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Another Gmax question

Discussion, tutorials,hints and tips relating to designing military ai aircraft.
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jgowing
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Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

I'm making some progress, but I've stumbled again. I have made some wing flaps, which was a first for me, and one reason I started with Gmax, as I could never get on with Boolean operations in FSDS.

That went fine, but animating a flap is not yet working properly. Whatever I do to the pivot axis, with it angled to and aligned with the axis on which I want the flap to rotate, it still rotates on the original pivot axis. I am using "adjust pivot only" in Hierarchy, but it seems that is not enough. I searched in FSDeveloper, but couldn't really find anything helpful, as all the discussion there seemed much more advanced.

Jon
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John Young
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by John Young »

Hi Jon,

That was a coincidence, I'm just about to cut out the flaps on the E-2D Hawkeye.

To be safe, follow the pivot point conventions for direction. I don't think it's that critical for flaps, but it is for wheels and props. They are different for FS9 and FSX/P3D:

FS9: blue down
red right
green rear

FSX: green up
red right
blue rear

You are on the right track - use "affect pivot point only" and centre the pivot (click "centre to object") with the orientation as above for your FS version.

Next move the pivot point so it's at the centre of the hinged edge of the flap and rotated from above so that it follows that line. Make sure the pivot is in the centre of the flap thickness when viewed horizontally. This is my C-130 flap:

Image

Now you can animate.

With the Animation button pressed, start from the side and set a rotation tab at KF:0. Move to KF:50 and rotate the flap downwards the desired amount. This is useful if you want flaps half down for taxy and take-off. If not do this for KF:100.

This will invariably result in the flap being at a peculiar angle when viewed horizontally from the rear at KF:50 or 100. So now correct this with the appropriate rotation. You may also need to pull the flap out horizontally as well.

Now check the flap from above because that is likely to be out too. Correct as necessary. Carry on until you have the position you want at KF:50 (or 100). It can be repetitive and fiddly

Repeat the process for KF:100 if you want a two stage animation. I have the xml code if you need it.

Tip 1: multiple flaps on the same wing at different angles often need animating separately.

Tip 2: instead of recording the adjustments you are making for use with the opposite flap, work on the flaps in pairs, the same one on each wing and one pair of movements at a time.

Tip3: don't worry about the animation until after you have painted the model. That's because you need to weld the flaps back into the wing so the texture mapping flows over the wing and flaps together as one part. You lose the animation when you do that. Once mapped you can detach the flaps and then animate them.

Hope that helps.

John
jgowing
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

Thanks John, that's very helpful, not least as I now see that I was getting a little ahead of myself, because I don't have all my textures mapped yet.

I was also trying to get the axis of rotation "all in one go". Now I see there is an iteration to get the part positioned correctly in all axes at each appropriate KF. I had read that using an l_flap naming convention, FS9 would handle it with a default animation, but on further thought, l_flap_key with a KF animation is a better approach anyway.

Jon
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by John Young »

Yep, you've got it Jon.

Alas, there's no easy solution like animating wheels. "l_flap_key", for example, will only trigger the animation. It won't control what it does to position the flaps correctly. Flaps have to be custom key frame animated. That can get very complicated with multiple flap arrangements operating together, such as in the big Boeings.

John
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

Hi John,

I'm getting there, I just have one more little snag. The good news is I've got my Gmax model to a point where I want to export it to test in FS9, but I don't get the option to export as an MDL file, just MD3 or 3DS. I remembered the configure paths from FSDS, so I tried to do the same in Gmax, linking to the MakeMDL exe in the SDK, and the xml too, but Gmax isn't recognising it. This seems such a fundamental thing for me to fall down on, but I can't yet find anything that explains how to address this.

So, once again, I am throwing myself on your mercy. I am sure this is a simple set-up issue, so not a real problem at all.

Cheers,

Jon
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John Young
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by John Young »

Hi Jon, I can't think this has ever been an issue for me. I installed FS9 and the SDK including the FS2004 Game Pack just the other week when my new PC arrived and I was able to export without having to set anything up.

This is my path to the FS2004 Game pack in the plug-ins tab:

Image

After I click on File and Export I get this screen:

Image

I just have to select the model type - Flightsim Aircraft Object (*.mdl), enter the model name and click "Save". Gmax then exports the model to the FS9 model folder.

Just check that your FS2004 Gamepack folder has makemdl.exe in it and that Gmax has the path to the pulgins folder correct.

John
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

Still no luck. The gamepacks folder in Gmax was empty (!), so I added FS2004/plugins folders and put MakeMDL in there and configured the path from Gmax, but it's still not seeing it. When I first copied MakeMDL across, it set itself to 'read only', but I corrected that and still Gmax doesn't see it.

The only other thing I can think is that Gmax was originally installed in the X86 program folders, but until today everything has worked fine. I really don't want to uninstall then reinstall it elsewhere if I can avoid it, unless there are no other suggestions.

Jon
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John Young
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by John Young »

Jon, this is what my Gmax/gamepacks/fs2004 folder looks like and the plugins folder below that:

Image

Ignore the dates. If you are missing files, it might be better to do a clean install of the SDK.

John
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

Thanks John, I'll try that tomorrow and report back.

Jon
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

Thanks John, I'll try that tomorrow and report back

All is well. In truth, I'd got myself in a tangle, but a clean SDK re-install has got me there, and I now have a model to test and in due course to paint.

A new question: clearly I've borrowed an FDE, and topically this has been alluded to in another post today. If I ever reach the point where I might actually want to upload this project, there is a potential minefield concerning other people's work. So, can it be okay to acknowledge sources if the original author is no longer traceable, or do we in effect have to start anew?

Jon
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by John Young »

Glad that's fixed Jon.

I never venture into FDE's produced outside the MAIW circle. Many of the historic FDE's we have here were designed by Michael MacIntyre and I have worked with him closely on many occasions to produce FDE's for my aircraft before he withdrew from the scene. I tend to re-use those with tweaks as necessary, acknowledging Mike in the process.

You don't need a large core of FDE's but it helps if you take the opportunity to learn what does what so you can tweak as necessary. I sometimes can't get it quite right, but there are people here who can help. Steve at the moment is just refining the Hawkeye files for me before working on the "wet" FDE. Both Mike and Steve have taught me a lot about FDE parameters over the years and that has been invaluable.

The core of many AI jet FDE's is the default Lear Jet adjusted as necessary, so that's a good place to start. You can reduce or add to the number of engines. You could also start with one of the default turbo props if you need that engine type.

John
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by jgowing »

Thanks, that's very useful. At this stage, bottom line, if I base my work on a default file, I'm safe.

Jon
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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by John Young »

Yes indeed, but if you get stuck, I'm sure I can find something that might help. Have a look at some of the MAIW aircraft.cfg files. Some of the parameters, like MOI, tend to stay much the same because they have proven stable over a range of aircraft types. Some of the flight tuning values for stability, especially pitch, tend to remain the same also. All very useful for solving delinquent behaviour like this that I encountered early on in my design life:

Image


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Re: Another Gmax question

Post by bismarck »

As the Abba sang "...You are my dancing Spit..." :smt035

Giorgio
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