posted 05-15- 08:39 PM               

If it still doesn't work then it is probably because the gear piston etc etc (the parents and grandparent of the wheel) have some rotation applyed to them (a bug in OPS that I can't figure out) so you can sort this out by rotating the vertices of the gear pistons etc so that they don't need any rotation applied to line up.

posted 05-16- 09:46 AM               

Open the plane in OPS. Open the P51D in a second instance of OPS. Copy the upper left gear strut of the P51D. It will "drag" the lower strut and wheel with it. Paste this into the left wing of the Ki. Check to see that it brought the DOF info with it (it should have, but if not, just recreate the MUSTANG DOFs EXACTLY in the Ki. Now delete (yes, DELETE) the left gear from the Tony. You'll have to rename the imported gear parts, because they are probably called "leftstrut1" and "leftpiston1" and you want them to be "leftstrut" and "leftpiston."

Now, using the PART and DOF movement tools, CAREFULLY, using ONLY the left-right-up-down tool, NOT the rotate tool EVER, position the Mustang gear strut where the Ki gear is supposed to be. Make sure the DOFs are PURE "one-dimensional," i.e. the wheel DOF axis is 1,0,0 or -1,0,0 and the retract DOF is 0,1,0 or 0,-1,0.

Now you should have "perfect" Mustang gear attached to the Ki. Now use builder/extractor, and replace the .lods for the Mustang struts (and wheels if you wish) with your "real" Ki struts. Try to match the position as closely as possible. Now re-Build the file and re-open it in OPS. Probably, the struts are not quite in the right position any more. Again, use the Part and Dof move tool (ONLY the vertical/horizontal mover, NOT the rotater) and move ONLY the struts, NOT the wheels, to their proper positions again. Check DOF alignment again.

I used the Mustang here because it's gear is all perfect right angles, no complex angles to work with. The Ki is close to perfect right angles as well. You want it to work and be aligned at 90 degrees to start with. Then, if you want to sweep the gear forward 5 degrees or have it extend less than 90 or whatever, do it with the DOFs rather than the actual alignment of the part.

OR, you might get lucky by just aligning the DOF in OPS, but don't hold your breath. The main thing to check is that the DOF is perfectly aligned with the x-axis, and goes EXACTLY through the center of the wheel. But what you CAN'T check is that the wheel itself is perfectly aligned fore and aft (which was the problem with the Corsair). If you've EVER moved the wheel itself using the move tool in OPS, you've probably hosed its alignment, particularly if you rotated it in any axis. Using an existing "stock" plane's gear (NOT something weird and angled like the 190 or 109, but something nice and straight like the Zero or P-51) as the start-over point is probably quicker in the long run IMO.

------------------
--jedi--