flying.toaster wrote: > Hi there, > > I am fairly new to flightgear and there are two subjects I would like to get > involved into. > > I am a 3D modeller for Strike Fighters : Project 1 (check out > http://www.column5.us, there is a F/A-18 model I made) using blender. > I am willing to build many models for FlightGear but I can see two issues : > * Blender does not allow to change easily the transforms in the scenegraph > (i.e. hard to orient axis) > * Using the XML configuration file to adjust animation can be pretty clumsy > requiring a long trial & error process. >
Welcome! I feel your pain about animations, but there are some tricks to make it easier. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by changing transforms in the sceengraph, that sounds like the definition of an animation to me. As for the axis, I use the two point form of the axis element and let PLIB figure out the transform matrix from that. I'm still looking for a way to tell blender to constrain rotation to a line that I supply, but I am sure that will present itself. The trial and error process can be shortened though. I am working on a tutorial to help with gear animations which can be found here: http://jrbabcock.home.comcast.net/flightgear/gear-tutorial/gear-tutorial.html It should be complete soon. There are other tricks, and hopefully we will be able to write more tutorials to demonstrate them. Periodically they get described on the devel list. Clearly though, an app that would allow one to play with animations in real time and output xml code would be extremely useful. I have also often wished for an app that can quickly load an aircraft model and let me look at it through PLIB's eyes and run through the animations by hand manipulating the property tree. FGFS just takes too long, and though PPE can let me take a look, I can't get it to compile and it doesn't know about animations :( I'm not much of a coder, but if someone wants to take this on, I would love to help with testing or whatever else I can do. Anyway, as a fellow aircraft designer, glad to have you here! Josh ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
