FSX Looking at VisibilityCondition vs UserDefined

[tgibson]

Hi Arno,

I know you mentioned that you would like to get the VisibilityCondition setting in Options/Importer Settings to work without breaking the animations. As others have said before, FSX and later animations appear to be in one long chain and if that is broken they collapse, often into the center of the plane.

I have found that when I use my tutorial to convert an FS2004 aircraft to FSX format, all the animations end up linked to a non-animated part. I remember that when FSX was new people animating the plane using GMAX could only get them to work by linking them to a non-animated part.

When I use UserDefined I assume this is what happens in MCX as well. An example:

The line down from the first ScenGraphNode only connects only to the Crash Tree. The line down from the first ModelPart (which is not animated) connects only to other non-animated parts. The next SceneGraphNode contains all the animated parts, thus all animations are linked to a non-animated part.

Here is the result of the Import of an FS2004 aircraft using VisibilityCondition and then Exporting to FSX format:

This plane's animations have broken and many parts have become displaced. Note that there is no ModelPart between the top of the list and the animated parts, and thus I assume they are not "anchored" in place. In fact this appears similar to the listing of the original FS2004 model, which apparently needs no animation chain. So perhaps this is the problem with the VisibilityCondition setting - it is not handling the animated parts as FSX (and later sims I assume) need them to be arranged?

So if you ever get back to this problem, I hope this will give you somewhere to start.

Take care,

 

[arno]

Hi,

Are they only broken in the sim or also in MCX? MCX does not require a static modelpart at the root of the animations. But maybe the sim does so.

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

They look fine in MCX, it's only in the sim that the animations are broken.

 

[arno]

OK, thanks. I can try to ensure that everything is under a model part.

 

[=rk=]

I believe the whole circumstance of the "root node issue," evolved from a tutorial that I originally found linked from Hovercontrol, which has since been broken. It may have even been the original FSDesign Studio version, sorry to guess. In my interpretation, the author had established the need for an original parent part, that was distinct from the model and unique to the animation chain. This way, presumably, the model could be edited fundamentally and the animations would remain true to their original orientation.
This is only a guess, but whatever the reason for this node dependency, it does not seem to be a requirement, because the use of this root parent part is not universal among FS2004 models, but it is very common.

 

[tgibson]

FS2004 does not seem to have such a requirement, but FSX might?