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Experiences with FS2004 aircraft import/export

Arno,
Apologies for keeping going back to the Andover but I have found not a fix but more of a way around the issue.
What I found is that if I commented out the prop0_still and prop1_still lines under [FS2004_AUTOMATIC] in the animation_mapping.ini file the problem goes away.

So the issue is definitely in the conversion mechanism but I am wary of constantly modifying .ini files according to whatever I am working on.

Does this help narrow down where the issue is?
 
Hi Steve,

This one is still on my to check list indeed. Weird that removing it from the FS2004_AUTOMATIC section works, as for the slow and blurred props the same logic works. Must have something to do with the structure of the model.
 
Not a problem.
I keep digging away at these things because you more you do the more you learn, rather than some assumption that you have forgotten about it.

I mentioned what I found because over the decades in IT support you recognise when a piece of info is the key to unlocking some answer to the problem.

You are correct in remembering that it is an FSX to FS9 conversion.

I agree totally with you that it is weird. It doesn't make sense why it would work which is probably why I hadn't tried it before.
In the last year the same modeller has released 4x prop jobs. The Andover and the Mosquito have the same problem. The Spitfire and the Lancaster do not.
I am not inclined to think that it only affects twin engine props. I just can't see how that could be.

The XML for each of his model has each still prop part referencing a an earlier defined prop_anim part.
So that on it's own would make me think that this is the problem IF the still, slow and blurred all acted the same. Or indeed if the still props acted the same on each of the aircraft.

This makes me think that it is something obscure that is causing it but I still can't think how seemingly only 2x prop aircraft are affected.

Let me know if you need anything from me.
 
Gents,
I was going to create another thread about an issue I found but after I checked something I think it may actually be an MCX issue.

OK so the aircraft in question is an FSX model, the IL-38 that I mentioned before.
Now the issue is that after converting to FS9 and looking in game it seems that I missed something earlier. The animation for the nose wheels rotate in the wrong direction, i.e. clockwise rather than anti-clockwise.
All of the wheels from the left and right main gear work correctly.

Has anybody come across this before? If so, how do you fix it?

I tried the obvious things (reversing the animation, copying the animation from the left and right wheels) and even tried the altering the c_tire_blurred parm in the animation_mapping.ini. I tried both commenting out the line and even altering it to -1,0,0 .

So before I posted here I thought best to check the model in FSX, as somebody would ask, and the wheels rotate correctly. Hence why I think it maybe an MCX conversion related issue.

Any idea why this is happening?

I fully realise that I maybe be missing something obvious. If so I apologize and could somebody point my error out to me please.
 
Hi,

If you import the FSX model into MCX the animation does still look right?

On export to FS2004 MCX does some logic to ensure the right axes are used, as this is an animation type that is automatically generated by makemdl. It sounds like something went wrong there. But you already tried to alter the axis in the ini file and that made no difference either.

Did you post the model before? Then I can add it to the todo list.
 
Yes I did post a link it's back on page 5 of this thread dated 9th Jan.

I guess really there are two separate but linked questions.
1. Why is it not being converted properly?
2. If the conversion goes wrong how do you get around it and reverse the animation?

I guess the reason that it took so long to see the issue is that tires spinning is an animation you can't see in MCX itself. Or can you?
 
Yes, you should be able to see the wheel rotation In MCX.

You could try to reverse the animation in the FS9 converted model and reexport it?
 
Hi Tom,
I did try to mod it in both the FSX and the FS9 models but nothing worked for me. Of course, that doesn't rule out that I was doing something fundamentally wrong.

Can I ask how you can get to see the wheel animation? If you move the slider then the whole nose leg retracts as well and I don't don't see any wheel rotation.
Again, apologies if I am lacking some knowledge.

One other piece of info regarding the conversion in the FSX original it has 2x c_tire_blurred_key MPs both with animation length of 100. After the conversion there seems to be 3x MPs for the tires. One is duplicated and all three have the animation length set to 0. With that, if anything, I would expect there to be no rotation at all.

I then had a horrible thought and checked my F-16 conversions. They were OK. The 2 differences there are that the F-16 only has one nose wheel and that the original was compiled in P3D. I don't know if either of those things are a factor.

It is so weird.
 
The animation length of 0 is a common thing I see, but it doesn’t seem to affect the animation in the sim. It is odd though.

