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FSX Jetways

preynolds

preynolds

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unitedkingdom
Hi all,

I've been trying to create my own jetways, following the .avi tutorial created by Adrian Woods. I think I've followed all instructions to the letter, but my jetway refuses to budge an inch!

From looking at other threads here, I've tried naming the IK solvers with either IK followed by a space and IK followed by an underscore, but neither of these naming conventions work for me.

I've tested with default jetways in the same scenery which work, so I know the sim is happy showing jetway animations.

Has anyone got custom FSX jetways to work, and if so, is there anything different to the tutorial that you did?

I can provide my gmax file if required.

Many thanks

Phil
 
Apologies,

I seem to have had a senior moment and simply placed the object in fs directly rather than link the jetway to the stand using the appropriate <jetway> node...doh! :banghead:

Phil
 
Hi again,

I've now got my jetway moving successfully in FSX (SP2) but the wheels don't lock to the ground when the jetway moves. I've added the IK_WheelsGroundLock IK Limb Solver as per the tutorial mentioned in my original post, but when the jetway moves down or up, so do the wheels. I can't see what I might have done wrong. :(

Any help would be appreciated.

Phil
 
I seem to remember reading something one of the FSX developers wrote about that tag being "broken..."

...and then gave a "workaround" for the issue...

I wish I could remember where I read that! :eek:
 
I've found the following thread :

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10592

Torgo3000 aludes to a possible fix (albeit at worse performance in the sim) saying :

I have a theory that it might be due to the bones and their orientation. Try not skinning the wheels and struts of the jetway, but use discreet geometry instead (you can IK any hierarchy).
The reason I say this is because I think it broke right about the time that I switched over from discreet geometry to skinned animation for performance reasons.
Unfortunately, this means you won't be able to have LODs and you'll have about 10 draw calls per jetway (ugh).
I've been trying to test it myself, but jetways are currently invisible in the engine right now.
I'll let you know if I have any success.
Click to expand...

Can some kind soul lead me in the right direction as to using "discreet geometry" in Gmax.

Many thanks (again!)

Phil
 
FYI, Torgo3000 is Adrian Woods.
 
'discrete geometry' is simply a fancy name for ordinary mesh objects! :D

IOW, a wheel is simply a cylinder turned on its side, etc.
 
I realize this is a very old thread, but my accidental "discovery" is directly relevant and I didn't find any updated information.

When I first started experimenting with animated jetways a week or so ago, I was trying to add a tilting stairway. Everything except the stairway seemed to work. So, back to the individual objects to eliminate the stairway. While reworking the model, I "fiddled" with the struts. Following re-boning/skinning, the wheels no longer stayed at ground level.

But, the wheels "worked the first time"! So, I searched fsDeveloper and found this thread. I then spent about a day, trying to discover the cause which, I'm happy to report, I did.

When "fiddling with the struts, I had moved the pivot of the "sleeve" above the centerline of the series of horizontal bones. Moving that pivot below the other bones didn't help. But, when I placed that pivot at the same level as the centerline of the bones, the wheel stayed locked to the ground during travel to the aircraft and while attached to the aircraft.

However, this doesn't address the entire problem of the "broken" handle, because, as the jetway returns to the "home" position, the sliding strut and the wheels jump to the lower limit and remain there for the duration of the travel. Fortunately, once the jetway is in the home position, the wheels return to ground level. But, this seems "the lesser of the two evils".

In the thread referenced below where Adrian expands on the problem, another user complains about the jetway moving too far "into the aircraft" - which was my experience as well. I did two things in "working" this issue. First, I eliminated the first of the two bones Adrian placed in his tutorial for the hood the animation. (The SDK shows only the animated bone.) But, while reducing the complexity of the hood, this didn't seem to have any effect on "final placement".) The other thing I did was shorten the distance from the hood to the pivot of the jetway head to about 10' - and this substantially reduced the "incursion" into the aircraft. I suspect this aspect of the implementation of the animated jetway has been "tuned" to the default model.

Finally, the jetway is not square to the aircraft. I suspect this is due to a accumulation of errors, since the angle is not consistent, seems proportional to the distance travelled and the default jetway exhibits the same problem.

I'm posting this in the hope it helps some of you avoid the frustrations I encounted over the past week.

Don
 
Last edited:
Before my previous post, I failed to notice that when I placed the pivot of the "sleeve" on the centerline of the horizontal bones, I had also placed it below the top of the lower struts. And that turns out to be the critical element.

So, it would appear the general rule is that for a sliding joint, the pivot of a member that is to slide must lie within the bounds of the member into/over which it is to slide.

This doesn't seem to have any effect on what hapopens while the jetway is returning to the home position, but seems to be a "solid" fix for the "disappearing wheels".

Incidentally, in Adrians video, he seems to make the setting of the limits for sliding joints more complicated than necessary. It appears the limits of the sliding member are simply the start and stop positions relative to the pivot of the member into/over which it is to slide. (At least, this works for me.) That means in the case of a jetway, the lower limit is a foot or so, while the upper limit is a foot or so less than the length of the previous member. These limits can be typed in or set as he shows without the need for setting reference points.

