How to lock gear up Question?

[col1948]

I asked this on another forum, I think I read somewhere the best way was to use MCX to lock the wheels up but I may have misread it, I have got MCX but couldn't see where to do this.
I was told in the other forum it can't be done with MCX but it can be done in the aircraft.cfg I looked in to it and changed the contact points on sections 11&12 to zero but it made no difference, I then altered the points after that to zero and tested each time but again no difference.

The reason I wanted this is I have a few amphibian aircraft I'm using as AI and wanted the wheels to stay locked up, more for visual purposes really as I have them flying OK.
What I do at the moment is change the contact points to lower the aircraft so it sits slightly lower in the water and hides the wheels, but obviously as it leaves the water the gear is down till it reaches a certain height before it retracts.
Same with landing, it lowers the gear but once on the water you don't see it because as I said I lowered the points.

Any help appreciated, thank you.

Col.

[hschuit]

You can lock or remove parts from a model with MCX. To freeze a gear part in the up/locked state: In MCX Animation Editor, select the gear animations which need to be frozen, then set the animation slider at key frame zero, then hit the "Fix selected animations" button.
To remove a part: In MCX Hierarchy Editor, select the part, then hit the "Remove" button. Obviously this option reduces the model vertices which improves performance.

Henk.

[col1948]

Thanks Henk, I must have done something wrong, I've not used MCX before, I thought I had it sorted but on the test the model bounced all over and the gear was still down, I'll keep at it.

Col.

[col1948]

I got some step by step instructions of how to do it, I was doing a few things wrong, the last step said to rename the model that has been converted then 'SAVE' it but also make sure it is renamed in the sim, I did this but still the gear is down.
I saw a clip on Youtube where one guy altered the CFG using MCX, he got a drop down of the cfg but I can't get that, I get a red triangle saying some about it not reading, I have the latest stable version of MCX as well, I re-installed it but it made no difference.

If I don't crack it soon I'll just live with what I have got.

[hschuit]

The MCX Aircraft.cfg Editor button is the 11th button on the 1st row of buttons. It can be used if the loaded aircraft MDL file name matches
- the normal= name in the Model.cfg file.
- the model= name in the Aircraft.cfg [fltsim.*] section.

Henk.

[col1948]

Is this the MCX you have, I've tried different things but no luck, I think I'll just have to live with the gear down?

Col.

[hschuit]

It looks like you are using a very old MCX version. You should use the latest development version which will give you extra features you need to convert FS9 models.

[col1948]

I did a search and on the MCX forum it said this was the stable version (v1.3.00) so I downloaded it, I'll see if I can find the version you refer to unless you have a link please.


Col.

[Firebird]

That is misleading as v1.4 has been out for a couple of years now and there are very regular dev updates which you get told about when you run v1.4.
It seems that Arno has never gotten around to actually finalizing v1.4 as stable.

Use v1.4 I have never been issues for me and it is being constantly updated.

[col1948]

Thanks Steve, I just downloaded the latest version, yes a bit different that the one I had, I will try again mate.

Col.

[col1948]

Hmm! I'm obviously doing something wrong, after I did the change the aircraft shook and shuddered on taxi then as it was about to takeoff it bounced all over the place, plus I could see the gear was still down.

col.

[petebramley]

I know this may be a stupid question, but have you amended the contact points in the aircraft.cfg file to reflect a waterbourne aircraft.

[col1948]

Hi Pete,

I did amend the contact points previous to doing the mod, the reason was to make it sit slightly under the water to hide the wheels, this was when the wheels were down.
After the mode it sat and looked OK so I never bothered changing them, to be honest I didn't think of changing them.

Col.