Converting MAIW Models for P3Dv4/FSX

[thetford569]

I am attempting to convert some of my old AI models that worked in FSX and previous versions of P3D for my own personal use. I have been following the instructions and tutorials available around the internet from those who are providing new converted aircraft like Alpha-India Group and the converted HTAI C-130s and the F-16s that were converted here.

I am specifically trying the NBAI F22 because it was mentioned in one of the tutorials about converting the visibility conditions of the wheel chocks. I have converted the aircraft into P3Dv4 and assigned the correct animations as best as I can tell. The problem is when the aircraft shows up in P3Dv4 it is still missing the landing gear and just floats above the ground. As best I can tell none of the animations are working either even though they show to be converted and all of the animations work in ModelConverterX when opening the new MDL file. I'm still new at trying this out and now I am lost. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what is going on?

There were only a few "unknown" animations on the F22 and they were the weapons doors and the canopy so I thought it would be an easy model to start with. I assigned door_1 to the weapons doors and door_0 to the canopy.

Thanks for any help.....I'd like to get some of these aircraft working if I can.

Brandon

[thetford569]

I think maybe I have answered my own question. I opened up the converted HTAI F-16C to see what animations were being used in that model and found out there are tons of custom animations that control what I had thought would convert to standard fsx animations like elevators and flaps. Seems like everything in the model almost is a custom animation.....sigh......kudos to those of you that are able to get these things to work and for the ones that have been able to be shared. I was hoping to be able to wrap my head around this but it is very difficult as I am sure you all know. Thanks for what you've already been able to do.

Brandon

[Firebird]

Brandon, you are not the only one trying to grasp this problem. As you have found for yourself that most MAIW models have always used custom animation to achieve what they did and also they used FS9 triggers for some of these animations and some of these are no longer valid for FSX/P3D.

There are a team of very clever people who have experience of converting other models to FSX standard but it does appear that we have been too clever by half in some situations.

I am of the opinion that it may take a group effort to convert our older models across and that the learning curve will be steep to achieve this. This still supposes that we can find ways around the triggering mechanisms, some of which currently frustrate even those with experience.

I believe that it will take some dedicated time to get to grips with this process and I personally have yet been unable to find the necessary time, which I have found particularly frustrating considering my employment status.

I am hoping that once the NFL season, and Crimble, is out of the way that I can concentrate better on this matter.

[thetford569]

Glad I'm not the only one! It's definitely not as easy as maybe some other models that were not so customized. Hopefully the group of experienced people like yourself will be able to find the time and energy to make it happen. I have found out just what a daunting task it is first hand. If anyone can do it though it's the people behind MAIW!

Either way I moved on from FS9 a LONG time ago and moved completely away from FSX within the last couple of years. Now with the advantages of P3Dv4 there is no way I'm using anything else. I have such a stable platform and can use whatever combination of add-ons I want without the sim crashing due to being out of memory. It's 100% improvement over where we were 6 months ago. Eventually the AI will all catch up and I will try to learn what I can to help that along but mainly I will just need to have more patience.

Thanks for all that everyone here does for the simulators!

Brandon

[gavinc]

I think maybe I have answered my own question. I opened up the converted HTAI F-16C to see what animations were being used in that model and found out there are tons of custom animations that control what I had thought would convert to standard fsx animations like elevators and flaps. Seems like everything in the model almost is a custom animation.....sigh......kudos to those of you that are able to get these things to work and for the ones that have been able to be shared. I was hoping to be able to wrap my head around this but it is very difficult as I am sure you all know. Thanks for what you've already been able to do.

Brandon

Brandon, you can read the xml that I use for the custom animations in the HTAI F-16C (inside MCX there is a way to view the modeldef.xml). Feel free to take any of the xml that you need and modify them for your own use.

I won't have much time to do any work on conversions for the foreseeable future .

Gavin

[thetford569]

Thanks Gavin! I don't have alot of time as well but I will take a look at this and see if I can use anything to help. There's lots of things I'd like to do. Ive done some freeware scenery design in the past (Ft. Worth Alliance Airport - KAFW) and have some other projects in the queue that I stopped working on awhile ago due to not having the time. I've been trying to use what time I do have to actually make some flights in the sim because before I was missing flight time due to development and then when I did try to do some flights the sim would crash or have an out of memory error. With P3Dv4 all of that is no more so I've been spending a majority of time flying! Anyway sorry to get off tangent there....thanks for the offer to take a look at the modeldef.xml - I did not know you could do that within MCX. I will see if I can find anything that will assist! Have a great day!

Brandon