Re: Some New Group Knowledge

[woodside]

earlier stuff snipped for brevity

However, Attaching the arms to the rudder worked fine. Then the axis of
rotation worked exactly as I expected.
All in good fun. (Jeez, did it take this long for me to learn FSFS??) (Yes,
it did, but that was long ago, and I was very young then.)
-- Dennis S, FSEngEd@aol.com

Are you going to run control wires to the arms? That's the bit I'm stuck on
right now..

bones

[flattop]

snipped for brevity

Hello, Dave,
You sure got that right. I've learned that Grouping can be downright deadly

for animation. Here's what occurred: I have a rudder and added its control arms

on either side. I could make everyting one element either by Grouping or by
Attaching the arms to the rudder. (And I needed one or the other to get the
arms moving in unison with the rudder.)
I tried Grouping because it offered me separate default colors. But I found
the Grouped rudder impossible in trying to align its axis of rotation. In
particular, FS2002 did NOT portray the axis shown graphically by Hierarchy
Pivot techniques. I have no idea why.
However, Attaching the arms to the rudder worked fine. Then the axis of
rotation worked exactly as I expected.
All in good fun. (Jeez, did it take this long for me to learn FSFS??) (Yes,
it did, but that was long ago, and I was very young then.)
-- Dennis S, FSEngEd@aol.com

Dennis,

Just ask bones (woodside) about grouping for animation, he's already
experienced your pain. Have you tried linking? Linking will allow your parts
to be independent for self-animation and materials, yet still be animated with
the "parent" part. Using this method allows for the creation of fairly complex
overall animation (for example, the steering linkage in a car), and still lets
you manipulate individual parts. By the way, linking is not the same as
attaching one piece of geometry to another, which is done through the modify
palette, or attaching a part to a group, which is done through the grouping
pulldown menu. If the above text serves only to add to your confusion and
dismay, you could "chunk out" your rudder parts as another gmax file and ship
it to me. I'd be happy to demonstrate, although it might take a few days for
me to get to it. At least it might give you a good visual reference for future
creations.

Don't feel like the "Lone Ranger", we were all young once... The part that
scares me the most is that I feel older than I am, at least physically. As for
my mental state, I think I'm regressing.

Regards,
Dave

[enged]

earlier stuff snipped for brevity

However, Attaching the arms to the rudder worked fine. Then the axis of
rotation worked exactly as I expected.
All in good fun. (Jeez, did it take this long for me to learn FSFS??) (Yes,
it did, but that was long ago, and I was very young then.)
-- Dennis S, FSEngEd@aol.com

Are you going to run control wires to the arms? That's the bit I'm stuck on
right now..

bones

Hello, bones,
I've considered control wires but I would still have to learn how to animate
their motion, both fore/aft and in an arc as well. I suspect there's a way to
do this, but I sure don't know it yet.
Dave's comments below are extremely helpful. I must try Linking for
something, just to learn how to use it. I suspect Linking will give me the
Bleriot's working front suspension, though there I have the challenge of
deciding whether I can model both its jounce/rebound and castor action.
Think of it this way: This may be the last FS model I ever build.... Sort of
my Winchester House...
Regards. -- Dennis

[enged]

snipped for brevity

Don't feel like the "Lone Ranger", we were all young once... The part that
scares me the most is that I feel older than I am, at least physically. As for

my mental state, I think I'm regressing.

Regards,
Dave

Hello, Dave,
I look at it this way: I'm a 17-year-old kid in a (slightly rumpled)
59-year-old man suit. Thanks for the Linking information. -- Dennis

[flattop]

snipped because I'm feeling sassy

Hey guys,

A couple of other things to ponder. Both 3DS Max and Gmax have a feature
called "bones" (not to be confused with bones the designer). I found this
feature invaluable when animating in 3DS Max, especially when dealing with
linkage-type animation. The big issue with "bones" is, whether or not it is
supported by the FS model. I suspect it might not be, but have yet to test
this theory. One feature that I'm 99.9% sure is not supported by the FS model
is any type of scaling in animation. This will produce an error for each
guilty part on export. My guess is that there are even more features available
in Gmax that aren't supported by FS, but have yet to come across them in my own
work. I find that the more simple you keep things in terms of the mechanics of
your animation, the better off you'll be. Thats not to say that you can't have
complex animation, just be careful how you actually "setup" the animation in
Gmax. If all features available in Gmax worked in the FS model, the complexity
of animation would likely have no upper limit. But alas, we live in an
imperfect world, governed by the powers of Microsoft (AKA - the "evil empire").
Oh s#*t guys, I think Dave's whipping out his trusty soap box again... Nah,
I'll spare you another one of my tirades.

If I can't manage to find the time, I'll try to put something together to
illustrate some animation concepts. Maybe some type of simplified aircraft
model with animation. If I can find the time... As mentioned in a previous
post to Dennis, if you guys come across a particularly perplexing problem with
animating parts, select the offending parts and do a "save selected as", and
ship the created Gmax part file to me. This will take less time and likely
serve you better than my mindless ramblings posted here. Email addy is below
if you're interested.

Keep on pluggin' boys, you'll get it hammered out sooner or later.

Dave

[flattop]

Email addy is below if you're interested.

Oops. Forgot the email address. It's "daveharbold@hfdd.com". Just put
something in the subject line regarding Gmax so I can weed it out of my
business mail.

