Scenery Animation

[sc1911]

Pardon my ignorance if the question is common knowledge or if it has already been answered. I am a total noob at this design thing but I'm learning.

So, is there anyway to animate hangar doors or other scenery objects in FSX-Accel using FSDS? I thought there were freeware sceneries floating around with NAV radio controlled animations. So if it is possible, how do you do it? I have not been able to find anything after a pretty thorough search. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[spotlope]

I can't speak for FSDS, but in FSX itself, we lost the ability to code conditions into scenery objects. That means no seasonal textures, no rotate to user, and no conditional animations. There's some hope on some of these counts with third-party products in development, but for now the answer, sadly, is you can't do it in true FSX MDL files.

 

[tomcjones]

Pardon my ignorance if the question is common knowledge or if it has already been answered. I am a total noob at this design thing but I'm learning.

So, is there anyway to animate hangar doors or other scenery objects in FSX-Accel using FSDS? I thought there were freeware sceneries floating around with NAV radio controlled animations. So if it is possible, how do you do it? I have not been able to find anything after a pretty thorough search. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi
You probably know by now but there is a very nice little program called CAT(Conditional Animation Tool). I have created moving hanger doors for hangers in FS2004 and FSX. I am using FSDS ver 3 to make the hangers. This program is available on FSInsider and it is freeware.

 

[arno]

Hi,

CAT is available here in the downloads section, I don't think MS put my tool on FSInsider as well .

The only limitation is that CAT works with FS2004 MDL files, so it won't work if you export as FSX MDL from FSDS.

 

[John Auger]

Animated hanger doors

Hi,

I am trying to make my own version of animated hanger doors like the ones available on most download sites. I have followed the tutorials for animating and have the hierarchy and keyframes set as described in the tutorials. When I try to create a scenery model with FSDS v3.5.1, the only .asm files generated are called temp.asm and temp_0.asm in the main directory of the program. So I take that temp.asm and use CAT to set a conditional trigger to activate the doors but nothing happens. The model shows up as designed, just no animation. I am also fairly sure that I have made the proper settings in CAT according to the video and PDF tutorials, which are very clear and concise.

I have checked and double checked the heirarchy and when I run the animation mode in FSDS and shift thru the keyframes the parts move the way I want them to. I just can't seem to get the animation to trigger. I would like to make a model native for FSX Accel, but I see from this forum that this is not possible at this time with this program, so I am trying to make it work in FS9 and see if it also works in FSX like some of the other freeware animated hanger doors on the popular download sites.

I have been making things with FSDS for a while but I simply can't get my scenery objects to animate on command. I also had to add scenery keyframe animation into my "partnames.txt" file as described in a different thread, so I could use "tick18" after trying to get "ambient" to work failed as a part name.

Please, any advice would be helpful and a big thanks to all who help others out here on this forum to create a better FS world!

Cheers!

 

[arno]

Hi,

Did you test if your animation works before you use CAT on the object? It is always good to first verify if the animation is working, although it will run endlessly.

If that is OK, which trigger did you use in CAT?

 

[John Auger]

Thanks Arno for such a quick reply! I have not tested to run endlessly, would I do that by making a scenery .bgl instead of .mdl in FSDS? I have tried triggering with nav 2 freq and oversized bounding box in CAT. Thanks for your help with this, scenery is so much better when it comes "to life"....

Cheers!


Edit: I did exactly that, created a scenery .bgl in a specified location and the animation is working. But I'm not sure if I have to adjust keyframes because it animates from closed to open but then to fully closed without animating closing. According to the tutorials for animating the doors I thought that it would close slowly. This is not a problem for me to fix, as long as I can make it trigger.

For further info on how I am trying to place this object, I use FSDS 3.5.1 to create the .mdl, use CAT to set the trigger, and then I use Instant scenery 1.04 to create the library object and place it. Thanks again!

 

[arno]

Hi,

I did exactly that, created a scenery .bgl in a specified location and the animation is working. But I'm not sure if I have to adjust keyframes because it animates from closed to open but then to fully closed without animating closing.

