FS2004 Scenery Animation

Back to FS2004 SDK Overview

Microsoft

Flight Simulator 2004:

A Century of Flight

Software Development Kit

Discreet, 3ds max, and gmax are trademarks of Discreet Logic Inc./Autodesk, Inc., in the

U.S.A. and/or other countries.

Scenery Animation in

Flight Simulator 2004

November 2003

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 SDK Scenery Animation

Contents

November 2003.......................................................................................................1

Contents..................................................................................................................2

Introduction.............................................................................................................3

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 SDK Scenery Animation

Introduction

The Scenery Animation SDK explains how to add scenery animation that you’ve created

in 3ds max or gmax™ to Microsoft

Flight Simulator 2004. The gmax gamepack SDK

includes the following animation-specific files:

• Animation.doc (this file) (in \docs)

• AnimHouse.gmax (in \scenes)

• House.bmp (in \texture)

• House_lm.bmp (in \texture)

To use this SDK, you should be familiar with animation in gmax or 3ds max, plus general

concepts applicable to scenery objects in Flight Simulator 2004. For more information on

using gmax, makemdl, or imagetool see the information in the various Flight Simulator

2004 gmax SDKs.

Animation System Parameters

The animation system in Flight Simulator 2004 runs at 18 frames per second. So anything

animated will run only at that speed. Currently, 3ds max or gmax will export a total of

1024 frames of animation. This means that, at 18 frames per second, animation loops are

limited to approximately 57 seconds. Scenery animations can only loop in Flight

Simulator — there are no triggers to stop or start animation in the scenery system, so all

animations must loop. Otherwise, you will see a jump in the animation when it switches

from frame 1023 to frame 0.

Shortening the Animation Loop

If you want a loop of animation shorter than 57 seconds, make sure that the time slider in

gmax reflects the length of the animation loop (100 frames = 5.5 seconds, 500 frames =

27.7 seconds, etc.). For more information on setting time segments in gmax, see the gmax

help file.

Preparing your animated model for export

Animating Your Model

Animate your model just like you would animate anything else in 3ds max or gmax. You

can use translation and rotation animations. Make sure that the controllers on your

animated models are as follows:

Position: Bezier Position

Rotation: TCB Rotation or Linear Rotation

Scale: Bezier Scale

Note: We currently do not support any kind of skinned mesh animation (meaning no

vertex animation).

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 SDK Scenery Animation

In the example provided with this SDK, the model animated is the house from the gmax

Scenery Tutorial with a ball bouncing around it. (I included an attached sparking effect to

show that you can do animation and attach points simultaneously.) It has both

translational animation for movement and rotational animation. I have also included a

quick biped-type animation. This was created by linking all the segmented parts directly

to each other (with the body as the root node), and then animating them using the

Interactive IK mode. Because we do not support skinned meshes or bones, this is really

the only way to get IK animations into Flight Simulator. If you do not know how to use

Interactive IK, see the gmax help file.

Naming Your Model

Name your model “tick18_*” as shown below. Note: If the model name does not start

with “tick18_”, the animations will not be exported.

File Hierarchy

Where the animated piece of geometry sits in your file hierarchy is important. It will

determine when that object gets displayed. In AnimHouse.gmax, the animated ball with

attached effect is linked directly below the root node of the scene (the dummy named

AnimHouse). This is because I chose not to create LODs for that object. In this case, it

will always display, and will not switch out any LODs. However, if your animated object

is very high poly count, and you want to create LODs for it, link each of the LODs under

their respective dummy object. So link the tick18_100 under the AnimHouse_LOD_100

and the tick18_50 under the AnimHouse_LOD_050, etc. Notice that I linked the

character under the _LOD_100 node. I linked a lower poly version of the character under

the _LOD_50 node. The character will change to the lower poly model when Flightsim

switches to the 50 LOD and will disappear entirely when Flightsim switches to the 10

LOD.

Make sure you use the same animation on all of the LODs. (It’s best just to copy and

then rename and lower the poly count of the original animated 100 LOD). If you want

the animated object to disappear at a lower LOD level, just create a tick18_100 LOD and

link it to the AnimHouse_LOD_100 dummy. Then don’t create any other LODs for the

animated object. When it switches to the 050 LOD, the animated object will disappear.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 SDK Scenery Animation

Defining the Bounds of Your Animation

One last thing before you export: Makemdl creates a bounding box around an object that

tells the Flight Simulator camera system whether or not that object is in view. If you’ve

given an object any translational animation, it’s likely to be outside of its original

bounding box most of the time. This means that the Flight Simulator camera system may

stop seeing the object before it’s actually out of view. Simply put, it might make your

object disappear while you are looking at it. Therefore, you have to trick the system into

thinking the object’s bounding box is as big as the area that it covers during its animation

cycle.

To trick the system

1. Create a box on the ground (as shown below) that is slightly bigger than the area

which the object covers during its animation cycle.

2. Assign this box a material that has an opacity value of zero.

3. Link this box to the root node of the scene. In this case, the dummy called

“AnimHouse”.

When you export your model through makemdl (explained in the next section), makemdl

will remove the object’s geometry, but the object’s bounding box will remain.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 SDK Scenery Animation

Exporting

Now that you have an object animated to scale and a plane or box that defines the bounds

of that animation, you are ready to export.

To export

1. In gmax, click the File menu, and then select Export ….

2. In the Select File to Export dialog, navigate to the location where you want your

.MDL and .XML file to be exported. Press Save.

3. Edit the .XML file to reflect the exact location where you want the object to appear in

Flight Simulator. (If you do not know how to do this, look at the gmax Scenery

Tutorial SDK and read the section called Exporting the Model to Flight

Simulator. You will also need the BGLComp SDK and the MakeMDL SDK to

export gmax into Flight Simulator.)

4. Use BGLComp to compile the .BGL file.

5. Copy the .BGL file to your Flightsim add-on scenery folder. (C:\Program

Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\scenery).

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 SDK Scenery Animation

Viewing Your Animation

Now start Flight Simulator, go to the exact location of your newly placed model, and

watch your beautiful animation in motion!

New Animation in Flight Simulator 2004