ANIMATION PROBLEM

[+Veltro2k 6,351]

Ok you all are probably sick about me already.....but I only post when im really stuck...

 

 

<---- notice the word newbie over there

 

new problem.....animated landing gear,,,exported to WOE to try it out....after loading screen get an error message...if i export without animation , runs fine ????

Edited August 17, 2006 by Veltro2k

[Guest capun]

I'll bet you that I know what your problem is :)

 

Did you read the Exporter notes and set the motion controllers to TCB?

 

Those are the only motion controllers that the game engine accepts. I think that any 3DS Max revision after Max 4.2 use a different motion controller default. For example I think they default to Euler for a rotation controller.

 

I forgot, if this is the problem it is best to have all of the meshes in the animated hierarchy to be set to TCB. And I know it is a pain but I go back and set all meshes to TCB Motion controllers. Sometimes you get weird results.

Edited August 17, 2006 by capun

[+Veltro2k 6,351]

Please explain how to do this

 

thanx

[Guest capun]

OK, This is what I do with Max7 but it should be the same from Max4 to Max8

 

- Select the mesh that is animated, let say the Left Gear

 

- On the top right section of 3DS Max there is a bunch of icons, starting from the left you see an arrow (create), the fourth one looks like a wheel. Click on it to expand the tool

 

- You will see several square buttons. Click on the + Assign Controller to expand it

 

- Now you will see selections for Position, Scale, Rotation

 

- Click on one at the time

 

- Click on the Question mark (?) icon which is the assign controller button

 

- You will get a drop down menu, select TCB

 

- Set it as default too, so new meshes will be set as TCB from the start

 

- Click OK

 

- Repeat for all 3

[+Veltro2k 6,351]

Did that but model is still not whole ??? what gives

 

Edited August 20, 2006 by Veltro2k

[Guest capun]

First of all, do you have the hierarchy set and the meshes linked to the topmost mesh (normally the fuselage)?

 

Are meshes hidden?

 

Are the meshes scale correct?

 

Did you check the TCB controllers in all of the animation meshes and their mesh tree?

 

It's kind of hard to see the picture so besides not seeing a lot of the parts, I don't know what the problem is.

 

If you want I can take a quick look at the model and point out the issues that I see.

 

If you do, send the Max file and the neccesary files to test it to

 

capun1950 (at) yahoo (dot) com

[Guest capun]

I got the file, here's some quick observations since I have not checked everything

 

- Main issue is that you do not have the meshes linked to a main parent. Normally the Main (topmost) mesh is the Main Fuselage. If you do not linked them, they will show up everywhere in the game.

 

- Check your names, you have a couple of meshes with the same name. Avoid duplicates

 

- Try to use the Main Mesh (topmost) as the Fuselage. Not required but makes making the data ini easier

 

- Your animation for the gears is incorrect, the game uses 100 frames total. Starting at zero and ending at 101.

 

- Each animation must be only 10 frames each. So for AnimationID 1, it starts in frame 1 and end in 10.

 

- Frame Zero must not have any animation and at that time the plane must be in a clean flying condition, that is with the gears up, flaps up, aileron neutral, rudder neutral, elevators neutral and so on.

 

- Your meshes measurement and internal properties do not match. For example take the Crew mesh (I renamed Fuselage in my test file), If you use the 3DS Max Measurement tool it shows X=1.296m, Y=7.117m, Z=2.448m but if you select the mesh and right click to select the properties, it shows X=7.117m, Y=2.143m, Z=1.296m

 

This is caused normally by scaling and rotation of the mesh. To solve the problem you need to collapse the stack, apply a RESET XFORM and then convert it back to an Editable Mesh. CAREFUL Here, you must have the mesh not being part of a hierarchy, no children or parent meshes, if you do you can get strange results and you cannot UNDO, so save your file first so you can get back to them if something goes wrong.

 

I'll keep looking to see what else I find, but you need to read ThirdWire's exporter notes since a lot of this issues are requirements specified in those notes.

 

I have a 3DS Max7 so I can only send you a 3ds format file since I can read your file but you cannot read mine.

[+Veltro2k 6,351]

Thank you