posted 02-28- 09:57 AM               

Today I worked on the seconed gear pistons for the I16 gear. After 2 hours of struggle with the dofs and rotation and positioning it looked good in SDOE - all was good and I got a big big smile on my face. Then I go back to OPS to fix some translational dofs for the second pistons and huh all is messed up !

this is how my wheel dof´s look now

I tried to fix this but after rotating the dof in the right position and reload, it allways snaps back into the odd position. That seems to happen with all dofs (on child objects) - When I rotate them they snap back into the old position. I tried the align and center tools for dof´s - nothing worked.

posted 02-28- 10:16 AM               

First, save a copy of the I16.sm file, in case this doesn't work for some reason.

Then, delete one main strut (the "parent" strut with the retraction DOF).

Now, use Extractor or Max or whatever to get the .lods of the Typhoon or Mustang. IMPORT the Typhoon "parent" strut into your plane in OPS. It SHOULD bring the lower strut and tire with it, but if not, import those as well. The DOFs for all these parts will be PERFECTLY aligned, since they are from the original shipped aircraft. They also retract at a 90-degree angle, which is what you want for the Rata I believe.

Now, you will probably have to move the strut around. Only move the parent strut. The other parts will be dragged along. Then, if you have to, move the DOF itself, but ONLY using the x- and y- axis moving tool. Do NOT rotate the DOF in any axis. Just make sure it centered on the end of the parent strut. Do not do anything to the wheel DOF, unless you need to move it to the center of the tire. (The wheel DOF, believe it or not, will become your worst nightmare if you screw it up, so I wouldn't even touch it).

Now, try it in the game. It will look really funny, but you should have a tire that rotates smoothly, and a strut that retracts properly. If not, you may have to move a DOF around (but DON'T rotate it).

Once that works, open up the new strut in your 3D program, and shorten or lengthen it to the correct size for your plane and save the new .sm file.

Now, in OPS, you may have to move the strut again, since it's now shorter. Moving is OK, but you don't want to rotate it. Same for the DOFs. You may have to reposition them, but don't rotate em.

Now do the other strut. Voila! I spent about FOUR days trying to align my gear DOFs. It took me two HOURS to just import and modify the P-51 gear. Take your pick

posted 02-28- 10:26 AM               

Lets hope Bryan can put out a new version of OPS soon. It seems everone is having trouble with DOFs.

posted 02-28- 11:12 AM               

razor747@accessatc.net

------------------
Thanks,

James "Razor747" Smith

Check out the SDOE Flight Line! I am constantly adding new things. Click on image above to go to my site.

posted 02-28- 11:51 AM               

Jedi - there is one problem:

As you can see the I16 Gear Strut A goes not straight to the ground, it is rotated about 5-10 degrees forward. Strut B also. So I had to rotate the Strut´s to mach the gearhole somehow.

In 3ds this is simple I just rotate the strut 10 deg on one axis and then 90 deg on the other. In OPS it´s not so simple There I got this for my rotating DOF: X(-0.45), Y(-1.0), Z(-0.25) range 90 deg. I think this has something to do with vektors and math = things I dont understand (I try...).

So the only hope I got is Razer or someone with Creator (it should be easy there ?).

posted 02-28- 12:26 PM               

http://rcswww.urz.tu-dresden.de/~re723888/i16.zip 180 K

THIS IS NOT A BETA VERSION !!! I posted it to see (if someone tests it) if the rata works on other systems or if there more errors than the gear.

Installation:

just make a copy of your p51 folder in the media\aircraft\ folder and rename it to I16

extract the zip to "C:\Fighter Squadron" or whatever your SDOE folder is named

overwrite the existing p51 files

start a training mission for the I16 in sdoe

posted 02-28- 04:30 PM               

Call it a Alpha then.

posted 02-28- 05:30 PM               

Almost all (if not all) problems with DOF's in OPS are related to the parent/grandparent models being rotated beyond a as yet unknown limit. The best bet is to make the parts as close to the orientation you want to start with.

Also, one little funny I found with DOFs and OPS is that the very first DOF you work on seems to work as expected while subsequent ones do wierd things. This means you might have to do one DOF per OPS session.

posted 02-28- 11:06 PM               

The more I look at that gear, the more difficult the task appears You can still use the Mustang gear, but now it will need to rotate AFT a few degrees as well as rotating 90 degrees into the wing (which means 2 DOFs on the same part). The second strut will also need its own DOF. I would connect the second strut to the first. The first strut will rotate in 90 degrees and back 10 degrees, with the second strut rotating just enough to appear to be attached at the wing.

The second strut will be a lot of trial and error I'm afraid, but if you get the first one lined up at 90 degrees to start with, the rest will be do-able.

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--jedi--

posted 02-29- 04:11 AM               

I just used the reset xform button on the main gear strut and after that the wheel dof was fine again. I load an backup and noticed the Dof origins and the position of the part. Then I reloaded the "test-sm", moved the strut in the right position and typing in the old dof origins. The only thing is that the strut isn´t rotated anymore (I think I had to do this in 3ds before I position the strut in OPS) but the gear works right in SDOE. I only tested it on the left Gear and I´m not sure if it will work in the end. But there is hope to fix this !!!

posted 02-29- 09:01 AM               

The second DOF will be exactly PARALLEL with the Y-axis, and ALSO runs through the top of the strut, at exactly the same origin point as the first DOF. This one will go second, after, say, a 1-second delay. Since the DOFs will each be exactly aligned with a "normal" axis, you can use the aligning tools in OPS to get them perfect. Or, you can even do it manually, since both DOFs go through the same point, and the axes will look like 0,1,0 or 1,0,0 or 0,0,1. The only trick then is getting the DOF properties perfectly set up, and that's just a matter of testing.

If you have the Corsair, look at the canopy DOF to see how to "chain" two DOFs to the same object with a delay. SV's SE-5 Lewis gun uses the same principle.

If you want to send me the .sm file, I'd be glad to set up one side of the gear for you. I think I'm ALMOST an expert on the damn landing gear DOFs now

posted 02-29- 02:01 PM               

BTW - Unfortunatly my dog is ill and I had to take care for her (guess whats her name ) in the next days. This means I dont got so much time left for the I16. I think a first beta (without main panel) should be out next monday but as you know alot of things can still go wrong and weird.