I need some help in animating the nose wheels on the emb120. Which part do I rotate(animate) for steering? the wheel axle or the wheels, or another part? And is this done in less than 30 frames? I am confused about the 30 frames for gear retraction and all the other parts and the required "fewer " frames.thanks.tony

G'day Tony,You need to set up a heirachal structure for the nose gear so that you can do compound animations. The structure should look similar to the below, depending on just exactly what parts you have in your nose gear.GEAR_NOSE....upper shock strut cyl (outer) ....drag brace....shock strut door (fixed to gear)....GEAR_STEERING........lower shock strut cyl (inner)........GEAR_SUSPENSION...........axle...........wheelleft...........wheelrightGEAR_DOORS_NOSE ....doorleft (hydraulically sequenced)....doorright (hydraulic sequenced)Note: The nose gear doors are NOT part of the nose gear heirachy, but a separate entity directly attached to the body. To animate the gear ;-FIRSTLY MAKE SURE THAT ALL AXES ARE CORRECT ORIENTATION AND POSTION.1. spin wheelright 360 degrees (frames 0 - 31)2. spin wheelleft 360 degrees (frames 0 - 31)3. animate suspension (vertical axis frame 0 down, frame 1 up)4. animate gear_steering - frame 0 full left (about 60 degrees) - frame 15 zero dgrees and frame 31 full right. Note this is only visual. The amount of turn actually applied is set in the aircraft.whl file.This aircraft has sequenced nose gear doors so I would suggest the following (it's only a suggestion :-) ).frames 0 - 5 nose doors from closed to openframes 6 - 25 gear from down to upframes 26 - 31 nose doors from open to closed.animate doors.open keyframe editorselect doorleftframe 0 with door closed - recordset frame to 5 and position door to open - recordset frame to 25 and with door still open - recordset frame to 31 and position door to closed - recordOK now do the same for doorright Animate gear.open keyframe editorSelect GEAR_NOSEframe 0 with gear down - recordset frame 6 with gear still down - recordset frame 25 with gear positioned up - recordset frame 31 with gear still up - record.That's it, all finished. If you now run animations you will see the doors open, gear retract with the wheel spinning and turning from left to right as it does so, and doors close.Sorry for the long winded reply but hopes it helps you sort out your animations.Cheers, Roger

thanks, Roger. This is so detailed that I will place it in my "design" notes.tony

G'day Tony,On re-reading my post I just realised I have a naming problem.GEAR_DOORS_NOSE is wrong. It should be geardoors_nose. Fly! II naming convention for the gear doors is < geard* >It might work, I'm not sure as Jean states that the naming conventions are for the Fly! II editor to automatically apply transparency and environment mapping to the parts. This can be done manually, so maybe naming conventions aren't compulsory??NOTE: I ONLY USED UPPER CASE IN PART NAMES TO DENOTE PARENT PARTS ( for you ). ALL CHILD PARTS ARE IN LOWER CASE.THIS IS NOT NECESSARY AND YOU SHOULD USE LOWER CASE FOR ALL PART NAMES IN YOUR 3D PROGRAM - keep in mind that Fly! II is case sensitive to part names. (that's why I always use lower case all the time.)If you have any more questions just post.Cheers,Roger