Water rudders with gMax

[Guest]

Hey all!I'm having problems with water rudders in my Amphibian Maule. No matter what I try, I can't get them to work in any way. They are not retracting with SHIFT+W and not rotating via rudder either. What also confuses me is that in MakeMDL SDK the animation tags for both movements are the same water_rudder_rotate. IS this how it should be?Could someone tell me the animation tag names for different parts needed for working water rudders? Would be highly appreciated!!

[Guest]

I had to upgrade to the new version of MakeMDL to get certain animations to respond. They work in GMAX, but not in FS. the new version solved this problem (and no longer have to rename that @#$ interior x file).The new version is bundled with the MakeMDL SDK.Generally, for the stock animations, you can name part_name_01 and part_name_02, 03 and so on and they will all follow the same animation.I see rudder_water_rotate is a stock animation name. To have the rudders move according to rudder position, give the left rudderrudder_water_rotate_01 and the right rudder rudder_water_rotate_02 and they will both move with the rudder.Hmm, I see that the names for rudder animation, both stock and keyframe are the same. As I see it, you will need to do the above to make the rudders move with the rudder control. To raise and lower the rudders you will need to create a keyframe animation for each rudder. I think that may be sufficient.FS does not care about the part of the name after rudder_water_rotate, the 01, 02 part, and given that is a stock animation name, the rudders should rotate. I hope that once you place the raise and lower animation on the objects, the same name will work with the keyframe animation.I have discovered that you can hook up a flap to the stock flap animation and then 'wrap' the flap in a GMAX group, hook that to the aileron animation and the flap will move in response to both. You might wonder why I would want to do that. But I am modelling a flaperon.But with the control stick, I found that this method does not work. Perhaps that is because it is keyframe animation. With regard to your rudders, I was confused by the control stick keyframe names. How can you apply two names to one object? What I did was create a small box that I placed below the stick, then Linked it to the stick. The box is animated left and right, the stick animated back and forth. Each has a different name.Steve

[Guest]

Don't know how the animation aspect works, but in order to see the correct variable change in a gauge, a water rudder contact point has to be added in aircraft.cfg. Maybe you have this already. Sort of obvious when you think about it and know about it, but it sure had me going nuts for a while :D

[Guest]

Thanks Steve!Though that's not helping any :-/Since it seems that both movements actually are key frame animations. And also, there must be a confusion in the SDK because the animation name for both movements can't be the same. I found out from freeflightdesign that the retraction movement part name is water_rudder_deploy and the rudder-way movement parts need name water_rudder_rotate. And actually I got it to work this way, but it also brought a VERY strange error with it. Check out the following pictures:When I name the parts with name water_rudder_rotate_XX, the parts animate correctly but now the textures begin to act strange. Every time I put some pressure on rudder, the normal rudder and elevator textures start to blink. In the following picture you'll see how the textures blink. And that is just a small example of the variations:http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/mmniemi/shots/mules1.jpgThis is how the parts look when I don't have any pressure on the rudder:http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/mmniemi/shots/mules2.jpgPretty strange, don't you think? If I rename the parts with any other name than water_rudder_rotate, then the blinking stops. But then of course the water rudder animations don't work...I'm getting desperate with this one. I have played around with it for last 16 hours without any luck. Soon I will delete this whole plane and will never make a float plane again :(

[Guest]

I have planned a floatplane version of my aircraft, so this subject is dear to me. :-) Because I have not started on this version I lack any real experience with animating the rudders.As I typed, there was a growing suspicion in my mind that the SDK may be incorrect. I could only hope that FS has some way of determining to apply each type of animation correctly to a part with the same name prefix._rudder_water_rotate_ is in the Stock Animation Names section of the SDK based on rudder position. But I must have been cross eyed, because the Keyframe Animation Names section lists _lever_water_rudder_ as the name corresponding to the water rudder handle position.I could not locate water_rudder_deploy in the SDK at all, even using Find. Must be an omission.Same for water_rudder_rotateMine is the April 2002 SDK, maybe there is a newer one.Do you mean the green on the elevators appearing and disappearing? That is strange.The aircraft looks great. The detail on the nose gear is really fine (I have had trouble getting such fine detail on my tailwheel). I would not give up yet. It must be possible to do this correctly because the Amphibian works.Steve

[Guest]

Dunno about your problem, but what a mighty fine Maule you have got there Mikko... ;)

[Guest]

>Dunno about your problem, but what a mighty fine Maule you >have got there Mikko... ;) HAHAHAHAH, Like you didn't do anything on it :(