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Blender to FSX Toolset

Hi there,

Short status update: Just did a rough export with 0703 of my T.5 to FSX: exports nicely. Gonna check the skinned animations now. Skinned objects are exported fine btw. It takes long to export though, while the tricount isn't even close to my D.21. Guess it's the same as the issue I earlier had, so don't worry yet about that.
 
Hi Daan,

I think there is an issue with the "bmesh" module in 2.72 (that is the module that performs triangulation of the mesh before export). I took a look at the .x files and noticed that the meshes are blown up with unnecessary vertices. The tricount is approx 5 to 6 times higher than it should be. I suppose the longer export times are due to this. Will have to investigate the issue further...

Thanks for reporting. :)
 
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Thanks Felix for the feedback! I've ran into this problem earlier, but then it was solved by creating an entirely new file and appending all objects from the old file. Worked too now. So we have a workaround now AFAIK.
Skinned mesh animations exports not very well. Animations are exported (but not all, my cowl flaps didn't work), but really make no sense. Mind that I used my T.5 landing gear for this test, which is crowded with bone constraints. Don't worry yet, I'll do some better tests today ;)
 
Hi Daan,
be careful with constrained animations. What you see in Blender is sometimes different from what you get in the sim. This is due to:
  1. Using the Track To constraint with an inconsistent UP axis. Solution: Try using "Target Z" and place an empty as the target, so that you can orient its Z-axis freely.
  2. Using interlocked constraints: One object tracks another which in turn tracks the first object. This makes for some jittery animations. Solution: Place an empty as a child of the second object and let the first object track the empty.
Although I have tested the tool set with the Track To and Locked Track constraint, I cannot guarantee that the above will solve your issue. In that case, you can always fall back to baking the animations into the bones. If that doesn't help either, I will need a closer description of the issue to reproduce it.

Regards :)
 
Hello everyone!

I hold a private pilot license in Switzerland ... And for years, I have become virtual driver for lack of economic means to fly real planes! After reading and traveled many forums (especially this one ...) I began to create in Blender, encouraged by the arrival of Blender2FSX.

I installed Blender 2.72 and 0.7 Blender2FSX under windows7 64 bits. I managed to export my .x file .xanim and .mdl via the Tool Blender2FSX program. My plane looks good (monochrome because of specific texture for the moment). But impossible to run the animations ... !!!

In Blender everything works normally: the FSX animations Tags are correct, scales 1: 1: 1 :, but in FSX nothing moves! He seems me to have followed step by step tutorials of Krispy1001, and I must have missed something ... but what? After a week of searching, unsuccessfully, could someone help me?

Still a huge thank you for your amazing work ...

Chris
 
Chrismot said:
Hello everyone!

I hold a private pilot license in Switzerland ... And for years, I have become virtual driver for lack of economic means to fly real planes! After reading and traveled many forums (especially this one ...) I began to create in Blender, encouraged by the arrival of Blender2FSX.

I installed Blender 2.72 and 0.7 Blender2FSX under windows7 64 bits. I managed to export my .x file .xanim and .mdl via the Tool Blender2FSX program. My plane looks good (monochrome because of specific texture for the moment). But impossible to run the animations ... !!!

In Blender everything works normally: the FSX animations Tags are correct, scales 1: 1: 1 :, but in FSX nothing moves! He seems me to have followed step by step tutorials of Krispy1001, and I must have missed something ... but what? After a week of searching, unsuccessfully, could someone help me?

Still a huge thank you for your amazing work ...

Chris
Click to expand...

Hi Chris!

What items are you working on for animations?
Did you make sure to set the animation current position to 0?

For a simple test to make sure that it is not your system. If you can make a new Blender file, make a simple cube. Make it look something like a wing. Then make another cube, like a flap and animate it. Send the file to me and I will test the animations on my system. If they work on my system in FSX then there could be something wrong with your installation of the software.

