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Simple elevator-animation...

M

mechiil

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8
Country
germany
Hi, after a lot of frustrating hours trying to get my animations from an airplane to fsx...

The first step i wanna do is to animate the elevators. My airplane-model works fine in fsx.

I modeled a boeing... copied the existing b747-400-files for the base (cfg-files etc), deleted the textures and mdl and put my mdl and texture-files in the folder. I changed the fltsim.0 and the general-sections in the aircraft.cfg. When i start fsx i can select and fly my model.

Now i wanted to add some animations. Like described in the sdk & example, i keyframed the rotation (0=down, 50=neutral, 100=up) of the elevators and used the animationmanager to tag them with the elevator_percent_key. Then i exported x-file+xanim and created the mdl-file(including the animation).

Back in fsx... loading the model.
1.problem: The positions of the elevators in the preview are somewhere in the fuselage (i guess pos 0,0,0).
2.problem: Flying in a scenery, the elevators are positioned correct, but they are rotated fully down(=frame0) and there is no animation.

Maybe there could be a problem with:
- objectnames? The names of my elevators are elevator_01 and elevator_02. Are there nameconventions?
- scene-hierarchy? My hierarchy is very simple. rootnode -> lodnode -> objects
- sth in the config-file? I've heard about gear-deactivation via config-file?

I hope you can give me some hints?
Tya :)
Michi
 
Did you ever scale or mirror the elevators during creation? Sounds like you might have and not use the xform modifier. Is the pivot point correctly located at the elevator hing point? Can you scrub the animation in Max and see it work properly?

On the Hyarchy Panel there is a "reset" button, try using that and see if that helps. You might just have to re-create the elevators.
 
Hi,

thanks for your hints.

The elevators are textured.
The pivots are correct, the animation in max is ok.

I used the reset-xform... same failures.
I deleted the elevators and created 2 boxes as test-elevators, textured them, linked them to the lod-dummy, animated them, assigned the tag.... export etc... same problems.

I attached an image of my scenetree (hierarchy+names). Maybe there is a problem?

Using the verify-tool of the Export-Tool gives me some errors:
- broken hierarchy
root node not named correctly
lod name does not match filename
- broken scale parts
elevator_l_01 has a scale of (1,1,1)
- colocated vertices (a lot)
- potential shadow volume issues (3 objects)
- open edges (some objects)

Is this very important to fix these "failures"?

Tya, Michi
 

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mechiil said:
I attached an image of my scenetree (hierarchy+names). Maybe there is a problem?

Using the verify-tool of the Export-Tool gives me some errors:
- broken hierarchy
root node not named correctly
lod name does not match filename
- broken scale parts
elevator_l_01 has a scale of (1,1,1)
- colocated vertices (a lot)
- potential shadow volume issues (3 objects)
- open edges (some objects)

Is this very important to fix these "failures"?
Click to expand...

Only if you want it to work. :)

First, you must correct the model and endevor to keep it "clean". You must always be careful not to indroduce extra verts or other model errors, as once you have them finding them can be difficult. The best way to find them is compile one part at a time and test it. Fix the errors in it till you have none, then move on to the next part with errors. You should work in Poly mode, not Mesh mode. Mesh mode is really only there for backwards compatibility, and you should use Poly mode for new meshes. That mode will help you avoid these types of errors.

- colocated vertices (a lot)

This means that you have two (or more) verts at nearly the same (colocated) place which are not welded together to be one. This typically happens when you delete something without deleting isolated verts, or when you perform a boolean with the wrong settings and then fail to weld verts. If a part is large, you can set a small weld radius and then just select all verts and press weld in the vert sub-object mode.

- open edges (some objects)

Figure out which object(s) have this problem as above. Likely, this is where you have to colinear edges which are no one as they should be, due again to unwelded verts. So, fix the verts first.

You either have ALL the LODs, or none. Really they are only necessary for scenery, aircraft which are going to be flown multiplayer, or aircraft which will also be used as AI aircraft. You might want to start without them.

-broken scale parts

I have never run into this one, but you should not need to scale your elevator. If you do, ONLY do it with xform. Again, correct the vert problem first.

Make sure you setup the aircraft with a friendly name etc. using the tool in the SDK, and re-read those procedures. That may fix your problem.
 
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