Dave

[woodside]

Dave's comments below are extremely helpful. I must try Linking for
something, just to learn how to use it. I suspect Linking will give me the
Bleriot's working front suspension, though there I have the challenge of
deciding whether I can model both its jounce/rebound and castor action.
Think of it this way: This may be the last FS model I ever build.... Sort of

my Winchester House...
Regards. -- Dennis

Yes, I'll be looking at linking too now.

Compression and castor should not be too difficult should it? The pivot is
going to be around the vertical axis (easy enough) but that axis will have a
vertical movement too.

bones

[woodside]

snipped for brevity

Don't feel like the "Lone Ranger", we were all young once... The part that
scares me the most is that I feel older than I am, at least physically. As for

my mental state, I think I'm regressing.

Regards,
Dave

Hello, Dave,
I look at it this way: I'm a 17-year-old kid in a (slightly rumpled)
59-year-old man suit. Thanks for the Linking information. -- Dennis

You lucky man! How do you get just the rumpled look? I passed that stage years
ago... <g>

bones

[woodside]

snipped because I'm feeling sassy

Hey guys,

A couple of other things to ponder. Both 3DS Max and Gmax have a feature
called "bones" (not to be confused with bones the designer). I found this
feature invaluable when animating in 3DS Max, especially when dealing with
linkage-type animation. The big issue with "bones" is, whether or not it is
supported by the FS model. I suspect it might not be, but have yet to test
this theory. One feature that I'm 99.9% sure is not supported by the FS model
is any type of scaling in animation. This will produce an error for each
guilty part on export. My guess is that there are even more features available

in Gmax that aren't supported by FS, but have yet to come across them in my own

work. I find that the more simple you keep things in terms of the mechanics of

your animation, the better off you'll be. Thats not to say that you can't have

complex animation, just be careful how you actually "setup" the animation in
Gmax. If all features available in Gmax worked in the FS model, the complexity

of animation would likely have no upper limit. But alas, we live in an
imperfect world, governed by the powers of Microsoft (AKA - the "evil empire").

Oh s#*t guys, I think Dave's whipping out his trusty soap box again... Nah,
I'll spare you another one of my tirades.

If I can't manage to find the time, I'll try to put something together to
illustrate some animation concepts. Maybe some type of simplified aircraft
model with animation. If I can find the time... As mentioned in a previous
post to Dennis, if you guys come across a particularly perplexing problem with
animating parts, select the offending parts and do a "save selected as", and
ship the created Gmax part file to me. This will take less time and likely
serve you better than my mindless ramblings posted here. Email addy is below
if you're interested.

Keep on pluggin' boys, you'll get it hammered out sooner or later.

Dave

If I sat down and looked at it a bit more calmly everything should really drop
into place. For control wires you are basically looking at a wire that moves
along its longitudinal axis. OK, I know the end is attached to a control horn
sticking out a couple of inches from the elevator and that will be a circular
motion - but most elevator have around 45 degrees of travel at the most. It's
basically a crank action...

Where's those tutorials..... and my glasses..

bones

[enged]

snipped because I'm feeling sassy

Hey guys,

A couple of other things to ponder. Both 3DS Max and Gmax have a feature
called "bones" (not to be confused with bones the designer). I found this
feature invaluable when animating in 3DS Max, especially when dealing with
linkage-type animation. The big issue with "bones" is, whether or not it is
supported by the FS model. I suspect it might not be, but have yet to test
this theory. One feature that I'm 99.9% sure is not supported by the FS model
is any type of scaling in animation. This will produce an error for each
guilty part on export. My guess is that there are even more features available

in Gmax that aren't supported by FS, but have yet to come across them in my own

work. I find that the more simple you keep things in terms of the mechanics of

your animation, the better off you'll be. Thats not to say that you can't have

complex animation, just be careful how you actually "setup" the animation in
Gmax. If all features available in Gmax worked in the FS model, the complexity

of animation would likely have no upper limit. But alas, we live in an
imperfect world, governed by the powers of Microsoft (AKA - the "evil empire").

Oh s#*t guys, I think Dave's whipping out his trusty soap box again... Nah,
I'll spare you another one of my tirades.

If I can't manage to find the time, I'll try to put something together to
illustrate some animation concepts. Maybe some type of simplified aircraft
model with animation. If I can find the time... As mentioned in a previous
post to Dennis, if you guys come across a particularly perplexing problem with
animating parts, select the offending parts and do a "save selected as", and
ship the created Gmax part file to me. This will take less time and likely
serve you better than my mindless ramblings posted here. Email addy is below
if you're interested.

Keep on pluggin' boys, you'll get it hammered out sooner or later.

Dave

Hello, Dave,
I enjoy your tirades. Please keep 'em coming.
I also appreciate the offer of sending stuff along, but believe the learning
curve is a personal trip. I recall that FSFS took me a couple years before I
stopped chasing bleedthrough haphazardly at 2 a.m. I've been fooling with GMax
only since late January, and never at 2.m., so I shouldn't complain.
I'll give Bones a try. (One personal hangup: I've done only two GMax
tutorials, the mace and the p38. The other ones looked too ... how to say this
politely... too unlike a 59-year-older. Sort of like learning the guitar by
playing only heavy metal.)
Maybe I should just remember that I'm really 17-going-on-59 and get on with
the program.
All in good fun. -- Dennis S, FSEngEd@aol.com