A new Gmax Ai modeller asking some help regarding animations

[Morras]

Hello there guys

I have been repainting, putting packages together for Ai the works for my countries airforce, the SAAF. I have recently run into problems that there is not some Ai planes for what I want to use for and so decided ask people to help me but it was not really what i expected.

So I made the decision to do the modelling myself and voila i started modeling, if all goes well i may have the finished model by the end of the week and still need to texture it but why i was writing this post is the following...

How do I animate things like protection covers, remove before flight pitot covers etc. on Ai.

My logic says to me it has something to do with xml and maybe tie the "parts" to something like if groundspeed and engine rpm is zero then those covers appear....?

I would most gladly take any help i can get...

Will post some screenies soon, the plane is the Casa 212-100 aviocar and the Casa 212-300 but the 100 version is the first one, so far I am just over 1200 triangle poly's for the fuselage, wings ,horizontal stabiliser and only need the engines prop and verical stabiliser to go:icon_lol:

Hope to hear soon from you guys!

[Milton Shupe]

Your logic sounds good to me.

If you would visit FFDS and the Learning Center, they have a working XML library of most common animations and hide/show code. These were all tested and donated by the many designers who frequent FFDS.

http://www.aerodynamika.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi

Hope this helps.

[Morras]

Milton Sir

thank you so much for the reply I think I will manage to get it working even if I have to :banghead: for a week since my way of thinking is if i struggle on my own and can accomplish this all on my own, it is a good learning curve and future models will go a breeze after this:icon_lol:

Will keep in touch!

[Morras]

Ok guys as promised here is my LOD1 model of the Casa 212 in Gmax, it is not yet textured, and i still need to fix the landing gear struts and make the other LOD models but hey i am moving along.

As for the many shadows along the edge do not worry to much about it because i still need to do all the smoothing groups seperately, but that is not that hard i just wanted to see how the model looks with smoothing on. The total amount of polygons will be no more than 3000 triangle polys, since i made it my attempt to use triangles rather then squares since i read everywhere that FS2004 in any case see the polys all of them as triangles so its better to them like that for Ai.

I hope you like it an feel free to comment on any of this!!!!

Will definately tell you when it will be ready:wiggle:
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg275/Hawk_Mk_120/Gmax_Ai_Casa212.jpg

[Milton Shupe]

morras.

This will make a beautiful AI aircraft. The modeling of the exterior looks great. I think you are on your way to success my friend. :ernae:

[Morras]

milton, sir thank you for the kind comments , i am just trying and well this is my first attempt at anything and i am learning all the way throughout!!!!

[crashaz]

Ah got Papa Milton answering first... imagine that. :icon_lol: That looks great Morris.. as you can see, FS modelers are a pretty cool bunch... have some real nice people out there always looking to share their knowledge.

[Morras]

Hi there guys just to keep you up to speed on what is going on with this model of mine

I have done all the textures of the main LOD model and it looks not to bad for me, here is a picture for you guys to see how she looks
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg275/Hawk_Mk_120/1234.jpg

But now i would really appreciate your help here, sir milton if you could check for me i can send you later my source file but to state the problem first.

As can be seen on the screenshot below, all the red circles that i have drawn sows some dark shadows, only a the trailing edge of the wing and the horizontal stabiliser. I have tried everything from searching for rogue vertices to trying to move some to see if it helps, to see it it is poly's lying over each other nothing and i can not get a single thing to work.... I really hope you can help with this problem since i am a noob i am kinda stuck on this....

Second, i have tried all the tutorials on creating landing light poly's linking them etc etc and still i cannot get them to work in the game:icon_lol: It only gives me a point light i have moved the axis to all the positions it still does not do a thing and i have even made a cone textured it to see if that is easier and still nothing....

This would really really help me a lot guys:jump: Hoping to hear from you soon
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg275/Hawk_Mk_120/123.jpg

[Desert Rat]

Dunno about Gmax, but in FSDSthis happens when the top and bottom surfaces of a sharp edge share the same smoothing group. Esentially the model is trying to smooth a sharp edge, which we don't want. Maybe someone from GMax can confirm if it does the same?

Solution is to asign a different smoothing group to top and bottom surfaces. The con of this is where to put the transition on the leading edge as we do want this smooth. A possible solution is to asign a small vertical poly between the top and bottom of the trailing edge and assign no smoothing,the rest can use the same smoothing group.

Jamie

[Desert Rat]

The difference....

before and after...

[Milton Shupe]

Excellent progress you have made :applause: she looks beautiful.

Regarding the dark areas, that is simply a smoothing issue, easily corrected. This happens when 2 polys are at sharp angles using the same smoothing group.

Select all the wing polys, scroll down the command panel rollout to see the smoothing groups.

Select Clear All.

The select Auto smooth.

If this does not correct the issue, try changing the spinner 45 to 35. Then Clear All Smoothing Groups and Auto smooth again.

If this does not correct the issue, you can change the spinner to 25.

But, you can also change poly smoothing groups manually.

Select any top of wing poly to see the smoothing group assigned to it. Make sure the top polys shaded dark are of that same smoothing group.

Now, go to Bottom view. Check the smoothing groups of the polys on bottom of the wing. These should be and need to be different.

For example if the top of wing polys are a 1, then assign the bottom of wing polys to a 2.

Then on the wing's front leading edge where the 1's and 2's come together, change a row of polys to both 1 and 2 smoothing groups. Both 1 and 2 should be highlighted. This blends the shading together.

Regarding the landing lights, the Local Coordinate pivot of the Land_light determines the location of the light point (but not the direction of the beam). You must select and link to a parent to the land_light planar or primitive. The pivot of the parent determines the direction of the beam. Z faces the opposite direction of the beam (backwards).

I will post a link to a smoothing video tutorial for you.

EDIT: Here are several excellent video tutorials on smoothing by Finn Neuik.
Tutes (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?p=208988#post208988)

[Morras]

Thanx guys for the lspeedy comeback, i really appreciate it!!!!

JD thanx for the advice, i am learning a lot from this first project and the next ones will be much easier :icon_lol:

Sir milton, the advice you gave me worked like a charm hey it was like 123 and all was looking good!!!!

The landing lights i also now managed to get it working, still have to play with the arc and width etc etc.

Here is another screenshot of the LOD1 model, i have managed to get some shadows onto the model textures and it looks not to bad...i hope hehe

In the end i will also modify the casa212-100 to make it a casa212-300 variant also.

As of now i am currently on the LOD 5 model, i have thought to use 9 models in total and so far with the 5 models i get about 0.5fps drop with only 2 planes but yes there is still some work left!!!!

I hace struggled to do anything in FSDS and just stuck with Gmax and now it is a breeze working with it hehe:running:

Here is the screenshot as promised
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg275/Hawk_Mk_120/LOD1.jpg

I will keep you guys in touch!!!

[Milton Shupe]

Wow! Beautifully done ... great progress! :applause: :ernae: