3D modeling animation question

[serverandenforcer]

I'm trying to figure out if I should setup animations on the main rotor blades on a model that I'm working on. What I'm aiming for is that as you increase colletive (power), the rotor blades roll on their centerline axis and because of that they also pitch up a little bit simulating lift due to that increase. Do I need to model in roll and pitch animations in 3D studio max, or is that an animation that will be handled in the data.ini file for the aircraft? I got the pivot axis for each blade setup to where the blades are able to roll and pitch in relation to where it is connected to the rotor mast.

Edited February 5, 2009 by serverandenforcer

[+Florian]

I am pretty sure there are no entries in the data.ini for that, but i could be wrong. When nobody else comes up with a better idea, i´d say animate this in 3ds and make a "fake" jet engine in the data.ini, with almost zero thrust and give the nozzle animation the number of your built in animation.

[serverandenforcer]

I am pretty sure there are no entries in the data.ini for that, but i could be wrong. When nobody else comes up with a better idea, i´d say animate this in 3ds and make a "fake" jet engine in the data.ini, with almost zero thrust and give the nozzle animation the number of your built in animation.

 

 

O.K., I really don't know what that would be since this would be my first aircraft released, but I'm sure I'll find out when I get to that point.

[+Florian]

When you set the rotor animation from, let´s say frame 31 to frame 40, that means for the data.ini file, you would need to set that as animation number "4" (1-10 = "1", 11-20 = "2" and so on). That would be the line in the fake jet engine part: NozzleAnimationID=4

[serverandenforcer]

When you set the rotor animation from, let´s say frame 31 to frame 40, that means for the data.ini file, you would need to set that as animation number "4" (1-10 = "1", 11-20 = "2" and so on). That would be the line in the fake jet engine part: NozzleAnimationID=4

 

 

What if I got all of my animations occuring at once from 1 - 100 on the animation bar in max? does this mean I have to redo all of my animations?

[+Florian]

No, you can select the mesh and then mark single or all keys in the animation bar and move them to other positions with drag and drop.

Edit: Keys of other meshes stay at the position you set before!

Edited February 5, 2009 by AmokFloo

[serverandenforcer]

No, you can select the mesh and then mark single or all keys in the animation bar and move them to other positions with drag and drop.

 

 

OK, I think I know what youre saying. So basically, selet all animation keys that apply to that mesh and basically scale them down within the appropriate animation frame.

[+Florian]

Exactly!

[serverandenforcer]

Ya know, it would have been a bit helpfull if Mustang included that in his animation tutorial.

[serverandenforcer]

Is there a way to link one object to two? I'm trying to figure out how to keep the two pivot points of a support brackets, in which one point is connected to the main blade and the other point to the swash plate. The animation for collective and cyclic is becoming quite difficult without figuring out how to maintain these two pivot points.

[+p10ppy]

you don't really need to link them at all really....

any mesh on the model with animation keys set in the chosen range will animate when the relevant animationID is triggered ,,, you could have the pilot eject and the collective move on the same animationID if you REALLY wanted

 

if you do want to link them set it up like a chain (where you put the pivots are crucial)e.g.... (just an example, the other way round may work better on your model)

RotorBlade

.............\

..............Linkage

.......................\

.....................Swatchplate

 

animate the rotor (and key it) which drives the link which drives the swatchplate

once you have the rotor movement good, correct the link's movement and key it

then correct the swatchplates movement and key it

 

or do it from the middle where the link drives the other two bits (again where you put the pivots is crucial)

 

the trickier bit which i think ? you are trying to do is moving one mesh with 2 differing key sets

the hierarchy's get really complicated because I don't think you can set keys in two different slots for the same mesh e.g. RotorMesh keys set to animate in slot 31-40 and 51-60 ( i could be wrong about that)

so you have to do it with hierarchy linking and sometimes "dummy" meshes (tiny hidden meshes that are solely for being the top level of a animation chain and driving all the mesh animations)

 

you can model just about any animation with TK's system it just takes a bit of lateral thinking sometimes

And you have to forget about RL systems, 3d animation almost never works like a real mechanical system

 

hope that was some help

If i misunderstood you perhaps you could post some screenys

[serverandenforcer]

That's part of what I'm trying to do. See, on a helicopter, increaseing the collective raises the swash plate to increase the AOA on all the rotor blades evenly. Cyclic movement is basically where one end of the swash plate is lower from the other, in which the lower side decreases the AOA of the blade that it is attached to, while the other end of the swash plate that is higher is increaseing the AOA of it's blade. I can get the collective animation to work, and I can get the cyclic animation to work. But I can't get them both working at the same time. Also, only one axis of the cyclic can work with the animation setup. However, I can sort of do a "cheat" with animating the cyclic while having "true" collective animation. The thing that I don't like with the cheat method for the cyclic is that it doesn't trully animate like a real cyclic does. It only demonstrates what the overall achievement is with the cyclic subtracting from seeing actuall parts move the way that they're supposed to in conjunction with cyclic input.

Edited February 6, 2009 by serverandenforcer

[serverandenforcer]

Current animations

 

Animation_Test.rar

[+76.IAP-Blackbird]

Wow, are you sure this is for SF series?! Great job! How will you make this nose gun workable?!

[serverandenforcer]

Wow, are you sure this is for SF series?! Great job! How will you make this nose gun workable?!

 

FastCargo and I were chatting about it last night. We think we might have come up with a way for it to behave like a turret, but yet you still have control on firing... just not targeting and tracking.