated. At the end you "bake" the animation.

Another way to animate a flag is to animate a flag according to real physical laws. This is then done using the MassFX plug-in built into 3ds Max. In combination with wind, gravity, mass, etc., extremely astonishing results can be achieved. However, this setup is somewhat more complicated than the setup using a noise modifier. A long time ago I made a video about the "physical windsock" (from 0 to 1:30 min):

 
Messages
233
Country
canada
This is the same principle as with a windsock: the flag is moved by bones!

Depending on how exactly the flag should be animated, the more or less bones you use. The special thing here is a noise controller. This noise controller is attached to each individual bone. In the noise controller setup you can then determine the axes and the strength with which each bone should be animated. At the end you "bake" the animation.

Ah, thanks! Sounds logical. I need to learn how to do that. Do you have an idea or a tutorial video about how to simulate convincing flag weaving with bones in Blender, and how to bake animation properly so MSFS understands it?
 

Christian Bahr

Resource contributor
Messages
951
Country
germany
If you look at this simple bone setup first, it might help. The flag consists of a plane with 2x3 segments. This mesh is controlled by 9 bones. To bring the bones and the flag together, a so-called skin modifier is added to the flag.

flag_bones_skin.jpg
 
Messages
35
Country
denmark
Very interesting tread going to put 10 different flags at my airport, anyone succeeded making one in Blender which works and are willing to share ?

Thanks
Claus
 
Messages
90
Country
germany
I successfully exported a Blender bones animation to MSFS! I created the bones following this tutorial:

My actual bones setup looks like this:
bones.jpg

This is supposed to be a flag that is attached at the top and left side. Accordingly, the long bone at the top and the two small bones at the left side don't contribute to the waving animation. Before exporting the model to MSFS, it is important that scale and rotation are applied to all objects in the model. Otherwise, the mesh will look distorted. The rest is as usual with specifying the animation in the XML file.

Here is how it looks in the sim:

Note that this is was just a quick test if and how it works. The animation itself doesn't look very realistic so far and will be improved ;)
 
Messages
233
Country
canada
I successfully exported a Blender bones animation to MSFS! I created the bones following this tutorial:

...

Note that this is was just a quick test if and how it works. The animation itself doesn't look very realistic so far and will be improved ;)
If you actually succeed in making a wind-dependent flag - I would appreciate if you share your blend file and XML etc. - so I could adapt it to my files. This all is so time-consuming that I will never complete my airport at this pace...
 
Messages
104
Country
australia
I successfully exported a Blender bones animation to MSFS! I created the bones following this tutorial:

My actual bones setup looks like this:
View attachment 64288

This is supposed to be a flag that is attached at the top and left side. Accordingly, the long bone at the top and the two small bones at the left side don't contribute to the waving animation. Before exporting the model to MSFS, it is important that scale and rotation are applied to all objects in the model. Otherwise, the mesh will look distorted. The rest is as usual with specifying the animation in the XML file.

Here is how it looks in the sim:

Note that this is was just a quick test if and how it works. The animation itself doesn't look very realistic so far and will be improved ;)
Did you have any issues with the object duplicating? I made my animations using the same method and after I reload the sim sometimes the objects have double animations. Trying to figure out where I went wrong.

When I have the scenery editor open they display fine.
 
Messages
90
Country
germany
Did you have any issues with the object duplicating? I made my animations using the same method and after I reload the sim sometimes the objects have double animations. Trying to figure out where I went wrong.
I indeed had the same issue. For me, it disappered when removing "Random" after "AutoPlay" in the model's XML file.

If you actually succeed in making a wind-dependent flag - I would appreciate if you share your blend file and XML etc. - so I could adapt it to my files. This all is so time-consuming that I will never complete my airport at this pace...
Once I find some free time to cleanup my files a little bit such that other can work with them, I can share them.
 
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