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FSX Designers Assistance

tgycgijoes

tgycgijoes

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us-northcarolina
I would like to modify Paul Clawson's Curtiss SOC Seagull floatplane to its land version. The actual aircraft had removeable floats and attachable landing gear so that the pilots could continue to fly when the battleship or cruiser was in port for an extended period. I tried once but miserably failed. Paul created both the Seagull and the Sparrowhawk which HAS the exact wheels needed and his readme says we can do this as long as it is freeware and not for profit. Would someone be willing to help do this? I have wanted to do this for a few years. I was able to modify the cockpit in the Vultee BT-13 and share it with his written permission back in 2014. I know xml 2D gauges but sadly not FSDS or GMAX. Even though I tried.
 
I am not looking for all the work but there is NO tutorials for what I need to do with this. I was able to successfully remove the landing gear from the Sparrowhawk in MDCx a bit ago and saved it as an MDL. I have merged MDLs in MDCx very successfully like adding a top machinegun to the Seagull which was an in-theatre mod in WWII. It even works in TACPAC. OK? I CAN do a lot of stuff but this program just boggles me. I don't find it user-friendly at all. I have by muddling with it seen how to isolate the parts I want to remove and it is sitting there right now, BUT the main float and the fuselage are both isolated and obviously I don't want to remove the fuselage. It does the same thing in object heirachy in MDCx or I could have done this there. So I went to GMAX and now I am stuck I can't select just the float and leave the fuselage. Likewise, the wing floats and all the appendages are a part as well and can't be separated at least I can't find out how to do it. Then I pray I don't lose all the animation when I DO figure this out and export the model to fsx. This is why I asked for the help above PLEASE!!!!! Hey after a couple more hours of click this and click that I was able to remove just the floats on the wings and the big center float. Now its ready. Or is it? I exported it and it shows up in MDCx beautifully but there's one thing wrong, there's NO ANIMATION!
 
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Well, I spent the afternoon on Google to discover that exporting to 3DS so that you can open it in GMAX does not export any animations. That was after I spent a couple hours removing successfully I might add the floats and saving a model ready for the landing gear to be attached in MDCx. Now all I need is animation. Another hour spent searching and did find how to animate parts in FSX Animation in GMAX. Or so I thought. I followed the instructions but after 3 exports, there is STILL no animation when its opened up in MDCx. I need an expert to load it in GMAX and animate the parts please. It looks like every thing works but it doesn't. I feel that I did my part to try and do it myself having spent all day on it. Somebody.......
 
Hello TG

Have you read the FSX SDK? If you haven't, that's the first place to go. After a few days of reading, you need to complete the FSX game pack installation:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forums/fsx-p3d-sdk-installation.111/

After carefully reading both things, you'll have another task to do: you will need to identify the correct part names depending on the animations you want to add: (I.e. opening doors, flaps, landing gear levers, etc.)
Also, in the "search" field, type "FSX animations" and read a bit more.

Our dear friend Milton Shupe, have created a play list on how you can get familiar with overall Gmax procedures to create and export fixed wing aircrafts for FS9 (aka FS2004). Once you have a first glance of what Gmax can and cannot do,
he explains the way to migrate the modeled aircraft to FSX. I really recomend to follow his videos:
https://www.youtube.com/user/IFRfun/videos

Addendum:
Quote " I need an expert to load it in GMAX and animate the parts please."
When you ask that kind of things, I really doubt that anyone will be eager to do that for you. consider this website a self helping place where someone really interested to learn, have the material and the right experts to answer questions.
Try the best you can and show more effort in the tasks at hand. It takes time to learn the correct things to achieve goals.

As a final note, have you Paul Clawson's permission to even try to mess with his model???

You will need patience and aquire some practice to achieve what you need.
Sergio.
 
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antaris said:
Hello TG

Have you read the FSX SDK? If you haven't, that's the first place to go. After a few days of reading, you need to complete the FSX game pack installation:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forums/fsx-p3d-sdk-installation.111/

After carefully reading both things, you'll have another task to do: you will need to identify the correct part names depending on the animations you want to add: (I.e. opening doors, flaps, landing gear levers, etc.)
Also, in the "search" field, type "FSX animations" and read a bit more.

Our dear friend Milton Shupe, have created a play list on how you can get familiar with overall Gmax procedures to create and export fixed wing aircrafts for FS9 (aka FS2004). Once you have a first glance of what Gmax can and cannot do,
he explains the way to migrate the modeled aircraft to FSX. I really recomend to follow his videos:
https://www.youtube.com/user/IFRfun/videos

Addendum:
Quote " I need an expert to load it in GMAX and animate the parts please."
When you ask that kind of things, I really doubt that anyone will be eager to do that for you. consider this website a self helping place where someone really interested to learn, have the material and the right experts to answer questions.
Try the best you can and show more effort in the tasks at hand. It takes time to learn the correct things to achieve goals.

As a final note, have you Paul Clawson's permission to even try to mess with his model???

You will need patience and aquire some practice to achieve what you need.
Sergio.
Click to expand...
Yes I have Paul's permission when I first wanted to do this years ago, before he passed away and it is all done with assistance elsewhere. Thank you for your reply. GMAX is NOT the way to go but Blender in order to be able to properly animate the finished model.
 
Hi.
Just in line with what Sergio (antaris) said, would you believe me if I say "doing the actual animations of all the parts in GMax is just 10% of the job" ?
^^ just like so many other queries to model, animate or create virtual cockpit here (and elsewhere), askers naively think of the challenge of just doing the thing (animation) and oversee the all other concerns around (the other 90%).

If you're willing to learn more, I can elaborate :) I just don't do it right now as that would pass as a lecture, which is not my intended aim. The explanation is like a 10 paragraph roman, most people aint have the time and the motives to write such details, and even less the time to read. But if - and only if - that would help understand what asking for modeling or animating is about, I'm willing to share it.
 
Thank you for your time and your offer. The project has been completed and I am not doing any more in GMAX. I am going back to scenery which I know much more about.
 
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