ANIMATION KEYS

[alexis99]

ANIMATION KEYS
I'm a little surprised that there is no standardisation of animation keys amongst developers. Perhaps it's small beer amongst all the other things they have to think about.

But it's quite awkward to find that the open canopy command is SHIFT+1 in one aircraft and SHIFT+10 in another. Especially when you want to assign the command to a specific switch in your Home-built cockpit.

And it often occurs that you miss a cool animation feature because it's tied to another key and you didn't RTFM.
F-117, extend antennas, wow!

Anyway, I made my own standardised list and altered the animation keys in each aircraft to suit. It's easy to do. Just go into the Data file and search "InputName=ANIMATION"

You'll get something like this:

[RefuelDoor]
SystemType=ANIMATION
InputName=ANIMATION_2
DeploymentMethod=MANUAL
AnimationTime=2.0
AnimationID=7

Just replace the number after InputName=ANIMATION_(number) to the number key you want to use.

I made the above
InputName=ANIMATION_3

So whatever the designers assign, I alter to suit this list

SHIFT+1 = CANOPY + WING FOLD
SHIFT+2 = TRAIL DECOY (SUPERHORNET HAS THIS)
SHIFT+3 = AIR-REFUEL PROBE/REFUEL DOOR
SHIFT+4 = EXTEND ANTENNAS (F-117 HAS THIS)
SHIFT+5 = SLIMERS
SHIFT+6 = NIGHT VISION GOGGLES (MARINA MILITARE HARRIER HAS THIS)
SHIFT+7 = WING FOLD (NOT ATTACHED TO CANOPY)
SHIFT+8
SHIFT+9
SHIFT+10

Okay, egg-sucking tutorial over.

[+swambast]

@alexis99

Quote

I'm a little surprised that there is no standardisation of animation keys amongst developers. 

Although I don't model a lot of aircraft, I really like this idea and think it's a great suggestion.

[+Crusader]

Think there was some effort for commonality some time ago, at least for canopies (shift+0).
Refueling doors/probes etc on shift+9 and descending keys.

[alexis99]

In SF1, which I only left last year, because my WinXP computer died, shift+1 was always canopy. That's why I noticed when migrating to SF2

[+Wrench]

Yes, there is. I've been working on that for the last 10 years ...

Hence the lines I, and several others, use in the read me  "standard animation keystrokes"

we're using s/0 for canopy

s/9 for wingfolds, as those are the most used.

everything else is up for grabs, as most of them serve no real function (seriously, faked night vision? air refueling in a game that doesn't support it???)

those 2 are really the only ones that count

[+yakarov79]

22 hours ago, Wrench said:

everything else is up for grabs, as most of them serve no real function (seriously, faked night vision? air refueling in a game that doesn't support it???)

those 2 are really the only ones that count

Like you need to open the canopy and take a deep breath....

[+Wrench]

these day, probably smarter to keep the windows closed, mask on and use the internal O2!!!