The easiest ways to see the wheel rotations in MCX are to switch to wireframe view mode, or load a version that has no textures (I rename the texture= line in the aircraft.cfg file) to get checkerboards and then watch it.

I posted a Comet above that is also having trouble with nose wheel rotation (it won’t rotate) and nothing I do changes that either. I also saw a duplicated part a while ago but Arno has fixed that one, as I remember.
 
Thanks for the post, Tom.
I had been using the wireframe option but did not pick anything up in that, With the textures removed I did pick up a barely perceptible clockwise rotation as the gear extends and anti-clockwise rotation for the main gear.
So that is useful info for the future.

I think that I will just have to wait until these things get to the top of Arno's never-ending list.

Some of these little things, like the Andover props, are obviously not going to be easy to fix because they don't seem to fall in a broad pattern of occurrence.
 
Another way to see a specific animation is to go to the animation editor and unselect all animations there except the one you want to see. Now the slider only controls that animation.

I have moved this issue up the list a bit (although there are some items I'm working on already that I plan to finish first).
 
Thanks for the response Arno.
The trouble with tire animations is that the first thing that happens is that they start retracted. Depending upon the model it can be difficult to see the animation in wireframe mode. I could see some movement but it wasn't clear.
Not a lot anybody can do about that. Tom's tip about the checkerboard turned out to be the most useful this time.

Appreciate it being moved up the list but I am conscious that you have to have a structure about what gets your priorities. I am also aware that if more pressing issues come up then it will unfortunately slide down the list again.

If you need anything let me know.
 
Hi,

I had a look at the nose wheel tire of the Il-18 now and it is indeed a bug in MCX. The algorithm that makes sure that the orientation is correct for the automatic animations does not work in this specific condition. I'l try to update the algorithm.
 
Excellent news. I hope it didn't take you too long to find it, and hope it won't take too long to fix either.

If you don't mind me asking what was it about the wheels on this model that made it fall outside of the algorithm?
 
Firebird said:
If you don't mind me asking what was it about the wheels on this model that made it fall outside of the algorithm?
Click to expand...
I have an algorithm that calculates the translation that is needed to go from one axis of rotation to the one used by MakeMDL (those are listed in the INI file). There is on situation where this algorithm doesn't work and that is when the two axis are opposite (e.g. 1,0,0 and -1,0,0). When implementing it I already thought this is something I would have to check, but I also thought this situation would not happen that often. That was wrong, as that is exactly what this nose tire does :)
 
Interesting. Thanks for that.
If you don't mind I do have a couple of follow up questions.
Firstly, why did it go wrong only with the C_tires? As far as I can see the L_tire and R_tire anims seem to be the same.

Secondly, is it likely to be a similar thing that is causing the issue with the still props on the twin-engined models? I know that it is different because at least for that one I could comment out the parm in the ini file.

Now if you want to answer me here, great, if you want to answer me directly to keep the thread relatively clean, that is fine. If you wish to tell me to go away and stop being annoying. that is OK too.:)

It is a side effect of those decades of systems analysis, the need to know the ins and outs of a Duck's behind is overwhelming sometimes.:D
 
Firebird said:
Firstly, why did it go wrong only with the C_tires? As far as I can see the L_tire and R_tire anims seem to be the same.
Click to expand...
No, they rotate around the opposite axis already and therefore don't need the correction to be applied.
Firebird said:
Secondly, is it likely to be a similar thing that is causing the issue with the still props on the twin-engined models? I know that it is different because at least for that one I could comment out the parm in the ini file.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure, this could affect props that rotate on the wrong axis. But I don't suspect it relates to static props (although you can never be sure with bugs).
Firebird said:
Now if you want to answer me here, great, if you want to answer me directly to keep the thread relatively clean, that is fine. If you wish to tell me to go away and stop being annoying. that is OK too.:)
Click to expand...
No problem to ask. And this thread it jumping around different topics (although related ones) already, so this additional discussion doesn't matter.
Firebird said:
It is a side effect of those decades of systems analysis, the need to know the ins and outs of a Duck's behind is overwhelming sometimes.:D
Click to expand...
Fully understand, I usually also want to understand why something works the way it works and what's behind it. That's also way debugging such issues is so much fun.
 
Hi,

The fix I made for this bug seems to work, so I will include it in the next development release I will push online. Probably somewhere tomorrow.
 
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