By default you animate only one direction of the animation. So if you test the object without using CAT it is normal that the animation will jump directly from the end to the start again. CAT will add the code for the reverse animation for you.

Since your animation seems OK, I guess it could be the trigger and/or bounding box that you use. Did you try without the bounding box to just test it with the trigger?

Also, are you sure that you use the new MDL file that CAT has created for you?

 

[John Auger]

Hi Arno,

Yes, that is the way I thought the animation worked.

Yes, I meant I have tried both nav 2 and bounding box triggers individually with no action on either.

Yes, I even left the _cat part on the name for the .mdl generated by CAT.

Since the only .asm I can find is called temp.asm (and temp_0 which I know not to use)in the root folder of fsds, it is the one I use as the source file for CAT and when I run the mouse over it in that window of cat I do see the anim tables with 1024 for both moving objects.

I have tried to do all the things described in the tutorials with no luck before posting here and I'm at a loss why it's still not working. Is it possible its happening in the way I create the library.bgl? As I said before , I use instant scenery and the library generation program it comes with and when I compile I don't get any errors. Also, I'm still trying to just make this work at this point so I don't even have any textures on the object if that could be an issue. Thanks again for your help and patience with me, I hope I can find out what silly thing I am doing wrong...

 

[arno]

Hi,

Maybe you can send me your ASM files? Then I can check if I can reproduce your problem.

 

[John Auger]

Aha! I see now at the bottem how I can attach my .asm files, does not seem available in private message. I have included my source.asm, my cat.asm and the .mdl file generated by cat.

Have a look and let me know what you think, Thanks again!

 

[arno]

Hi,

Sorry, my question was not clear I think. All the interesting information is in the _0.asm files, could you post them as well?

 

[Bigbjason]

Here is a wiki article on hanger door animation with FSDS: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Door_animation_with_FSDS
Says it only work with FS2004. Not sure if it will also work with FSXA.

 

[John Auger]

Hi,

Sorry, my question was not clear I think. All the interesting information is in the _0.asm files, could you post them as well?

Whoops, sorry I missed that, files added to original .asm post... both temp_0 and temp_cat_0

 

[John Auger]

Here is a wiki article on hanger door animation with FSDS: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Door_animation_with_FSDS
Says it only work with FS2004. Not sure if it will also work with FSXA.

Yes, I have that very same tutorial on .pdf, thanks for that heads up tho BigB. Also I don't think that tutorial mentions the importance of axis alignment orientation for the moving parts, but a well written article just the same.


Cheers!

 

[arno]

Hi,

If I look at your code it seems the part that should switch the different animation states is missing. That would explain why nothing works.

I'll have to take a look in the CAT code to see why this part is not written for your ASM file. Maybe FSDS uses slightly different naming or so.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I think I found the problem. It seems the label at the start of your object is called:

_temp_WORLD__FRM_1

CAT looks for labels that contain:

MasterScale_1
RotateAroundX_1

That is why the animation trigger is not written and the animation does not work.

It should work if you update the ASM and run CAT again. If you have trouble with that, let me know and I can help.

A better solution would be to update CAT, but it is years ago that I compiled that tool, not sure if I can get the development environment running again.

 

[John Auger]

Thanks Arno, will give it a try.


I found the section in the temp_0.asm file you refer to, so I should replace that label text "_temp_WORLD__FRM_"
with "MasterScale_1" and run Cat again? I want to make sure because at the header it says to not edit by hand, that it was made using the temp.x file. I'll let you know if it works! Thanks again for your help and understanding!


Cheers!

 

[arno]

Hi,

Yes, you need to change the label (so the line with label word at the end), but also the BGL_CALL_32 command that has the label as destination.

 

[John Auger]

Well I replaced the world_frm label with Masterscale_1 and that didnt work. Also RotatearoundX_1, but it doesn't work either, is there something else I can try?

Here's my current .asm files if you can spot what mistake I am still making.



Thanks again!