Here is an example of what I mean:
animation_help1.png


Thanks, Krispy1001:)
 
Hi... y thank you!
I guess so ...!? But what parameters exactly ...? I am sending a picture of my windows in Blender ...

A huge thank you for the quick response ...!

Chris


view
[/url][/IMG]
 
I have been trying to think of things that would make the animation not work in FSX. I can not think of anything except, the animation tag was not applied to the object being animated. If it was an issue with scaling, the animations would still operate they would just be distorted. So I would go back and make sure that your animation tags are really applied to the objects in question.

Here is an example what to look for:
blender_fsx_animation_tag1.png


Sorry, Chris I do not think that your image was attached to your reply. I can not see your image!

Thanks, Kris:)
 
A huge thank you to all for your answers!

I will continue reinstalling everything, and also testing on my other system. In any case, thank you again for the tremendous effort made to make our job easier! All of your work and your advices to encourage the creation of our favorits simulators.

Chris
 
On my second computer everything works perfectly ...! Despite a complete reinstall of the SDK, the Tool Blender2FSX and Blender 2.72 on my first PC, and after cleaning the registry, the problem persists !!! Impossible to know why ... But I made so many trials and modifications on that PC that it had to happen!

Will I have to reinstall the whole of my favorit PC, or you all champions, are you going to give me a track to avoid me what hard work after a full format ...?

I must say that on my buged system, simply put on an object TAG Animation is going very well in Blender (all OK...), but when export, the object with TAG moves always to the center of the parent object ... !! ??

Again thank you for your wonderful job

Chris
 
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Hi Chris and welcome!

Chrismot said:
I must say that on my buged system, simply put on an object TAG Animation is going very well in Blender (all OK...), but when export, the object with TAG moves always to the center of the parent object ... !! ??
Click to expand...

The behavior you describe here seems a little odd... Are these normally animated objects or are these skinned meshes (with bones)? And this only happens on your first computer. On the second computer, everything is fine? :scratchch Would you mind sending me a file to have a look at all this?
 
Hi Felix and thank you for your reply and your interest!

In fact, on my machine with "bug" when I use the command line "XtoMdl / XAnim /DICT:..\..\bin\modeldef.xml filename.x" in the correct directory (SDK\Modeling SDK\3DSM7\Plugins folder) in which I copied the Blender .x files and .xanim, everything is running perfectly and my .mdl file is usable and fully functional ...!

File Blender .x and .xanim are correct. Only the .mdl file is incorrect if created by Blender2FSX. I thought the paths of the registry keys were wrong, but that's not the case! I do not understand what's going on ...
 
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Chrismot said:
File Blender .x and .xanim are correct. Only the .mdl file is incorrect if created by Blender2FSX.
Click to expand...

By "incorrect" you mean the animations are not working. ok. So no animations at all... Could you do something for me: In Blender, go to Window > Toggle system console. In the console window that opens, when you export your model with "Export MDL" checked, you should be able to see the output of XToMdl (same as when using the command line tool directly). Does it read "processing animation ..." at the end of that output?
 
Here is a picture that I get as information after performing an export. I see nothing on "processing animation" ...! But .mdl file exists without animations, but with the objects moved (not like in Blender)...

Blender.jpg
 
Felix...

I just found the problem: my folder for the files .blend, .x, .xanim and .mdl contained an accented letter ("é") ...! I corrected, and it works ... !!!

Sorry for being so careless with a recommendation that I have yet read ... And thank you for the help

Chris
 
Chrismot said:
Felix...

I just found the problem: my folder for the files .blend, .x, .xanim and .mdl contained an accented letter ("é") ...! I corrected, and it works ... !!!

Sorry for being so careless with a recommendation that I have yet read ... And thank you for the help

Chris
Click to expand...
Glad to hear it's working :D Indeed, special characters are a pain sometimes. And it's always just one little thing that takes ages to find out.

Thanks and take care:)

edit. Wiki has been amended to warn about using special characters in file and folder names.
 
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