GMax Animation Question

[Guest VideoAce]

In the advent of the new FS2004SDK and the ability to create hard surfaces, would it be possible to create an elevator for aircraft? To be more specific, in my aircraft carrier that I'm modeling I would like to create an elevator that would lift an aircraft from the lower deck to the flight deck. I'm thinking that the animation would be triggered by a specific frequency set on the aircraft. Am I reaching here?Bill

[arno 1]

Interesting idea. I think you can best just try and see if it works. Make a simple box, with a hard surface and animate it as ussual. Then just check if the hard surface is animated as well.I am already looking at the conditional animation code in the new format, so that I can update CAT, but at the moment I don't have it working yet.

[Guest VideoAce]

I could probably handle animating hard surfaces, but I wouldn't now where start when it comes to triggering the animation base on a condition.

[Guest moomox]

I was trying all last night to figure this one out. I had no problems animating the platform... or a applying a hard surface to a static object, but getting the two to work together is pretty tricky.When I apply a hard surface the "attach script" places platform_ as the name of the object. Then when animating that same object, you have to use tick18_ in front of the name. So what I had attempted to do was go into the properties of the object and change the XML for hardsurface. I renamed it to tick18_platform_elevator. as the object surface that it should harden. When i export, i'm getting the animation, but no hard surface.I had also attempted to apply a hard surface to a polygon and group it with a box... then name the group tick18_animation. Still no luck!Maybe i'm approaching it the wrong way...

[Team_P3DSpacePort 6]

Arno and all,I have been scratching my head regarding this elevator question - I as well tried all kinds of permutations and combinations in GMax with tick18_ and platform_ tags, but to no avail.Arno, thanks for the CAT tool, I tried it last night and it works beautifully. Now - you obviously read the ASM animation tags; is there any chance that the moving elevators can be acomplished using some kind of an ASM hack? Obviously, in GMax, it's either/or - if you need to animate, you can't have a platform and vice-versa. Anything in ASM that would override that?As a footnote, I've tried to think out of the box, and found a realy cheesy workaround to this: I've animated everything AROUND the elevator platform in reverse. So, I have an underground hangar with an elevator that brings aircraft to the surface. I animated the hangar, which pops up out of the ground and, if close to the aircraft or inside, creates a darn good illusion of being lowered into the hole in the ground. (just don't look from the tower :D ) Same can be done with aircraft carrier - it (the WHOLE thing) needs to sink or rise the distance of the elevator travel. If done properly, it could be half-beleivable. Go ahead, try it!Yeah right ;) ,Misho

[arno 1]

Hi Misho,Very interesting trick :).About the animation tags. Yes, with CAT I am tweaking the ASM code. But the problem with the platforms is that they are defined in a special section of the RIFF format (the PLAT section). In this section it seems impossible to add conditions and things like that. So at the moment I don't think you can condition the animation of your platform that way.

[Team_P3DSpacePort 6]

Hi Arno,Thanks for the insight. I was going to check first with you and see if you had a chance to look into this before I resort to trickery ;) I was actually looking seriously into it last night and I think it will work out nicely for what I want to do.Misho