MSFS Having trouble with wing flex and Blender to MSFS exporter

[Michael2]

I've been working on wing flex and have some problems implementing it in the sim. I have the wing flexing nicely as intended using skinned mesh-- the problems are with the other animated objects attached to the wing. I can implement various ways to accomplish the animations that work in Blender, but they don't work when exported into the sim. Essentially, skinned meshes won't animate in the sim, nor will anything attached as a child of a bone or attached to such a child. As a last resort I considered using branches of the armature to animate all the other objects, but I can't find any way to tag the animations of individual bones.

In P3D, the exporter provided for tagging individual bones, but I can't see any way to do this in the new exporter. For example, when I started developing the aircraft in question for P3D, I had a bone coming off the wing flex armature that was animated to rotate the engine fan and was able to tag that with an N1 rotation, with the other bones having a wing flex tag. With the MSFS 2020 exporter it seems I can only assign one animation name to the entire armature.

Any solution for this? I don't even want to say how many hours I have into this project and it's not going to happen without wing flex, which really does work amazingly well in the sim. I'm not using the ready made wing flex code that Asobo uses as the SDK really doesn't explain it adequately. I just have an FSX style animated armature with an animation hooked up to some XML code using the wingflex A variable.

 

[Jonx.]

I was able to accomplish wing flex in Cinema4D but having issues exporting the bend deformer to .fbx, so far I can only export as .abc while preserving wing bend animations.

 

[Anthony31]

I was able to accomplish wing flex in Cinema4D but having issues exporting the bend deformer to .fbx, so far I can only export as .abc while preserving wing bend animations.

Have you read the section in the SDK about <NodeAnimation>? It's in the XML Definition index, 3rd topic. I'll copy and paste for ease reading:

<NodeAnimation>​

This is currently used for advanced wingflex bone animation. It animates the positions of several nodes in three dimensions.
It has one mandatory attribute, type, to which the only currently available value is "WingFlex".
For this to have the desired effect, the nodes should be the joints of a skeleton that skins the wings.

Order	Node Position
0	The left wing bone closest to the center.
1	In between 0and 2.
2	In between 1and 3.
3	The left wing bone furthest from the center.
4	The right wing bone closest to the center.
5	In between 4and 6.
6	In between 5and 7.
7	the right wing bone furthest from the center.
8	The left wing engine pivot node closest to the center.
9	The left wing engine pivot node furthest from the center.
10	The right wing engine pivot node closest to the center.
11	The right wing engine pivot node furthest from the center.

For example:

<NodeAnimation type="WingFlex">
<Node>WING_BONE_LEFT_01</Node> <!-- the left wing bone closest to the center -->
<Node>WING_BONE_LEFT_02</Node> <!-- in between -->
<Node>WING_BONE_LEFT_03</Node> <!-- in between -->
<Node>WING_BONE_LEFT_04</Node> <!-- the left wing bone furthest from the center -->

<Node>WING_BONE_RIGHT_01</Node> <!-- the right wing bone closest to the center -->
<Node>WING_BONE_RIGHT_02</Node> <!-- in between -->
<Node>WING_BONE_RIGHT_03</Node> <!-- in between -->
<Node>WING_BONE_RIGHT_04</Node> <!-- the right wing bone furthest from the center -->

<Node>Engine_PIVOT_LEFT_1</Node> <!-- the left wing engine pivot node closest to the center -->
<Node>Engine_PIVOT_LEFT_2</Node> <!-- the left wing engine pivot node furthest from the center -->

<Node>Engine_PIVOT_RIGHT_1</Node> <!-- the right wing engine pivot node closest to the center -->
<Node>Engine_PIVOT_RIGHT_2</Node> <!-- the right wing engine pivot node furthest from the center -->
</NodeAnimation>

 

[Bancal]

Hello I tried the wingflex on a blender and I managed to use the Animation node. For this you need 8 bones with the correct names written in XML and have the wings cut off from the fuselage. The bones must be vertical and linked together in edit mode. For the right wing it is necessary to add a rotation to the bones. Once all this is done you just have to do a Ctrl + P to link the wings and the bones. Then delete the unused vertex groups then exported with the correct parameters. In games you need this. Adjust the scalar wingflex to have the right wingflex. If you have any problems or want more information, please do not hesitate to contact me MP I am attaching the .blend to you if you want to take a deeper look.

 

[Bancal]

following

 

[Michael2]

Very happy to see this. I'll try it when I'm able.

Merci beaucoup pour ca!

 

[Michael2]

Still not getting anywhere with this.

I take it all that I am not supposed to actually animate the bones controlling wing flex in Blender? The sim somehow knows how to rotate or translate them?

Also, I don't understand the instruction to delete the vertex groups. Aren't these needed for the animation to work?

 

[Michael2]

I found my error. I followed the SDK which gives a naming convention for the bones that differ from what the xml file uses. I have the basic flex working correctly, still need to try with the attached bits.

To answer my own questions, it's correct that one does not actually animate the flex in Blender. All you have to do is set up an armature, name the bones correctly and set up the vertex groups that correspond to the bones. Also, I haven't found it necessary to make the wing a child of the armature. I have problems when doing that and effectively this is already accomplished by applying the armature modifier to the wing.

 

[Michael2]

So thanks to Bancal's post, I have a nicely animated wingflex in the sim. But I am at a loss as to how to get the animations set up for the ailerons, flaps and so on. I understand how to create the armature bones but I can't figure out how to assign individual animation names to individual bones. I believe it has to be done with NLA tracks (something I am just starting with), but I can't figure out how to manage the bones individually as opposed to the whole armature.

How are these animations to be set up for export?

 

[Michael2]

Finally got it to work. The animations for the wing part bones need to be pushed down into NLA tracks. Also, I am using the Asobo exporter and it's necessary to uncheck the channel muting boxes in the NLA editor or the various animations on the one armature will mix in the sim. With the boxes unchecked the animations won't play in Blender, but that's not where we need them working. Everyone having trouble with this should closely study Bancal's blend file. I wouldn't have got there without it. Also you need to have some basic understanding of NLA track animations. I put off learning how these work for too long.