BAE Hawk Mk. 127 - Animation Problem

[Dimebag]

I've recently been working on creating a 3d cockpit for a BAE Hawk Mk. 127 in 3ds max 8, for the Virtual Roulettes formation team. Here is my progress on the model:

I am still in the process of completing the model itself and the various components, but after becoming curious about hot to create working instruments, and after a bit of digging I discovered you need to use argument based animations. I have gone through the su-27 kabina file and found all of the argument numbers and parameters I need. I wanted to attempt an animation, in this case the throttle, however I am having trouble even setting it up in 3ds max.

 

I select the throttle, then move the pivot point in the hierarchy section to the appropriate location, then select the motion tab, create an argument based rotation, create my argument (104 for throttle movement), then select 'Y rotation : argbased float'. I attempt to make 3 keys for position, rotation, and scale, however I can only create keys for position and scale, the rotation key create button does nothing! I've dug around and can only find one other person who had a similar problem and fixed it by setting 'Euler XYZ to default, after he made argument based rotation default. I tried this, but to no avail.

 

What is interesting is, my throttle is made of several objects and buttons, which I have grouped to keep them together. When they are grouped, I can't even make a rotation key in euler xyz, however when I ungroup them, I can! But still not in arg based rotation! Go figure...

 

I'm pulling my hair out trying to work it out. I'm hoping someone else has come up against this problem, and if so has found a solution.

 

Thanks.

:helpsmilie:

[Emmer]

W0W!

Amazing.......... !!!!

[Pyroflash]

Good work, I recall having a similar issue with one of my max projects where I couldn't form a position key and I couldn't animate my model. I fixed it, but I can't remember how. Anyway, that was a long time ago.

 

Good luck on your project.

[Morkva_55]

You must define only two keys on the axis of rotation. In my case - Y.

Check the settings are correct.

3ds max settings:

 

Time Configuration

Frame Rate 100 FPS

Animation Start Time -100

Animation End Time 100

 

Animation

 

 

 

Rotation > Assign Controller > ArgBased Rotation > Add > set argument (3 for example), name Event can be replaced with yours (testing for example)

 

 

Mark the rotation axis and place the keys on the 0 and 100 on the timeline.

No need to make 3 keys for position, rotation, and scale! Only for rotation.

 

 

All done!

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2011 by Morkva_55

[Dimebag]

Thanks Morkva, I will try what you said.

[Dimebag]

Morkva_55, Thankyou!

 

I tried your procedure and it worked. The problem I had was, for the actual axis I selected, it was set to argument based float, and I changed it to beizer float as that was what you had in your picture and it allowed me to create the keys for rotation. Works fine now.

 

T

[Morkva_55]

Do not forget!

 

There is no designation of rotation direction in Lock On.

Because of that, keys should be set every 90° at least.

[Dimebag]

Do not forget!

 

There is no designation of rotation direction in Lock On.

Because of that, keys should be set every 90° at least.

 

Thanks, so does that mean if you are rotating 180° you need atleast 3 keys, 4 for 270°, 5 for 360°, or did I completely miss the point?

[combatace]

Well if you are using -100 to 100 as limits you will have digits displayed at every at interval of 10 frames. So if you want to rotate something 360 just take the cursor to extreme and rotate it 360(auto key turned on). Now just take the cursor to on time scale to alternate digits displayed on time line( 20,40,60,.....) and press rotation in create key and you are done. You don't need to calculates number of keys needed for rotation, atleast for lockon because there isn't anything you need to rotate more than 360.

[Morkva_55]

Not exactly. Rotation in the game occurs in the direction of the smallest angle in order to achieve the desired value.

For example, for animation ADI will need to set the following keys: [-180, -90, 0, 90, 180] on each axis of rotation, otherwise the ball will behave unpredictably.

 

Barometric altimeter will require an even greater number of keys for the step change in testimony... :music_whistling:

In the case of cockpit instruments animation auto keying is not an acceptable option. IMHO.

Due to the non-linear marking for many gauges, the correct position of keys can be set manually only.

Edited September 16, 2011 by Morkva_55
mistake correction