FSX Aircraft Animations Function, but only from one angle

[copilot8]

Hello peoples from the internet!
I was just (actually hours ago) on my way to animate my plane in gmax after exporting all the necessary files from Maya, which I use for the modeling and UV mapping.

This is the second plane I have tried transmuting into FSX all the way from Maya, and the other plane (a smaller SAAB 340) worked without major issue

I started with the nose gear, set it up and exported it (piggybacking on files for the POSKY A340), and found that the gear did not appear in the little window where the plane spins around, strange...

Then I put it in the sim and encountered that the gear was not moving at all, and in frustration decided to return to gmax and reset the animation c_gear and try again, no bacon.

I figured that it may just be the gear, considering it was a complex object, so I tried doing wingflex for the first time (and in the meantime discovered what linking does) but Nothing was happening!

I went back and kept changing little things and exporting, and after animating the elevators I discovered that the animations were in fact there, but I could only observe them from strange angles.

I digged around (even trying a bounding box(I dont even know if that would have worked for an aircraft) - didnt work) and figured that It was perhaps a problem with certain animations, so I went in and repeatedly removed certain objects from the aircraft until, all of a sudden it was in the sim just fine!

It gets even weirder- all the parts I had to remove were in the tailplane, so I tried exporting with the faces behind a certain point removed, and it worked! Unfortunetly, when I tried to move the aircraft foreward along the axis beyond that point it did not solve the problem.
Aircraft in GMAX:

Aircraft in the selection screen:

No animations from this angle:

Animations work from this angle:

Animations from any angle, with tail removed:

Any Ideas as to why and how I could fix this?
Would being an export from maya have any effect?


Side question:
If say I have the wingflex going the wrong way, like it goes up when it should go down, is there an easy way to have it play backwards per say without spinning in the wrong direction?

 

[hairyspin]

Have you tagged your animations using the Animation Manager for FSX in Gmax? For some details on FSX animations in Gmax, see this thread at Sim Outhouse

 

[copilot8]

Have you tagged your animations using the Animation Manager for FSX in Gmax? For some details on FSX animations in Gmax, see this thread at Sim Outhouse

Very useful link, thanks
I think I did tag it correctly. So I highlighted say the nose gear, opened the manager, hit Update sel, set the start to 0 and the end to 200, and hit create.
(I mean, in sim when I hit G the nose gear comes down as it should, but only from certain angles is it observable)

 

[Zeiten]

And what happens if you shift view during the animation?
Does it "pop" back to it's original position or does it just disappear?

 

[hairyspin]

Hmm. If the geometry is not showing correctly from all angles then I'd suggest the geometry has problems, not the animation. The nose gear doors don't appear consistent in your screenshots.

 

[Zeiten]

Who knows, can be the famous non linear animation controller.

 

[copilot8]

And what happens if you shift view during the animation?
Does it "pop" back to it's original position or does it just disappear?

If I shift my view to just the perfect angle all animation applied will move as intended, fluidly even. If I move my view around randomly it will appear to pop into position, It only disappears in the selection screen, funnily enough. If i shift my view without going through the 'zone where everything works' nothing happens. I can take a video if it would help.

Hmm. If the geometry is not showing correctly from all angles then I'd suggest the geometry has problems, not the animation. The nose gear doors don't appear consistent in your screenshots.

I think that might have something to do with it, but the reason for the inconstancy is that I was trying to capture the motion of the gear as it would freeze in the third picture in that position until I moved the view into the second position, where it will in fact function as intended. In the fifth picture, with the geometry in the rear removed, the gear moved just fine. (that's what i was trying to show, sorry for any confusion)
In regards to geometry, I exported from Maya using many individual wavefront .obj files, and import them straight in gmax (using a plugin). It hasn't caused any trouble as of yet.

Who knows, can be the famous non linear animation controller.

Do explain (Im a bit of a newbie with Gmax and the like)

 

[hairyspin]

Linear animations are referred to in that link on FSX animations, but here's a direct link.

 

[Zeiten]

Motion panel -> assign controller -> set rotation, scale and position to linear.

 

[copilot8]

Alright so I reset all the animated parts to linear but nothing changed unfortunately.
Also retried exporting the smaller SAAB, and it appears that the infection has spread (but on that aircraft, since it was smaller, it had a larger 'zone where everything works; and I may not have noticed the freezing animations before)
Of course here is the 2d, fully sound-free motion-packed virtual experience of this.

 

[copilot8]

More discoveries: Removing the tail section simply decreases the FOV and therefore has the camera enter the 'zone where everything works'. Changing perspective to say the tower incurs the frozen animation issue