FSX I can't get this to load

[tgycgijoes]

I really can't thank you enough for all your help and taking your time to do this for me. I am able to share your results at Sim Outhouse when I create a thread for it through Paul Clawson's generosity to share his model and any modifications done as long as it is for all to share freely. Before he passed I was able to get his permission to do all kinds of modifications to his SOC Seagull with a lot of FSDevelopers and others to assist me when I even knew less than I do and THAT still isn't much. I am trying to learn every time i post here for help with something and try to remember and save that help for the future. I have "PDF'd" this thread to do just that and it goes on a flash drive dedicated to that purpose. Like you and your frustration with MCX not working for you I had that problem with Corel and their Paintshop Pro. I have a paid version that I have used for years but when I had to start using Windows 10 on the desktop I was given I now use because my laptop with Windows 7 gave up the ghost, they would not activate my license and told me I had to update it. I have no money to spare for that but went to use my OLD Adobe Photoshop that I now love and would never go back to PSP IMO a "weak sister" to Photoshop. Anyway, I am going to go and make a new version of the Devastator with the new model and get to start repaints for Torpedo Six aboard CV6.

 

[=rk=]

 

[tgycgijoes]

It's fantastic that I can use the TBD-1 in P3D V4.5 with this mdl but the tailhook just barely moves with the Shift Q tailhook key control and do the wing fold and the canopy open have to be slaved together? In flight a lot of times the canopies are open but certainly the wings are not folded. If not than I will just live with the wing/canopy but the tailhook has to go all the way down to be usable. I opened it up in MDCx and animation editor but I just don't know enough to fix this. I can't see any percentages of animation. If you tell me what you did I will go back and look at it and learn a bit more. Just a little more please. Thanks Rick.

 

[=rk=]

the tailhook just barely moves with the Shift Q tailhook key control

You might be able to change this in the Hierarchy Editor, based on the fact that the default animation travels the full range of motion, we can actually access individual keyframes, however it is extremely complex, there is almost no chance to view the progress, you have to do it all mathematically and I have only had success with this process once or twice. I lack the extreme dedication required to undergo monotonous test cycles, changing one value at a time, until desired results are achieved.

Here you can see we've opened the Hierarchy Editor, we've searched the term "tail" and the result are the two nodes shown that are associated with the tail hook. Right clicking on the term "Animation," we are presented with the choice to edit the animation. Clicking that choice opens the Animation key editor. We can see that hte biggest problem is that there are only two keyframes, FSX would want about 100 frames with at least 4 of those being keyframes. Empty frames in FSX add time or delay to the animation, keyframes do the same plus supply positional and rotational information. You can see that the X Y Z fields correspond to the position of the animated part for each keyframe. Presumably, you could add intermediary frames along with the appropriate transforms, but bear in mind it would be entirely trial and error.

do the wing fold and the canopy open have to be slaved together?

Probably. I had assumed FSX/P3D have unique door and canopy open animation events, it has been long enough that I've forgotten. Apparently, either there are no distinct animations, or this author has linked the canopy animation to the door open animation. The solution would be to link the canopy to the canopy open event, or to find a new animation event to trigger the wings. Ok, there is actually a wingfold event that I'll assign to this upload. You will have to learn the FSX/P3D wingfold key commands, or the model will need a different trigger. Please review this image carefully to make any future changes. There is also a specific "canopy" event, I did not use it.

In the animation list we select the animations we want to edit with a check. The field that shows, "wing_fold_l_pct" contains all the standard FSX animation event triggers. To change one, we click on the field, scroll to the animation trigger we want to assign and click "Assign animation type." If we want to remove an animation, we run the play bar to the animation key position we wish to freeze the animation at, click "Fix Selected Animations" and this fixes the animation in place.

 

[tgycgijoes]

OK with all this information, I will try my best to get this "fixed" so that the tailhook goes all the way down. I think I understand the process and will spend MY time trying to fix it. Again thank you for spending so much time on this with me and getting it to this point. If I am correct from an instance in the past, as long as the tailhook is in the aircraft.cfg though it is not all the way down it WILL "catch the wire" if I catch it when landing but we'll see if I can get both. A big thumbs up and thank you for all your help.

 

[=rk=]

as long as the tailhook is in the aircraft.cfg though it is not all the way down it WILL "catch the wire" if I catch it when landing but we'll see if I can get both.

This is correct, you can have an invisible hook, the animation is just visual. I am thinking that you could start by adding an even number of empty keys, maybe 6. If you could rotate the hook halfway using the animation editor and then record those transforms in the Hierarchy Editor, then go back to the animation editor and in the middle of the empty keys place a keyframe key with those transforms, like this: it would be keyframe 0, blank key 1, blank key 2, blank key 3, keyframe 4 with your recorded transforms added, blank key 5, blank key 6, blank key 7, keyframe 100. Numeric sequence is not relevant so long as keys are in order. Doing this might be enough to get the animation going, adding more blank keys should slow it down. I don't run FSX or P3D so I'm not able to test this anymore.

It's been a while and the rules are a little different in MSFS, we can do two key frame animations in MSFS and I think you can in FS9 as well. The difference with FSX is that it needs the intermediary key frames to tell the animation which direction to rotate, like a tire. If you only have the start and end keyframes, they are in the same location! FSX needs maybe a quarter turn, a 90 degree keyframe, 180 degree keyframe and 270 degree keyframe, as well as the start and end keyframes, then that tire will roll wherever you go. I think MSFS and FS9 read the stored history of what direction a keyframe moved or turned from, so only start and end keys are required for many rotational and linear animations.

 

[tgycgijoes]

Just saved this. I will put it to work tomorrow afternoon after return from church and will post here results. I hope good ones. Thank you. BTW I'm Richard (too)