Don
 
You wouldn't be able to take some screenshots of your setup would you.

I have made over 40 different Jetways for my projects and tried all sorts of variations to get some of these qwerks for the FSX jetway to be less of an issue. Only once have i had a jetway keep the wheels on the ground and then i went and did some other editing and it stopped doing it so i was not sure what i did.

I basically have to say in our support columns its an FSX glitch and has no fix but it would be nice if i could get them to work better.

I think the jetway/aicraft door connection set up will always be hit and miss because i can often get them to work well enough with the default aircraft, but the numerous AI set ups lead to to many variations to try to cater for.
 
Theoddkiwi, I set out a fix (that worked for me) for the wheels-not-on-ground problem in an earlier post in this thread. It's not perfect. However, as Adrian notes in another thread, the IK WheelsGroundLock handle processing is broken, so I suspect this is the best that can be expected. I also note in that post that you can omit one of the hood bones Adrian places, but keeping it doesn't seem to create any difficulty.

Otherwise, other than not applying rotation to the support "sleeves" (since the sleeves on the jetway I was simulating don't rotate), my setup was exactly as shown in Adrian's video.

One aspect that Adrian's video doesn't address is that, if you want a home-position for your jetway other than straight out from the terminal, as a final step, rotate your jetway elements into what you want the home position to be. But, I suggest you delay doing this until your jetway is working in all other respects.

Regarding your comment about the jetway/aicraft door connection being a hit and miss affair, my understanding is that this relies on data in the aircraft.cfg file reflecting the actual aircraft - which for many AI aircraft is not the case.

But, there is a fundamental problem with this connection. As you can see from the third screenshot, the head is twisted relative to the aircraft. The angle varies from one parking spot to another. The default jetway exhibits similar behaviour. The problem seems to derive from the jetway "engine" which appears to "square" the jetway before it finally approaches the aircraft but does not take into account the final travel.

Attached are three screenshots which show my results.

Good luck with yours.

Don
 
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Thanks Don

I have started on my new Jetways and your previous work is helping tremendously.
 
Fsx New Aerosoft Jetways

Hello,
Can somebody help my with the fsx jetways from aerosoft. The new Jetways from Aerosoft that come with a Airport X don't move when you press ctrl+J. i show you a the new jetways in this picture link.

http://www.google.nl/imgres?imgurl=http://simflight.com/wp-content/gallery/review-aerosoft-antalya/terminal-1-jetway.jpg&imgrefurl=http://simflight.com/2010/11/16/review-aerosoft-antalya/&usg=__g9fOSIn6X1HWrAEnfAHqEA51rBk=&h=1440&w=2560&sz=365&hl=nl&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=AQvqjFog9OlETM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=197&ei=bcB3TabOPMu38QOD-JmgDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Daerosoft%2Bjetways%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1R2ADSA_nlNL367%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D877%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=531&vpy=91&dur=250&hovh=168&hovw=300&tx=143&ty=84&oei=bcB3TabOPMu38QOD-JmgDA&page=1&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0Can somebody please Help my with this problem.
They don't come to the airplane!
thanks, Wouter
 
Do the associated aircraft.cfg file(s) contain the necessary parameters defining the door locations?

DOn
 
Hi Don,
Can you tell me how did you manage to export your gmax model after you have animated and tagged all the parts?
I created a jetway following the IK tutorial but I suspect that something is wrong with my exported model so it didn't work at all in FSX. Do you export the jetways as just a simple object or do you use programs like ADE?
Thanks and sorry for bringing again this old thread
 
It's been a while since I looked at that model. The jetways are exported all to the same .mdl file but separate from the terminal with which they are associated.

I place all my modelled objects with hand generated XML.

The FSX jetway code is not very error tolerant. If everything is not just as the designer intended, the jetways don't work. No indication of what the error is.

Don
 
gadgets said:
It's been a while since I looked at that model. The jetways are exported all to the same .mdl file but separate from the terminal with which they are associated.

I place all my modelled objects with hand generated XML.

The FSX jetway code is not very error tolerant. If everything is not just as the designer intended, the jetways don't work. No indication of what the error is.

Don
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. When you say "hand generated xml" is it something like this?:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<FSData version="9.0" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd">


<SceneryObject instanceId="{6895ffa3-aff6-412c-ac49-88d38f27845d}" lat="N34 37.97" lon="E135 13.60" alt="0" pitch="0" bank="0" heading="0" altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" imageComplexity="NORMAL">
<LibraryObject name="{d33015af-0500-4d9a-8d88-f07cb5995625}" scale="1.0" />
</SceneryObject>

<ModelData sourceFile="C:\Users\Devinci\Documents\KOBE_X\custom_ground_scenery\3DS\jetways.MDL" />
</FSData>
 
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