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Swinging, wobbling objects: how?

pierrot

pierrot

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france
Hi all,

Still working on marine objects. Now that I have modelled sea buoys, I find they are too static.
In our simulators, buoys gently dance and swing along with the sea surface.

In examining in MCX the stock models (gen_buoy_01red and _02green) I can see "platforms" attached to their bases. They are visible, but with no parameters displayed.

Are these "platforms" made of "plank" related to their slow motion up and down and rolling?
And if yes, how could I do the same with my own buoys?

buoy.jpg

buoy.jpg
 
The buoy is animated, it is entirely unrelated to the attached object. Open the animation editor and you will see 10 ambient animations comprised of 160 frames, click the "select none" button. Next advance the animation to frame 80, then check and then uncheck each box sequentially and watch the model. You will see there are two animations, one for the bobbing, or vertical displacement and one for the pitch or tilt.
MCX can't make key frame animations, I use FS Design Studio to make similar animations, like waving flags.
 
Ah yes Rick, got it. Thanks.

Out of these 10 animations, only #7 and #8 are moving the buoy, others seem to have no effect at all.
So if I "fix" (? = delete) these, I am left with the 2 active ones. OK.

Now, is it a way to clone these animations into another model? A way to export them to be re-used elsewhere?
Or no other way than creating new ones from scratch?
 
In this instance you would have to consider animation to be a polygon attribute, like color or texture assignment. Key frame animations are created by positioning a model component in several sequential moments - consider four positions of a tire that rotates - and then "capturing" those key frames; the graphics engine will "tween" those four key frames into 100 frames (or more) to provide the illusion of fluid motion. (MCX, by the way, has to do it's own tweening and often the two engines interpret the animation differently, for that reason one should not test animations with MCX only. I once developed a "perfect" wig-wag for MCX, flashing one side and then the other; only to find that FSX decided to make the illumination swing smoothly back and forth between the lamps, like a railroad crossing, or two kids tossing a ball!)
Animations are somewhat ephemeral and become lost without the specific assigned geometry to animate. They are the most fragile model attribute and when the model becomes distressed, or almost too big to compile; the animations are the first thing to be stripped. Next go the texture assignments, but that is probably another topic..
 
Yes, I could try and do that in Gmax, but my natural laziness drives me to look for a smart way to re-use something already made ;)
 
Your natural smartness will allow you to quickly master key frame animations so your laziness can rejoice for not having to mess with other peoples' inadequate animations, imo.
 
You're very kind but not so far from truth, after all.

Because I tried (in Gmax) linking 3 dummy boxes, one moving up and down, a second one tilting, a third one banking, and linked #3 to #2 to #1.
Then imported a 3DS export of my buoy MDL from MCX, and linked the imported buoy to dummy box #3... and tadaaa: it moves.

Will need a bit of tweaking, though, because the movement is a bit harsh, not the smooth one I want. But I've understood the mechanism i think.

Thanks for supporting, Rick ;)
 
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